So I am SO confused from all the information available from so many different sites.

I am not having much success but then again I haven't been on track since Halloween either. I LOVE me some candy.

Anyhow......I just joined my fitness pal and the website said to eat 1200 calories a day and then to add in exercising calories burned to my daily allowance. So if I workout hard for 35 or 40 minutes I get to add 300-400 calories.

What about the days that I don't work out. 1200 seems really low.

I am 5'2. 200 lbs. Want to get to 140-145. I am a female and 39 years old.

I am asking the experts here at 3FC what has worked for you great people.

Do you know what you normally eat? I'd track a few 'normal' days (even with the candy) and then subtract from there. Subtract 500 calories per day for a loss of 1 lb a week.

I'm a bit taller than you but i've been eating up to 2000 calories (and not exercising oops, but i will admit I don't eat that much everyday its just my max) and been losing slowly since Feb. I just recently started going down. But then again I was eating a lot per day. I told myself if I plateaued I would go down. I went down to 1900 anyway once I got under 200 pounds and i lost nearly 2 lbs this week!

Every body is different so you just need experiment and find what works for you.

Good luck!

You and I are fairly close in age and height (although not weight, fortunately for you! ). I've been zig-zagging my calories and sticking to an average of 1500 calories per day, averaged weekly. For exercise, the minimum I do is half an hour of walking daily, though most days I also add in time on my stationary bike or free weights.

1200 seems low to me, too, but other people swear by it and are satisfied with what they eat at that number. More power to 'em! For me, though, 1500 calories is working great. So far, I've stayed completely on plan since I started (Oct. 19), have never gone hungry, and haven't felt deprived. I've lost eight pounds so far, which is a pretty fast clip given how easy my plan has been on me.

ElizabethG's suggestion to track normal days is a great one. Just getting in the habit of weighing and measuring is useful, and having a baseline at which your body's at equilibrium tells you a lot about how much you'll want to pare down to start losing.

I'm restarting calorie counting after a dismal failure at nutrasystem. I'm 5'3" and 223.5 right now and I'm starting at 1450 calories a day. From experience, this should get me down to 180 lbs without having to decrease. The last time I did this I worked out for 30 minutes a day on an elliptical trainer three days a week and did some basic calistenics daily, like push ups, jumping jacks, crunches, sit ups, squats and and lunges while I watched tv. It was slow and steady loss, too bad I couldn't maintain it. Good luck!