<human>: Provide a brief overview of the text.

I'm a 5'4" woman, 33 years old and I weigh 239 pounds. My goal weight is 135. I have a sedentary job and have not incorporated regular exercise into my routine yet. When I calculate my TDEE using this site ( it says that it's 2042 calories per day.

That website says I should reduce my calories by no more than 25% below my TDEE, but in order to lose 2 lbs per week (if 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat) I should actually reduce it by 1000 calories per day, which is nearly 50%. But that makes my daily calorie goal 1042, which is lower than what most people recommend for women no matter what their weight loss goals are. Isn't one of the few benefits of being as overweight as I am that I can eat *more* calories and still lose weight?

I also tried the calorie calculator recommended in this subreddit's FAQ ( but it says that I should only reduce my calories to 220 below my BMR (from 2132 to 1912) to lose weight. It says the "extreme fat loss" option is not available to me, though it says that's for people with a BMI of 30 or above and my BMI is 40. How is a deficit of 220 calories per day enough to lose 1-2 pounds per week?

Am I really supposed to be eating ~1900 calories a day to lose 1-2 pounds a week? Is the whole "3500 calories = 1 pound" thing not true? I read through the FAQ here and don't see a direct answer to this.

For whatever it's worth, for the past 6.5 weeks I've been losing 1-2 pounds a week by eating 1600 calories per day on average so maybe this actually IS true... but how?

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<bot>: Two separate websites recommended on this forum say I should only cut a few hundred calories per day to lose 1-2 lbs a week. I am over 100 pounds overweight so I find this hard to believe. Is it true?