Alrighty so im currently doing weight watchers but im thinking of trying out counting calories... but im not really sure about how many i should be eating...
1500...1800...2000 i dont know! i weigh 260, am 5feet 7 inches.. anyone who knows give me a shout please and thanks!

There's different ways to put you in the ball park.

One of the easiest is just add "0" to the end of your weight and -500. So if you are 260, that's 2600 to maintain in theory, -500 puts you at 2100 to lose 1 lb week. You could try that and then fine tune.

If you want to get into better estimate formulas than the technique above, you could Google "Calorie Need Calculator" and you will get ones like this one at Blue Cross.

http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/calneed

However it is you arrive at your starting number, you will probably spend some time there fine tuning it.

You can also use www.fitday.com, www.sparkpeople.com or other calorie counting websites that will do your set up profile to figure out your calorie need.

HTH!
A.

I have been calorie counting since the end of January. I started the weight loss journey in October 2009. I had hit a plateau in January and decided to give it a try. However, I am doing it along with wearing a Go Wear Fit arm band. which you can read up on at bodymedia dot com. It is the same arm band they use on The Biggest Loser. It really opened my eyes to what I was actually consuming. I agree with the PP that you can use some of the websites she mentioned, but I know that what you "can" consume, depends on how many calories you are burning. It doesn't do any good to set a goal of say 2100 calories, and burn 2600 per day but then expect to lose 3 pounds a week. I consume on average between 1500 - 1800 a day and I am burning around 3,000 a day which has been giving me a 2 - 3 pounds average weight loss a week. Up until a few weeks ago that has been consistent. I have hit a plateau recently that I am trying to work through and I am hoping when I return from vacation I will see whoosh of weight loss.

I am 5'7", 264 and I am doing 1700 a day. I seem to be losing about 2-3 pounds a week, and exercise 2-3 times a week. If I consistently stay under 1600 I seem to gain. Hope that helps a little

-Aimee

I would think that 17-1800 would be a good place for you to start.

thanks everyone.. im starting it tomorrow!!

I am 12 pounds heavier than you are, and I eat between 1800 and 2000 a day. I also drink 3-4 liters of water and exercise 3 times a week, plus an active job in fast food. So far this range is working for me, I have lost 20 pounds in 9 weeks.

my only suggestion is to not start TOO low. you can adjust lower as you lose and need to, but try to start as high as you can for what you want to achieve loss wise per week. tweak tweak tweak!

I agree with Shylah. I see a lot of people who start out with a calorie limit of 1500 or lower, and then a month or so later they are bewailing how hungry they are and how hard it is to maintain their plan, and they give up.

1500 may be a place to start if you only have ten pounds to lose... but most of us in here have much more than that. Even small changes really add up over the long run. Start higher, and see how it works for a couple weeks.

PErsonally, I aim for 1800 a day, with exercise 3-5 days a week. I usually end up closer to 1600, but some days I go up to 2000. I don't mind, so long as my weekly/monthly average is around 1800. I lose slowly but steadily when I stick to this amount.

I use a program on my iphone called lose it. It tells me what my calorie should be based on losing 1 1/2 lbs per week - for my height and weight. Of course the more I lose the lower it goes lol I am down to 1100 - I burn an ave of 400/day though.

how many points are you getting with WW? It's not a direct translation because with calorie counting, nothing is "free" but as a general rule of thumb, 1 WW point = 50 calories. So for instance, if you have 32 pts a day, you'd be around 1600 calories, and then I'd throw in another 50-100, maybe even 150 to cover the things that you don't have to count in WW and the fact that fiber lowers points but doesn't lower calories. That would give you a rough estimate for how many calories you are eating right now, and if you are happy with your current loss rate and how much food you eat, I'd use that as the starting point.

But just like WW changes your points as you lose weight, you'll need to reassess your calorie target over time.

I was one of those who originally started too low for my weight at 1500. I do not recommend this. I started again this time at 328lbs, and 2400 calories. This was much easier for me to keep up with and kept me satisfied while still losing weight. I have gradually put that down to around 2000 because I found it was still difficult for me to lose consistently on that much, likely because my metabolism is slow. So I would start higher and go lower if you need to until you find your sweet spot Plus I know that sometimes I can underestimate how many calories I eat, or forget something. So if I shoot for 2,000, if I forget something it's not that big of a deal because I could still loose on 2300 - 2200. Though I wouldn't recommend using that as an excuse to help yourself to more food!

i was at 35 points so im going to try 1750 and then tell you all how it went lets hope good lol

You can check out places like "calories per hour" that will give you rmr and bmr calculations as well as target calorie counts for specific rates of weight loss.

http://www.caloriesperhour.com

I go to weight watchers but definitely try to stay within my calories

I rely on sparkpeople. It estimates how many cals, carbs, etc you should have each day based off of the info you put in- your ht, wt, exercise you do daily/weekly. I love it!