Age: 26
Weight: 155
Height: 5'4"

I'm trying 1200 this month as 1500 + exercise was getting me no where...

I'm 16, 5'11", and 190lbs. My Lose It! app on my ipod told me to eat around 1900 calories a day to lose around 1lb a week. I love my height just for the sole reason that I get to eat more food! hehe. We'll see if that many calories actually works, though. I don't think I'd have a problem cutting back to around 1700.

uhlysse- That is so funny because that is also my top reason for wanting to be taller! That and being able to reach things from the top shelf at the grocery... haha

I weight right now 172, eat 1500 calories a day or less, and I am 5'5"(ish).

If I eat any more than 1500 calories a day, I don't lose.

I exercise 5 days a week, about 7 hours total of cardio and strength building.

I'm in my 30s.

I also have PCOS. Everything that I've read about PCOS is that we are have a harder time losing weight so our calories should be lower.

When I'm eating 1600 calories or more a day, I maintain or gain weight. I lose the most when I'm under 1400.

This year, my plan is to be under 1400.

I am just now starting back calorie counting. Did it last spring and lost 20 lbs in 2-3 mos. Started weight watchers in the fall and did not get the results I wanted. Anyway here's my plan (same as I did last year)
no more than 1400-1500 daily- trying to stay away from sugar (my weakness) as much as possible, with a treat once a week
planning on an hour of exercise 5x's a week.
I am 5'2, 33 years old and currently around 183

I'm 26, 5'10" (or so close to it that i count it as the same...), 318 lbs and i eat 2000 calories to lose a little under 2 lbs a week. Anything less than that and I get too hungry, right now. I'm starting to incorporate some strength training into my routine to burn calories and tone a little. I'm not new to this, but i'm back on plan after two years of doing nothing, so it's like i'm new. >_>

I'm 24, 5' nothing, and currently weigh 149.5 pounds. When I started in July of 2010, I was around 185 pounds. I started between 1600-1800 with one "cheat" day in the weekends for a couple of months, then I lowered my calories a bit. Now on weekdays, I don't allow myself to go over 1500-1600 unless it's some sort of special occasion. I try to have a few lower calorie days during the week (around 1200-1400) to allow for the inevitable higher cal day that comes most weekends (try not to go over 1700 on this day though).

I've been losing fairly steadily, with a couple of stalls, but I'm not worried. It may seem a bit slow but I'm in it for the long haul and I don't want to end up restricting myself to heavily and being frustrated at not being allowed certain foods. I didn't count strictly between the 24th of Dec - 3rd of Jan and ended up maintaining my loss, which I'm super happy about considering that week involved Christmas foods, pumpkin pie, lots of salty snacks and a fair amount of alcohol.

As for exercise, I started off doing at least 4 days a week but I've been slacking a bit in the last month or so, only getting in 2 or 3 days (usually only 30 mins at a time, excepting my 1 hour Zumba class once per week). I'm working on getting the exercise back up, but I plan on leaving my calories where they are - between 1200-1500 on most week days with one weekend day allowance of up to 1700-1800.

I'm so glad to see this thread. I am going to do CC this go round with my weight loss goals. I've always heard "stick to 1200 or you won't lose a lb!" and 1200 some days is fine for me, but others, I'm starved. I want to give as much wiggle room as I can, so I think it'll take some trial and error to find my magic #. In the past, if I stayed around 1500-1600 with at least 30 mins of cardio each day, I'd do well on the scale. I might shoot up there first.

What other people eat in terms of calories has NO relation to what you may need to eat! It's not a one size fits all deal. Everyone's body burns calories at a different rate, so my advice is that if you want to truly adjust for YOU, do so by tracking your results.

If you are losing a safe amount of weight weekly at 1600-1800 calories, continue. If at any point you feel you might be loosing too quickly (and also losing muscle or strength), then add 50-100 calories back in for a few weeks and see how it affects your weight loss.

Conversely, if you are NOT losing now, subtract 100 calories daily and see what happens.

Another approach is to continue eating what you are and add in some mild exercise.

That said, my daily calories vary considerably. I'm 5'7", currently as of today, 228 pounds even and I may eat anywhere from 1200-2400 calories in a day. I'm also 50+ years old. 1200 calories for very inactive days, 2400 calories for very active or "free" days.

Interestingly enough, I ate a LOT during the holidays, but was also much more active than usual with things like cooking, cleaning, tree decorating, present wrapping and the like. I was on my feet for large chunks of time.

I actually lost a tiny bit of weight (.2 pound). There were days I exceeded 3000, even 4000 calories eaten. Of course, there were other days that were in a good deficit, and it apparently balanced out. I posted my BodyMedia FIT graph on my recent weigh-in post on my blog, so you can see I ate a ton Christmas week!

There's no magic calorie number, there's only what calories work for your body. If I eat too few, I get ravenously hungry and headachy. If I eat too many, I gain or don't lose. The key is that I try to pay attention to what *my* body wants. One thing I've learned is that my body does NOT like a severe deficit. It's happier with a smaller deficit and steady pound a week or so losses.

Some folks can do large deficits and their body handles it well. I just don't happen to be one of them, sigh.

I'm 42, currently at about 140 lbs. I just started again and am eating between 1200-1500 calories/day. I have a sedentary job, but I go to the gym5-6 days/week and do anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour of cardio and/or an hour of body sculpting.

I was not losing on 1500/day and my doctor said that was too high - I should drop to 1200. At that point I lost, although I also broke through a plateau right then..now I've gained back about 10 from my recent low weight and am seeing what works. Trying to cycle the calories a bit.

natamars: It's encouraging to hear that your doctor agreed. I have similar stats to yours and a similar exercise routine. It's so interesting that those few hundred calories make all the difference...

I'm 35, 5'5-1/2", weigh 138, run 25 miles a week, and I'm losing steadily on 1800 calories a day. I think I normally eat around 2200 calories a day.

I just looked back over my Sparkpeople logs, and I can see that when I ate about 1400-1500 calories and did some basic cardio, I lost. Those months that I averaged 1700-1800 a day, I maintained. I'm 45 and 5'6".

I am 76 and disabled so my movements are quite minimal. Did manage to wash my kitchen floor today which is all of about 3metres square but that was it for the day. I eat 1000 calories a day anything above that means I will not lose.

I am 5'3 and currently 160 pounds.

I am eating 1400-1500 calories per day, also walking 60 minutes 5 X week at 4.3-4.5 mph (very fast, and right now we have snow).

Last time I followed this calorie amount and the walking schedule; I was able to slim down to 117 pounds in 9 months time.