Hi, ok so Ive been doing the calorie counting thing for about a month now. I've lost 14 pounds but am confused about the number of calories im supposed to eat. It says 1778 calories to reach my goal by august. but i plan on reaching it before then. Also, other calorie counters have told me up to 2000 calories. What do i believe? As my weight has been stalled now for awhile and I feel it is because of my lack of calorie counting knowledge.
It's hard to say, since you don't provide any info - height, weight, age, activity level?
true enough, sorry!
I'm 22 years old, 5'8, currently 226 pounds. I go to the gym 3 days a week for about 45/60 mins. I do mostly cardio (bike, elliptical) and a bit of weight training. I also swim once a week. Hope that helps!
According towww.phord.com/cc you should be eating about 1800 calories a day to lose1.62 lbs per week. I like that calculator because it recommends that you don't eat less than your BMR, which I think is important to making sure your metabolism doesn't drop too much. That was with the calculator set to "a little more active", which I may be wrong about since I don't know how active you are when you're not working out. You could easily be closer to moderate, which would mean that by eating your BMR you should lose 2 lbs a week.
Play with that calculator a little - it has a lot of information, and I feel like I learned a surprising amount just from using it.
I also use the phord calculator. I like it because it doesn't recommend dropping in caloric intake too much too soon ~ just enough to keep me from going into a complete plateau.
The CC website told me to go from 1600 to 1400 in a matter of days, whereupon I completely STOPPED losing. As soon as I went back to the phord, I was recommended 1577, easy enough...and started to lose almost immediately again!
So, this is a recommendation that I heartily second! 
Original Post by krista1987:
Ive been doing the calorie counting thing for about a month now. I've lost 14 pounds...
14 pounds is a lot to lose in a month (1 lb every two days?) If you go below a certain daily calorie level your body thinks you are in the middle of a famine and starving, so it slows your metabolism and holds on to every pound it can. Given your rapid weight loss, I suspect you aren't eating enough to lose weight (ironic, huh.)
One thing that helps when you have plateaued is to vary your exercise routine. If you've been doing an aerobic exercise (like walking or jogging), try calesthenics (like p90x) or weight training for a while. Shock your body out of its rut by doing something different.
I tried the phorbs cal and now I am confused. When I left the body fat % blank, it said
EAT 1566 cal BURN 1879 cal LOSE 0.63 lb per weekbut when I put in my % of 43.6 (according to my Tanita scale) I get
EAT 1429 cal BURN 1715 cal LOSE 0.57 lb per weekSo does that mean I have less body fat for my weight than the average person or more?
It doesn't really mean anything. Everyone stores fat differently, and the phord calculator, like all online calculators, isn't really all that accurate for body fat %. It's just not something that can be measured accurately using only a few measurements and a calculation, because there's too much variation. The scale's method is much more accurate than the site, and a water submersion test would probably be the most accurate method you could use.
