Calories and Working Out Advice

I agree with Kim and think we now have vanity sizing and vanity exercise burning.  When I was in high school, I weighed 110 pounds and wore a size 12.  My mother weighed 142 and wore size 16.  Now I am 136 and wear size 4.  30 minutes of cardio used to burn about 100 calories back then.  A hour of strength training 200 tops. 

Thanks everyone for the advice.  I realize that the estimated calories are probably off on MFP and I don't use what the gym equipment says because the majority of my session is strength training anyway.  I will probably leave it for a week and reassess.  If necessary, I will add in 100 calories and leave it for a week again to see if there was any improvement.  I'm definitely not wanting to add in more calories as I am comfortable in my range right now, but will if necessary.  :)

How does a nutritionist not talk calories? That is just so odd to me!

For my DH and I, we were told to max out at 600 a day at our 1 month visits and even if I work out (today I burned 454 calories on the elliptical) I don't add to that max of 600. I did clarify at my 4 week check that if I am working out in excess of my calories, I can add some. So if I worked out 700 calories worth of exercise, I could add 100 calories of PROTEIN, nothing else, to my daily intake. I had been missing that key item before. Now truth be told, I am not exceeding that, the most I have done is 500 something, that still keeps me under 600 a day.

HTH!

Also keep in mind many of us have totally screwed up metabolisms from years of dieting. My surgeon's office never gave me a calorie count, either. It was totally about volume and frequency the first year. After I got to goal, I figured out how many calories worked for me. We are all so different. And I never eat back my exercise calories. Like Kim said, the overwhelming majority of us are not elite athletes and not burning that much.

I would also try changing things up a bit.  Perhaps switch the type of cardio you are doing...treadmill to rowing or elliptical and maybe increase the cardio time to 45 minutes or an hour.  Since you are doing significant amounts of strength training, I might look into a body-fat testing, either through hydrostatic - underwater weighing or the BOD POD.  I'm sure you are gaining muscle and losing fat it doesn't always show on he scale.  Doing this monthly or quarterly might help put things in prospective.  Good luck!