I am on the Purple Plan with no lites ( all food) and I have been tracking my calories in Fit Day. If I stay POP, my calories come in below 1200 and since I exercise at least 3 days a week, this seems too low to me. I have had a great loss so far, 8 lbs in 2 weeks but my loss has stalled and when I asked my counselor for advise on how many calories a day my plan should include, she said that they are not allowed to break it down like that. She said that none of the plans are less than 1200 calories a day. The purple plan is the larger serving of protien. I get like 6 oz or 7 oz of fish, 3 eggs, 2 cups of beans for my protiens.

My daliy exchanges are 2 proteins/4 veggies/3 fruits/2 starches/1 dairy/1 fat.

Even though I do not do the lites my book that they gave me still lists them and the counsler just told me to ignor the lites in the purple book, but eat everything else.

Hi, Holly!

Here's my humble opinion about the situation. I was in a similar boat. But what my COD told me up front was that the plans try to keep you around 1100-1200 calories when you get to a certain point.

When I did my calorie count on fit day, I found that some days I was actually a little under 1100, and some days as much as 1400. I don't do lites, and am on Red.

The differences, I found, were:
* what kind of meat/protein did I eat that day?
* what kind of starch?

There are some starches that are low calorie (1 pc of lite bread = 35-45 calories), while others are higher calorie (one of their fruit bars, 1 S and 1 F, is 210 calories). So, that definitely made a difference.

Also, when I was strictly eating boneless, skinless, Sanderlin Farms (no sodium solution injected) chicken, I got fewer calories than ground turkey.

My advice is to mix it up. It's important to try to stick with the lean meats, lower calorie/sugar starches, but it's definitely okay to have one day of 1100-1200 and another day of 1400. In fact, most people on here state that keeping your body mixed up like that makes your metabolism work harder for you!

hope that helps!

Holly - looking at your weight You are where you are suppose to be, eating what you are suppose to be according to my COD.

I am 200 lbs. on purple with lites. when I get to 175 I go down to gold with lites. However, if I decide not to use lites I will stay on purple with out lites instead of going down to gold when I hit 175...or I would go up to red with out the lites if I chose to not use them today.

I hope this makes since...if not ask your COD again or maybe PM bizlaw chick as she is kinda' the expert!

Does anyone know of a bare minimum number of calories that I should be getting in? I am vegetarian but I do eat eggs and fish but not poultry. My protein choices are usually really low in calories. I just want to make sure that I am not starving myself with too few calories.

Several nutritionists state that you should always try to get at least 1200 calories in. You actually are on the right plan unless your workouts go for more than 2 hours each time. If you are working out pretty heavy and more than 5 hours a week then you need to address that with your COD. How long have you been on LAWL? Sometimes your body will take time to adjust to a weight loss. You are not going to lose every week so don't set yourself up that you are failing if you don't. If it's only been one week that you haven't lost, you really aren't stalling yet. Give it time, your body needs to adjust.

I know how frustrated you must be. I was in the same boat you were about a week ago. I actually stalled out for 4 weeks..and then bam..started working out harder, maintaining on program and something clicked.

I came to the COD for the first time on Sat. Oct. 7th. I lost two pound during TO and another 6 pounds on the purple program when I came in on Wednesday. Needless to say, I was thrilled. I did my research so I was ready for the sales pitch about the bars and I had decided not to do them prior to coming in. My COD did not presure me buy she did say that she was "disappointed" that I did not at least try them. I cannot blame her for trying since I am in sales myself but I really want to lose the weight on regular food and not rely on the lites.

I love this site, but I think it may have been a little bit of information overload. I found somebody's fitday link and started logging there too. I was surprised to see my calories coming in below 1200 and concerned. I "added" in a lite or some other food to get me somewhere between 1200-1300 calories and what do you know, my loss "stalled".

I have decided I am just going to try to be POP and if my calories come in below 1200, oh well, but I would really like to see the scale move.