[Jermsgirl]

So I come from the Weight Watchers site. I've tried counting points for a few months now and it's worked, but now I am at a standstill and kind of tired counting points. I feel like I get more bang for my proverbial buck when I count calories. Maybe it's a mind thing? Anyways, on Sparkpeople it says that I need to consume between 2100-2500 calories a day. Isn't that a little crazy? I work out 6 days a week for at least 60 minutes, sometimes more. I am 5'8" and am hovering around 200 lbs.

What do you all think? I've changed my calories to between 1500-1700 because 2100 seems like a TON. Do you think that will work? thank you in advance for any insight you can provide to me!

[nitenurse]

If yo multiply your body weight times 12 that is usually a good indicator of calories needed per day. Weight watchers is calorie counting 1 point is approx 50 calories.
If you are only planning on 1500 calories now. What will you drop down to as you lose weight?

[Jermsgirl]

Thank you nitenurse! Weight Watchers was having me eat aroun 1500 calories a day. And now I am on a plataeu. And hungry all the time.

[tiffieturtle]

Hello There!

You'd be surprised at how many calories it is to maintain your body weight, especially if you are a person who does heavy activity. I would say that calorie amount actually sounds correct to maintain, but I don't know about to lose... I personally would check out the Livestrong website because it has a feature in which it tells you based upon a few factors how much to eat if you want to lose __lbs per week.

As far as the WW boredom is concerned, I understand what you are saying, and that is one of a few reasons why I stopped going there. If you decide to continue with WW, you might want to talk to your leader and tell them how you have been feeling. They too know how you feel and often have many helpful hints to get you back on track and feel excited about what you are doing.

Hope this helps!

[ncuneo]

If yo multiply your body weight times 12 that is usually a good indicator of calories needed per day.

For what it's worth, this number is for maintaining your weight. So if you wanted to use this formula for weight loss you could take 15-20% from it and that would be a very resonable number.

I'm a huge fan of losing weight on the highest number of cals possible. Being at a low cal level for too long *can* lower your metabolism and make it more difficult when comes time to increase your cals when it's time for maintenance. It also give you room to maneuver if you stall. If you are really truely hungry all the time and with your current weight and exercise level I think you'd see some big changes with a calorie increase. If that doesn't work then you know you can always lower them again, you won't do much damage after a few weeks of increasing your cals. I'm one of the lucky ones that loses way fast at higher calorie ranges, but there are many that can't lose a lb unless they're in the 1200-1500 range. We're all different and no one can tell you what will work for you and you won't know until you try. I know I've had to increase my cals several times to get losing again. I've only recently just started going the other way, but still at 159 my daily average is about 1600 which is pretty high for my weight and I believe that it's because I started high. I think the highest I was ever losing at was around 1800 when I was in the 200's. So you can see I haven't lost that many cals and while my loss has slowed down because I'm smaller now and that's just natural I refuse to jump to 1200 or 1500 to speed it up because I don't think the long term effects will be worth it. Good luck with whatever you decide.