Hi,

Newbie here and I've found a wealth of info on this site! I have a question I'm hoping you guys can help me answer. I started at 228 pounds. I've lost 15 pounds in 3 months by eating between 1500-1600. I workout 4 days per week burning on average 350-400 calories according to my HR monitor. For the past 3 weeks the scale hasn't budged.

I've researched the daily plate, fitday, and freedieting.com and they all give different calorie goals. Two of the three recommend I eat 1750-1850 daily. So what would you do? Would you increase or decrease your intake to get the scale moving again?

Thanks in advance!

I would increase by 150 cals a day and see whether that worked after 2 weeks of staying with it. And keep up the exercise.

Jay

I am no expert by any means. I am pretty new at this concept also, but I have read many articles and so far, calorie counting has worked WONDERS for me over the past 2 weeks coupled with moderate exercise.

I just wanted to add that I am now 158 and you are taking in close to the same amount of calories as me. As you probably know, when you lose weight your calorie needs also go down. But at this point, I would think you need more.

My mom is trying to lose, also. She was only taking in 13-1400 calories a day at 188 lbs and I kept telling her for the past week to raise them to at least somewhere between 15-1600 and see what happens. She sees that I am not hungry, but I am losing weight at a rate of about 3 lbs per week (I am SURE this will slow down as I get closer to goal but enjoying it while I can, haha)

The great thing about finding your highest calorie intake that would also allow you to lose weight is that you will have the leverage to lower them when you hit a hard plateau later on. You don't want to start out so low that your body can no longer take a hit of lowering calories.

What I did was take the calorie levels from the free dieting site and what it said for fastest weight loss and regular weight loss, I took those numbers and found a happy medium between the two. I didn't want to take in 16-1800 per day, but I sure didn't want to drop to 12-1300 either.

I think there is another cal. counter somewhere on this site who doesn't take in less than 18-2000 a day and has had steady weight loss.

Thank you! I'll increase moderately & see what happens in the next 2 weeks.