1790 calories would be what you would need to eat to MAINTAIN your current weight. To lose weight you must create a calorie deficit (but not cut your calories tooo low, as you now know)

Any calorie deficit you create will eventually lead to results. As a rule of thumb, 3,500 calories is equal to one pound. For example, if you eat 250 calories per day fewer than your maintenance rate requires (your maintenance rate is 1790) and exercise enough to burn an additional 250 calories each day, you will lose approximately one pound per week.
So eating 1540 calories and burning an additional 250 calories in exercise should help you lose a pound a week.
So, you come out at around 1300 calories for the day (calories burned through exercise included)

Make sense?

Hehe, so I included dinner in my caloric calculation for the day and it only came out to be about 1089 cals. So, I suppose I need to definately start eating more, eh? :)

Yes-eating below 1200 calories a day for a long period of time and your body will conserve calories and not burn them as fast. It thinks you are in a famine and is trying to save your life. :lol:

Oh, I SO love the way bodies work! LOL

Anyway, even when I was starting and counting my calories I could never get my calories up past like 1100! I suppose I need to start adding a variety of foods to my diet! I've realized that the foods I listed earlier in the post are like the only foods I eat! LOL I suppose I need to do some reading again and refresh my memory! :)

I still think my scale is screwed though. This morning I weighed 227 and tonight I weigh 222?!! I still don't understand it.

Your weight will fluctuate by a couple pounds almost all of the time-depending on the time of month, how much water you are holding, if you have just eaten or drank a great deal-or NOT drank or eaten a great deal-or if you need to go to the bathroom, or just went.
That is why you shouldn't be jumping on the scale all the time-once a week is sufficient to get an idea of your progress and where you are.
Getting on the scale more than once a day just doesn't make any sense. If you weigh 200 pounds-and then go scarf a 10 oz. Lean Cuisine and a 12oz. can of Diet Coke and jump right back on the scale-there is a good possibility you are going to now weigh 201 until you digest it and/or go to the bathroom.

The body is a complex machine and it makes no sense to be on the scale all of the time with so many small variables. I only weigh in now about every two weeks...sometimes only once a month. I concentrate mostly on how my clothes feel, my progress during my workouts, and staying on my eating plan. Over the time the scale will go down-but I am in this for life. No hurry.

Yes, stay off that scale!!! Weigh once a week if you must. Pay attention to the way your clothes fit ... that gives me more motivation than the number on the scale. :D

I would say get a newer, better quality scale. I have noticed the cheapie ones seem to respond as much to sun spots, wind direction and planet allignment as your actual weight.

I weigh like twice a week, but that's only because it keeps me honest. Without the threat of an impending weigh-in, I will snack more. It's just the way I am. If you can stand to only weigh in fortnightly then you are probably better off.

Hi CemetarySiren! Congrats on losing those 60 lbs BTW, before I say anything else. :)

I have to say that there are a couple things you said that worry me -- first is that counting calories became an obsession for you, and the second is that you feel sick eating because you worry about getting fat. I don't want to jump to conclusions or anything, but those sound like they might be signs of disordered eating. Maybe I'm totally off base here, or maybe I've just read too much about eating disorders lately, but you might want to take a look at some info about anorexia and bulimia. Obsessive calorie counting and eating a very low-calorie diet (around 1000 cals or less per day) are some behaviors that are common with anorexia, and feeling sick when eating a lot sounds suspiciously like it might lead to purging. You don't have to be skinny to be anorexic.

Like I said before, if I'm totally off base I'm really sorry (I don't mean to offend you or anything). I think it's good to know about eating disorders even if you don't have one, so that you can try to avoid developing one.

Hi cemetary siren, I'm glad you're looking at upping the calories, it makes sense.

Just a note about Resting Metabolic Rate, I got this definition from 24hourfitness.com

"Your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) is the minimum number of calories your body needs to support its basic physiological functions, including breathing, circulating blood and all of the numerous biochemical reactions required to keep you alive. Your RMR is generally 60-75% of your total daily caloric expenditure."

So you are burning around 1700 calories sitting around on your butt, doing nothing. If you were to ADD your daily activity to this (walking to and from the refrigerator, to and from the bathroom, around the block, up the stairs, etc), you will burn MORE than 1700 calories a day, probably closer to 2300 or 2400, it's this amount of calories that you need to maintain, you shouldn't eat fewer calories than your RMR because your body goes into starvation mode. It is perfectly possible to lose weight eating 1700 calories a day (I'm grossing out around 1650 a day and losing a pound or two a week).

Just thought I'd clarify that ;)

But I agree with everybody on this post, WEIGH LESS, EAT A LITTLE MORE AND VARIETY! :grouphug:

Good job on the weight loss and I agree with a lot of what everyone else has said

but, Hey just a quick note on the scale. I am totally scale obsessed and I'm trying to accept it but I have found that I get drastically different results because the floor my scale is on isn't solid. It has a low carpet so it depends how I stand on it. So if your scale is crazy fluxuating, I would try and find a room with a hard wood or tile floor and don't move the scale around on the floor. Also your clothes and food and all the other stuff you ate can affect your weight but I'm sure you know all that.

i dont have anything to add being new and all, but hang in there....

congrats on how you are doing so far..