Calorie deficit virgin- help!

[kathjee]

I'm not a big eater/snacker and never sustainably counted calories because I'm so busy and 4 mouths to feed and just don't want that to be my life. I work out 4 times a week, strength training and a bit of cardio. I have low thyroid which is a pain as I struggle to lose weight whatever I do. But I think I'm sensitive to carbs so decided to eat bare minimum.

I want to lose 10lbs and hopefully push that to 1 stone if I make it to that. I calculated my TDEE and my maintenance cals were 2000 so that means to lose weight I need to eat less? Like 1500? According to my Apple Watch I lose 550 cals a day- on average. So then do I need to increase my cals?

The usual advice is to aim for 500 cals less than your TDEE which would be a weekly deficit of 3500 calories, which should equate to a weight loss of roughly a pound.

When you calculate your TDEE, most people overestimate how active they are, and devices like Apple watches are not great at accurately estimating how many calories you expend extra each day. So, you could try 1500 for a week and see how you go, and then consider if you need to increase or decrease it. Don't increase you calories by what the watch says, you don't need to.

So this pic shows 550 active cals but nearly 2000 daily cals which I know means resting cals etc. do I go off the 550?
Il take it with a pinch of salt. I have done a good old workout today though.

So if I lessen my cals to 1500 and say iv burnt 400 cals, that's 1100 iv eaten in the day. So theoretically I should lose weight if I keep this up?

I know I sound super dumb lol, but iv never truly watched my cals. I usually eat between 1800-2000cals daily.

Today iv eaten 1200, and my watch is saying 550 cals= 650 , isn't that really low, even if the watch is over-egging it

I would ignore the watch completely. The values are useful for a daily comparison, but the actual values are likely to be very inaccurate.

When you calculated your TDEE what level of activity did you use? What's your current weight, and what's your height?

If you are eating 1200 calories, that's what you've eaten! You might have also used more energy by exercising, which means you've increased your calorie deficit as your energy needs were higher that day than your typical TDEE.

My weight is 148lbs, height 165cm and I chose moderate exercise 4 times a week. I do strength training and try and increase my weights every time, I get around 8k steps and that's without an actual walk, if I go for a walk it's more like 12k steps

So, you could be a little over estimating the activity level. But, for now you could go with the 2000 as your TDEE and then aim for eating 1500 calories. Don't add calories to compensate for what your watch says you've used. Your TDEE includes your moderate exercise levels.

If you aren't losing weight or losing very little weight after a few weeks on 1500 cals then you can reassess, and consider lowering your calories a little.