Hi All,
I have been calorie counting for a few weeks and have not been able to establish a calorie target. I started out with 2000 cal and lost 2 pounds the first week. Then I stopped losing so I reduced it to 1800 and that did not work. So I tried calorie cycling and still the scale fluctuated up and down the same 2 pounds. This past weekend I had an enormous binge I sure consisted of at least 3000 cals a day. I expected the worst today when I weighed in but the scale was actually down 3 pounds!?! I am incredulous at this point and totally confused about how many calories I need to eat to lose weight. At 322 pounds and 37 years of age, I thought that 2000 calories a day was a lot but now I am not sure what to think. There does not seem to be a rhyme or reason to my weight loss. The online BRM calculators put me at approx 2100 so I thought that including activity I should be at 1800-2000 a day. I have had my thyroid checked and it was normal.
Any insight would be appreciated.

At your weight I'd say you can probably eat up to 2400 calories a day, exercise, and still lose weight. I always do weight x 10 x .75 for how many calories to eat to lose weight.

This is what I go by I hope it helps you!

Take your goal weight and multiply it by

10 if you don't exercise at all

By

13 if you rarely exercise (only play the occasional weekend golf or tennis game)

By

15 if you regularly exercise (swim,walk or jog for 30-60 minutes most days of the week)

So if your goal was 135lbs and you don't exercise that's 1350 calories a day. I took this from prevention magazine(one of my favorites for health and weight less)

Best wishes

Go to one of the calorie counting websites. I use dailyplate.com, there's also sparkpeople and a few others. You enter your weight, age, and activity level as well as how much you want to lose per week. They will then tell you how much you can eat.

Switching your plan every week is going to make it hard to figure out what works. Whenever I make changes to my calories, I always try to give each change at least a month to get a feel for what the outcome will be. If you don't use a food journal, I'd recommend it because it makes it easier to see what's going on over time (if you write down weight, measurements as well as calories/food). I would agree with using the daily plate or sparkpeople. Any formula is going to give you a standard ballpark number, which may or may not work for you. Find a calorie level that sounds reasonable and suits your needs and stick with it for a month and see what the results are at the end of the month. If you're meeting your goal, stick with the calorie level. If you're not losing the way you want, you can drop the calories a little or up the exercise. With every 10-20 pounds lost, you might want to recalculate your calorie deficit.

It's not uncommon when in calorie deficit to see a downward bounce a few days after a binge day. Many people who eat in deficit have a "cheat" day, "refeed" day or "cheat" meal one a week. The theory is that it tricks your metabolism so that your body doesn't start conserving calories because it thinks you're starving. It boosts your metabolism, resulting in a drop in pounds.

I went to lots of sites and took an average of what they suggested. I also let myself go over the to lose number but still stay under the maintain number once or twice a week. It has worked so far for me.