Hi, I was just wondering how many calories do you eat to continue to lose the weight. I am eating between 1200 to 1500 calories per day. I feel hungry when I eat 1200-1300 but I feel too full when I eat more. What should I do, and if you are a maintenance person what did you do?? How many calories did you average per day?? Thanks!

Right now I eat about 1650, with one high-calorie meal a month that probably adds 50 calories/day to that average. So call it 1700.

However, that doesn't say anything about what you should eat: your age, activity level, and weight all determine that. Ultimately, it comes down to experimentation. You have to try different things, give it some time, and see what works. At 250, I'd eat 1600-1800 healthy calories to start with, but that must be an HONEST 1600-1800, no uncounted "cheat meals" or "small bites". This isn't to say you have to deprive yourself of everything, just that you must count whatever you have.

Spend 3 weeks at an honest 1600-1800 and then evaluate. If you are losing 2 lbs a week and feeling ok, you've found the sweet spot. If you aren't, you might want to up your exercise or cut your calories. If you are losing well but are hungry, or cranky, or tired, or having "breakout eating" (where you crash and give into temptation), then you aren't eating enough: instead of that breakout eating you need to have more planned healthy food in your diet.

I'm in the 1300 to 1500 range and losing 2 pounds a week pretty steady without any heavy exercise (I am active but I don't go to the gym or anything like that)

I started at 248 (I'm at about 230ish right now - I gotta buy a scale!) and I eat just about 1400 a day with a LOT of excersize. I do 30 day shred, p90x and C25K. Not all at the same time (hah), but I do at least 2 of them a day and my DH and I walk 2 miles every night, without fail. Helps the spazzy dog calm down, too, which is a HUGE bonus!

I'm looking to bump up my loss, and toying with the idea of dropping my cal's to 1200 or 1300, but I haven't decided yet. I'm very good at managing the calories at work. For breakfast today I had about 10 almonds and a sugar free apple sauce cup (total 119 cals) and I'm going to go to lunch here soon and have a delmonte pears cup (80 cals) and something else. I wont go over 300 cals for lunch, though. By the time I get home from work, I'll have only consumed about 450ish cals (with my crystal light packets in my water!)... I always have a sensible dinner, too, usually no more than 500 - 700 cals. I figure if I feel GREAT at what I'm doing, I might as well keep going. I have more energy than I think I've had since I was a kid!! So much energy, I'm annoying the husband with my 'lets go on a walk!' or 'im not tired, ill stay up'. Yey!!

I know that was rambly, but I just think that if you feel not full enough at a certain calorie range, you might not need to change how many calories, just WHAT you are eating!

I'm eating 1000-1500 calories a day, zigzagging, and I've lost 9 pounds so far. It's only been a few days, though, so a good portion of that is probably water weight. Before the break in my weight loss I was eating between 800 and 1500 a day while exercising a fair amount and I lost maybe three or four pounds a week. I felt fine on this amount, but I was also short and a lot of my weight was fat, so I probably had pretty low calorie needs.

Edit: Also, I totally second perhaps changing what you are eating if you feel hungry. If I eat nothing but fruits and vegetables all day I am going to be STARVING regardless of how much it is. I really need some protein to keep me going. Oatmeal also keeps me full for a while and is super low-calorie for a large amount.

I feel starving some days, and others I feel fine. I just wanted to see what everyone else is losing on. I am the type that is not going to weigh myself often, because I get obcessive with the scale. Even though it has only been a week, I already feel better. Is it weird to feel like, almost scared to lose the weight? Like I want to so bad for some reason in the back of my head I have someone saying u can't. I know I can though, and I am ready to continue my journey with patience (something I have never had!) I am going to continue to eat an average of 1500 calories per day, and I will be weighing myself 2 months from now, or when I get into clothes I have not been able to wear in a good while. Thanks for the advice!

I eat between 1000 - 1350 calories a day with a good hour of intense exercise 5 days a week. I've recently been stuck on a weight loss plateau so I'm hoping by dropping my calorie intake I can bump up my weight loss.

I have JUST started keeping track of every single calorie I consume using FitDay so hopefully it'll help me be more diligent and fruitful in my endeavorers.

I do things a bit differently than most of the posts I’ve read: I picked my goal weight, used an online calculator to figure how many calories will be needed to maintain that weight (using a sedentary lifestyle) and decided to eat that many calories NOW at my weight that is 55 pounds higher than my goal weight). Using that calculator, I keep to 1500 calories per day on average (some days may be a BIT higher or lower). I realize that this means I’ll lose weight very slowly when I’m a lot closer to my goal, but this way I never have to adjust the calories per day. I didn’t like the idea of eating higher calories because I have a higher weight, only to decrease those calories as my weight decreases. So far, it’s working!

It really depends on your weight height and activity levels as to how much or little you can eat and still lose weight. There are many other factors too, but for the most part, W, H and A are key.

I zigzag. There are some days I barely get to 1000 cals and other days I'm at 1800 - 1900. But there are also days that I don't workout and other days that I'll do something strenuous for a few hours and burn off 1200 - 2400 cals in exercise. So it varies. My daily average over the course of a week is about 1300.

At that current rate, I have lost 5lbs in 2 weeks since my last TOM. It comes and goes in spurts though.

One theory that was rather popular 10yrs ago when I lost weight was to pick the rate of 10 to 12 times your goal weight as what to eat. So, if your goal weight was 120 lbs, you would then eat between 1200 - 1440 to lose weight.

I do caloric cycling and don't the same amount of calories on consecutive days. It's anything between 1000-1600 or even 1800 very occasionally. ( drawing from previous experience here, just started this week ). My goal is 2 pounds per week and I will adjust along the way to reach this goal.

I eat 1300-1500 depending on the day and what my body wants. Most days it's closer to 1500 and i've been losing about a pound a week.

I have been eating 1100 calories a day, I haven't went over yet

You might have good luck with bumping up a little while and then going back down (1000 is pretty darn low though).

I'm using an iPhone app that says to lose 1.5lbs a week at my current weight I need to eat 1310 calories a day. I've been eating closer to 1400 because I finish my calories by 7PM and I get so HUNGRY before bed. Oh, it also subtracts calories if I exercise (i.e. if I run 3 miles it gives me an extra 300 calories to eat) which is kind of awesome. I just started this this week so we'll see how it goes!

Some days for whatever reason I just have a really hard time reaching that mark and I don't want to eat empty calories to make up for it. I tend to bump up my calorie intake [especially on the weekends] and then lower it back down, but I've noticed most of the time that I do this I'm simply wiped out and exhausted for a few days while my body adjusts and during that time it makes it really hard for me not to binge.

I'm still trying to find that happy medium of caloric intake where I'm eating healthily, am full [lol], have energy and am losing weight. That range is what I find myself eating in most of the time.