I am very interested in learning how to do calorie counting. But, how do you know where to start? Should I start at 1500 and go down or start at 1200 and go up? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

There are a lot of good websites that will help give you some suggestions based on your height and weight. For the most part, though, it's experimentation, just like in maintenance. You have to find that certain number of calories that will make you feel satisfied but still allow you to lose.

I do think it's better to start out on the high end of a loss level of calories and then work your way down a little at a time.

Good luck.

I'm not sure if I can post it here, but I got my recommended calories from caloriecount.com, however, I like the support here on 3FC better. Good luck.

I would think about 1600-1800 for your weight. I am 259 pounds and I eat 1800-1900 calories per day.

I agree with kkazz123. I would start high and then modify, if needed. Why? Because food is awesome. If you can eat more, you will be more satisfied and be able to easily get a wide range of healthy nutrition. Plus, if you do need to reduce calories as you approach your goal weight, you will have room to modify (if you start at 1200 calories - where will you go from there if you need to cut?)

When you are trying to determine the effectiveness of your calorie level, don't make snap decisions based on a single moment on the scale. There are so many things which can affect the scale - water weight, salty foods, period. Be sure to give things 2-3 weeks to shake out before making adjustments. In my mind, a true plateau is 4+ weeks without movement.

I always charted my weight in Excel and then looked at it over time. There might have been some up/down bobbles, but the line moved steadily downward. Weight loss isn't really linear, so it's important not to get hung up on a single weigh-in.

I also recommend caloriecount.com for finding out your calories. It recommended 1635 for me so I eat 1600 or as close to it as I can get.

If you have an iphone or ipod touch, there's a great calorie counting app called lose it which will give you a recommended calorie allowance based on your height/weight and slowly scale it down for you as you lose weight. You can adjust from there, but what they recommended for me seems to be working.

As others have mentioned, there are also a bunch of websites out there that will do essentially the same thing and give you a good starting point. It will take a little trial and error before you find what works for you, but once you start doing it, it's not as complicated as it sounds.

Good luck!

Whatever you do just dont use livestrong.com. It tells you way to many calories. I started at 1500. When my stomach started shrinking i went to 1300 and thats what im at now. Its very hard for me to eat 1500. I dunno why. Just cant do it. I do eat very healthy so those foods fill me up

I am surprised by the small calorie number. I read that at 150 pounds I should start at around 1500 to 1600 calories and experiment from there. I plan to eat 1600 for a week and weigh myself to see if it is working. I am guessing that once I stop losing I will start cutting calories? I definitely ate WAY more than 1600 calories before. Now that I am counting calories, I am seriously shocked by how much I ate. I would grab a bite here, eat a cookie (or two) there, etc... not even thinking about how many calories I was eating.

I really, really, really hope to post a weight loss one week from today (just started counting the calories today). I have also decided to measure my waist and track that. I was at 34.5 inches this morning. I am really interested to see if I lose inches as well as pounds.

I would go here - http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm , plug in your info, work it 100% a few weeks then tweak as necessary.

Good luck

Yes...onederchic...this is the site I used.

What do you think about the concept of zigzaggin? Do you eat a certain number of calories one day, another the next, etc... to sort of trick your body?

I have only been on this site a couple of days and only just started counting my calories today.

I don't really focus on zig zagging though I never do the same amount of calories a day but mine are too close to be calorie cycling I am sure. I see others here have success with it and I think that it could work. Just for me, I normally eat the same things day in and day out so my calorie amounts seem to remain around the same(though not exactly) from day to day.

Good luck with whatever you do choose

calorie count recommended 1,583 calories for me, i try to get to 1400-1500 which isnt too hard