Hi everyone!

I know it will really take me counting calories in order to acheive my goal.
My question is how many should I be eating in order to lose weight? My current weight is around 119-122 (flucuates every minute!-especially around TOM) I really would like to get down to 115 and maintain! I exercise almost daily for over an hour. I do alot of hiking for my exercise. I am only 5'3 so losing a few lbs. will make a difference on my curvy body type!
Any suggestions on how many cals a day?
Thanks so much!

azmom

azmom -- That's a tough question to answer as everyone is different.

Do you know how many calories you're eating now? The general rule is whatever you need to maintain, you need to eat less to lose! (I know, duh, right?) But sometimes it's hard for us to know what we eat unless we keep careful track. Anyway, eating 500 calories less than you need to maintain should get you 1 pound a week.

And just to note: because you don't have much to lose, it's going to probably take you longer to lose those few pounds than it takes someone who has a lot more to lose. So the hard part for you is that you will have to be patient and consistent without a lot of feedback from the scale!

Because you have so little to lose, you may not be able to drop low enough to lose 1 pound a week -- as it's usually not recommended people consistently eat fewer than 1200 calories/day.

You may also want to talk to people in the Featherweights forum, as many are dealing with trying to shift those few stubborn pounds!

I completely agree with everything wyllenn said, excellent post