I am 259 pounds and I eat 1800 calories...I generally 1-2 pounds per week...which I think is a nice stable way to go.

I'm currently at 215lbs and I keep my calories between 1400-1600 a day during the week and a max of 2000 per day on the weekends. It's seems a little wonky, but I eat out more on the weekends because I'm busy around town, so I up my allowed calories to work for my schedule. I tend to lose 1.5-2lbs per week.

Welcome to the CC Club! I'm another person who uses the livestrong website. I have all my regular foods and recipes entered there so it's easy to tally up the day's calories. There are other sites that work about the same but this was the one I personally found friendliest to use (on my slow dial=up connection).

And you've already gotten plenty of good advice about upping your calories.

I started out on 1200 calories a day, did that for 3 months, and then decided to up my weekend calories to 1500 day. I did that all the way to goal, (4 days 1200/cal 3 days 1500/cal), never had a plateau, never starved and lost 180 pounds in 17 months. I now eat around 1900 calories a day and in finding my sweet spot I lost another 15 pounds once I reached my orginal goal. I'm pretty steady at 140 now. Everyone is different, but as long as I ate loads of vegetables and lots of lean meat, (and healthy fats and fruit) I NEVER got hungry on 1200 calories/day. It's when I would try to eat junk food in place of the good stuff did I have problems with hunger.

Just thought I would add my $.02 for all the naysayers.

If you have a iPhone then there is a free App called Lose it! which is wonderful! You put in your height,weight and how many pounds you want to lose. It will tell you how many calories you can eat, you can put everything you eat in the log and it will tell you how many calories it has (Even fast food). I can't say enough about this app...its wonderful! Another member on here told me about it and I have been counting calories ever since! :)

I have a droid boo!!

You are AMAZING!!!!

Love my 2 apps- Loseit and Nutrition Menu. The key is finding a process where jouranling your food is easy and habitual.

I have a Droid too! But I got an iPod touch which I use the app on!

I use fitday.com and just access it through my droid when I'm out, but lots of people here use sparkpeople.com and droid has an app for that! I find that I use my laptop for calorie-logging a lot more than I use my phone, so it doesn't really matter.

I know lots of people pick 1200 b/c they've heard (here or elsewhere) that's the lowest they should go, and they want to go low and get quick results. I think what's most important is to find a calorie level that you can live with for a long time -- this is a marathon, not a sprint! I know I would go crazy on 1200 -- I'm losing at 1600-1700 with lots of exercise.

Someone on here has in her signature: "I'd wish you good luck but luck has nothing to do with it." So I'll give you a "You go, girl!" instead. ;)

With my Lose It! App I currently get 1,675 calories and it modifies it when I lose weight. I saw an awesome quote the other day and keep it in my head lol "Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels".......Love it!