Just wondering....I started calorie counting about a month ago and I'm still tweaking my plan, but I was wondering if anyone goes by the calculator from freedieting.com and if so, was it accurate or did you have to do more/less than it said? It tells me 1570 for normal fat loss and 1232 for extreme loss, so I' decided to go in between and try 1400 a day.

I am 5'7" and 153 pounds....trying to get to 145. I seem to keep gaining/losing the same 2-3 pounds repeatedly

No site, calculator, person, etc will ever give you the amount needed for your body to lose weight in a healthy manner (or gain or maintain, etc). Use them as a starting ground only. Tweak after a few weeks of working it 100% honestly and accurately. Losing weight is all about trial and error when it comes to calories needed for your own body.

+1 on what Onederchic posted.

It says 1600 for extreme fat loss and 1900 for fat loss for me, exercising 3 times a week. I don't lose on that much, so I think it may be over estimating. Actually, I think those amounts will probably be more like maintenance for me.

With your other question in the other thread, I don't think you'll gain on 1500cals, have you stuck to that amount for more than a day? It could be water weight causing you to fluctuate. Are you losing on 1400? 1400 or 1500...is not a big difference to me.

and what great advice Onederchic... most sites seem to recommend more than I need, but I lose on lower amounts. I feel like I'm doing things wrong since I'm not following what most sites say I should be eating. I guess just do what's working for me.

It's worked flawlessly for me. I just committed to the higher cals and gave them time to work and now that I'm able to maintain at 2200 cals I'm very thankful I did. Right now I'm trying to lose the last 5-10 lbs and doing so by setting my cals at my maintenance level for my goal weight and losing at about 1950/day. I exercise a lot though and do my best to avoid processed foods and eat tons of veggies.

I am trying it after 3 weeks at 1200. It says I need 1328 for both normal and extreme weight loss. I wasn't seeing too much of a loss at 1200 and think that with my exercising, I just wasn't eating enough.

As onderchic said, losing weight really is all about trial and error. Some websites may give you a very high number based on your weight and height while others give you a super low number (1200 or less). Personally, I learned my "ideal" number was between 1400-1500, as even though some calculators gave me 1200 on 1200 a day I felt tired and wasn't losing weight as fast as when I kicked it up 200 calories.