I am new to this, and need a bit of help from all you seasoned calorie counters! I am on day 2. I started yesterday and randomly picked 1200 calories to start with. I did great, I thought, and actually came in about 50 calories under my goal for the day. I made good healthy choices, and I felt great. I didn't feel hungry or anything.

Today I was looking through some posts and decided to try to find out where I should actually be starting for daily calories. Yes, I also checked the FAQ above. The numbers seem so high! Like 2000 calories/day and up.

Is it better to start higher, and adjust? This is all suddenly confusing to me, and I am determined to stay on track this time and accomplish what I need to do, but I want to make sure I'm doing it right.

I know everybody is different, but how did you all determine where to start for daily calories.

Thank you all in advance!

You can check one of the online trackers such as livestrong, myfitness pal, etc. They have calculators which may point you in a certain direction.

I use "my fitness pal"
it goes by your weight and everything
I get 1240 calories a day and do pretty good staying within that range
I don't think its good to start to low...you have no where to go from there

I have checked several places, but I keep seeing 2000+ per day, which seems very high to me. I know I ate a lot more than that when I wasn't watching what I was eating, but to me, it's hard to get to that number eating lean meats and lots of veggies and fruit.

Okay, I think I've got it! I am using my fitness pal app to track my food etc. but couldn't find where to check the original amount it gave me (I changed it about 5 times!) I actually just logged in through the website for them, and found where to put my info in there again and have it calculate. It's come up with 1600 calories per day, which seems much better! I think not too low, not too high.

Thanks for the help ladies!

Anybody who is an "expert" can please feel free to correct me.

I think what you were seeing for the 2,000 calorie diet is based upon a standard daily intake and is what we should eat if we want to maintain our weight. But since we're working to lose weight, we then eat less than a standard 2,000 calorie a day diet in order to create a deficit. I made myself sound smart, when I'm really not sure I even know what I'm talking about. LOL

Not an expert either but I'm about the OPs weight (a little taller) and according to my fitness pal to loose 1.5/week at a sedentary level I should be eating 1990 a day. The bigger you are the more your body burns just to keep it functioning meaning you can eat more (if I'm understanding things right). I suppose that's one of the few upsides to being so big...In order to maintain my current weight I'd have to eat ~2740 according to MFP.

Great point. I believe I was thinking of the labels that mention the 2,000 calorie diet. It seemed to be some type of standard.

Yea I always wonder about that when I see the food labels. I assume the 2000 calorie/day is for the average person but what is average? I think when I was playing around with a calorie calculator (to see how much my maintenance would be at different goals) and mine would be around 2000 at 180lbs, I *think* but I'm rather tall for a female...