i just registered at The Daily Plate and entered my INFO and it told me that to LOSE 1 pound a week at 5' 7" - 48yrs young - 266 lbs - and Sedentary----

Your calorie requirement has been saved as 2,304/day.

The Daily Plate can calculate the number of calories you need to take in each day to achieve your weight goals -- whether you want to maintain, lose, or gain weight. In general, to lose weight, you must reduce your total calorie intake, increase your excercise, or (ideally!) do both.

Our estimate is that you may consume about 2,304 calories a day to lose one pound per week.

could this EVEN be correct??? i mean i just started and everything and i have been reading Post after Post after Post... but its hard to believe that i have to really eat this much to LOSE??? i have been eating 1800 calories since the beginning of October and now im wondering should i be eating MORE? i hardly ever exercise at all and i have a sit down job working at a computer all day 8-10hrs... can anyone steer me in the right direction PLEASE???

That's why I use FitDay. It's much better. Check it out here : FitDay.

That is strange. Daily Plate estimated mine at 1550 which is exactly where I should be for 5'4" and 204 lbs at 26 yrs old to lose 1-2 lbs a week. Fit Day could never quite get my calorie range right. I just popped over there to double check and they have me at 2200 cals a day to lose 1.2 lbs a week. YIKES!

When deciding my calorie intake, double check all over the web for recommended calorie intake, and then choose an estimate/average. Here is what I found from several sites, given your stats:

Maintenance: 2246 Calories/day
Fat Loss Range: 2128 Calories/day
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To lose 1 lb per week: 2104.30 calories/day http://www.hpathy.com/healthtools/calories-need.asp

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CalorieControl.com says eat 2440 to maintain your current weight, so if you subtracted 500 from that, you'd be around 1900. http://www.caloriecontrol.org/calcalcs.html

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Ahealthyme.com says "To lose about one pound per week, you'll need to cut back to 1,925 calories per day. " http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/calneed

Given that information, I think anywhere between 1900 and 2000 cals a day is a good range.

Years ago I acquired a bit of information about calories and weight loss that I have followed and found it to be quite accurate. It says that for every pound that we weigh we consume 13 calories to maintain that weight. So for example, for my weight of 212 lbs I would be consuming 2756 calories a day to maintain that and if I'm steadily gaining, YIKES! So in order to loose two pounds a week, I have decreased my caloric intake by 1000 calories a day and that seems to work, then I periodically adjust that as I lose weight to continue losing. 1700 calories isn't too bad to stick with. Add exercise to that and it's a pretty good forumula for weight loss that isn't too restrictive. And if we are skilled in eating properly, counting calories and weighing food, then we can be pretty successful at weight loss, and who of us are not skilled in these areas right? LOLOL!!!

I never rely on one calculator. I used 3 or 4 different ones and then sort of came up with an average. I've found that the closer I get to my goal weight, the more they all seem to agree. When the weight is up over 200 or so, they tend to disagree on what proper maintenance calories are. Kinda weird.

I'd suspect you could lose on around 1800 or so calories to start off with ... just based on my experience starting out at 237.

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This is mentioned on the Calorie Counters section under frequently asked questions, and it breaks it down for you. I find this quite accurate, and have been following it.

Wilma