Regarding calories--what's too low?

[Worcestershire]

After basically a 2.5 year unplanned perma-bulk, I've recently decided to start cutting weight. I started keto (I know it's not popular here but bear with me) a week ago. Starting stats are somewhere around 5'5, 155, BF% around 30ish.

I was going to begin with 2000 a day and drop lower if necessary (was slowly gaining on untracked calories). However, for just about the first time ever, I'm just not that hungry. I've been eating til I'm full, which typically puts me somewhere between 1200 and 1600. I do always make sure I always hit 1600 with extra cals.

The scale this morning said 145lbs. I'm pretty sure it's broken, but I do think I have dropped a good deal of (water) weight. I'm most concerned about it dropping weight too fast and losing muscle/strength. I have a feeling my hunger will catch up to me at some point and make it a no-brainer to hit 2000 on a regular basis, but if it doesn't, is 1600 reasonable? 1800?

In terms of activity, I'm in college, probably walk around 2ish miles a day or so, and train Olympic weightlifting lifting 3-5 times a week for in 2-4 hour sessions (let's say 15 hours of Oly a week). I am a competitive weightlifter, so while getting leaner would be great, I'm also very focused on performance and maintaining my lifts. I'd like to be 63kg (138lbs) for a meet mid-October, and I need to be 63kg by December, or go up a weight class for nationals (if I do qualify, knock on wood).

If it does matter, I've been hitting PRs the past week despite being on lower cals and very few carbs. If I'm eating too little and am losing muscle, will I become noticeably weaker? If I continue to gain strength in the next month, does that by virtue mean that I'm eating enough?

This is really long, so I bolded the questions for the TLDRers out there.

[kimm4]

I would suggest setting your intake around 1750 calories. With your style of training and the hours you're putting in the gym, I wouldn't suggest staying low carb. You need that fuel for your training and to help with recovery.

As long as you're feeling good and you're recovering from your workouts, you'll be fine.

Good luck.

[Worcestershire]

I would suggest setting your intake around 1750 calories. With your style of training and the hours you're putting in the gym, I wouldn't suggest staying low carb. You need that fuel for your training and to help with recovery.

As long as you're feeling good and you're recovering from your workouts, you'll be fine.

Good luck.

1750 sounds solid, thanks. I know carbs = energy = good workouts, but it was recommended to me by a couple super-strong lifters at my gym, so I figured I'd give it a shot (especially because stress-eating carbs during late-nights while studying is my kryptonite). I don't think it'll be a long term thing, only for cutting, and only as long as I'm doing well on it. If it starts impacting my workouts I'm back on the carbwagon.

Much appreciated!