Maintenance Confusion - How many calories?

So I'm only 0.7 lbs from my goal of 125 and have decided to start maintaining.  (Yay, I get to eat a little more!)  Anyhow, I've reset my profile to maintenance, but it says I should be eating 1200 cals to maintain.  How can that be?  I've been eating about around 1400 (with mild, inadvertant zig-zagging) since Feb and losing.  1200 would certainly cause me to lose even more. 

My stats:

32 y.o.

5'4"

Wt: 125.7

Goal: 125

Activity Level: Sedentary, but I add my 1x/week swimming and daily dog walking on top of that (activities & extra calories to eat)

    I doubt that you are sedentary. Sedentary implies that you lie in bed all day. I bet you do more than that. With that being said, I would move your goal up to lightly active. You can still add your activities to that, like walking the dog and swimming. Another thing that goes along with maintenance, is exercise. Maybe you could swim a few more times a week? Hope I have helped and eating 1200 calories to maintain would be torture!

If you were losing weight on 1400, logically you must have been burning 1900 or so each day....  Having entered your stats into the calculator I use with a 'light' level of activity (I agree that 'sedentary' is a synonym for 'bedridden') I get a value of 1881 for maintenance.  Which would all fit....

Thanks for the replies. 

1800ish is more in line with what I expected.  However, I am pretty sedentary.  I teach about 20 hrs a week and do the minimum amount of housework necessary to stay clean and neat, walk the dog daily and swim about once a week, oh, and skydive on the weekends, but really not much else.  I spend lots of time on the couch reading - the internet, books, magazines.  I love to read which means I sit a lot.

I'll try 1800 cals for a couple of weeks and see what happens.  Thanks again for your help.

Teaching usually means you're on your feet.  Walking the dog takes, what, half an hour?  Swimming, sky-diving, housework, making meals... That all take you well over the threshold for sedentary.  If literally all you did was sit behind a desk, read books and surf the net all day it would be a different picture.

Don't panic if you gain a little when you increase to 1800. It takes a short amount of time for your body to adjust to more food.  Take a view over 2 - 3 weeks and you may even find you lose a little.

I'm right there with you! I'm finally averaging right around 125 so I decided to switch to maintenance mode today. It told me, too, that I would need 1200 to maintain which I know is crazy! So I'm just going to try and move my calories up to somewhere between 1600-1800 and see how that goes. It's funny, though, I feel like I've been in 'weight loss mode' for so long I'm not sure how to maintain! Good luck on your maintenance!!!

Original Post by gi-jane:

Teaching usually means you're on your feet.  Walking the dog takes, what, half an hour?  Swimming, sky-diving, housework, making meals... That all take you well over the threshold for sedentary.  If literally all you did was sit behind a desk, read books and surf the net all day it would be a different picture.

Don't panic if you gain a little when you increase to 1800. It takes a short amount of time for your body to adjust to more food.  Take a view over 2 - 3 weeks and you may even find you lose a little.

 Thanks Gi-Jane,

I teach English to adults.  It's not as demanding as teaching children.  Thanks again.