Confused about deficits and exercise and "starvation mode"

Some backstory is necessary I think. I'll try to keep it short. October 2019, Male, 5'8, 17 years old, 300 lbs. Started dieting and exercising. Today, (Almost) 5'9, 18 years old ,187 lbs.

My methods of losing weight have changed drastically since the beginning. I started with a program called "The 6 Week 20lb Challenge". It's a program at this cross fit gym called "The Camp - Transformation Center". You follow their plan and do their workouts and you lose 20 lbs in 6 weeks. You have to pay 500 bucks up front, but they give you tons of supplements and you can come to their gym for free while you're on the challenge. The important thing I got from it was the meal plan. They gave you a list of proteins, carbs, and vegetables that you're allowed to eat on the plan, and you would eat 6 oz protein (4, for females), 3 oz of carbs (2 for females), and unlimited veggies. Every 2 and a half hours after a meal you'd drink a protein shake. This way you don't get hungry between meals. This plan worked for me insanely well. I lost around 85 lbs doing it until I didn't make the deadline of a challenge.

From that point on, around 215 lbs, I started doing things my own way. Standard CICO + regular exercise. However, while at The Camp they did a full body scan of me which told me my BMR. I misinterpreted what a BMR was and thought that to create a caloric deficit, I had to start eating less than that number of calories per day. Fast forward about 6 months and here I am at 187 lbs having stuck to 1500 a day. I seem to have reached a plateau, so I decided to do some research. What I'm seeing is that I think I've put myself into "starvation mode". Every BMR calculator I can find says I should be eating around 2600 calories for maintenance and 2000-2200 for weight loss.

I'm a bit confused on whether I should start eating more or not. I'm leaning towards yes. Also should I eat EVEN more on days that I work out? Like 2k on rest days and 2.2k on workout days?

TLDR: Male, 18, 5'8. Lost a ton of weight, started tracking CICO but with too low of a limit, lost more weight, but now I'm probably in starvation mode, should I eat more per day?

submitted by /u/tobyk8
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