Hello from B'more City

Hey all.  I'm 37, married for 15 years and counting, and I have 3 beautiful children.  I'm 5'6" and my top weight was 215lbs.  I got down to 185lbs about 2 yrs ago, went back up to 200lbs, and am now 193lbs and losing.  I've been counting calories for only 2 weeks now, and I have to say that it is both effective and a royal pain in the neck.  I'm going to continue counting calories for the time being, but I hope to be able to stop once I've established healthier habits. 

My threshold for stopping the calorie counting is 175 lbs.  I've always walked a lot, but I've been trying to pick up the pace and take longer routes to my usual destinations in order to get a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate aerobic walking 5x a week.  I'm also trying (so far unsuccesfully) to get to the Y to use the weight machines 3x a week.  Besides walking and weights, I try to sneak in small amounts of exercise at home (leg lifts, yoga, etc), at the pool (water aerobics during adult swim, laps) and while running errands (I always park as far away as possible, walk briskly in the stores, stretch and do calf lifts while in line, etc.)

I've promised myself, and I'm currently saving for, a $200 shopping spree at j.jill once I'm down to my goal weight of 130lbs.  I dressed all grungy and punk back when I was slim as a teen and young 20something, but now I often see pretty skirts and things I'd like to be able to wear and look fabulous in, so it's a great incentive.  It's also helped me be more budget-conscious -- always a good thing.  I'm pretty confident that I'll lose the weight and gain muscle mass without too many plateaus or (saints forbid) weight gains.  I've never really tried very seriously to do this before and although sticking to 1200 calories is hard (in the past 3 weeks my best record is 4 days in a row!) getting my exercise in and avoiding really bad foods has been relatively painless.

Looking forward to sharing in everybody's journey here!

hey minuseighty - actually, at your size and activity level, you should be eating more than 1200 - there's no point in making this harder than it has to be.

Based on www.phord.com/cc (which tends to have easier to understand activity levels), if you are a little more active (exercise or sports 2-4 days/week), you should be burning between close to 2300... which means that you could be eating 1600-1800 and lose between 1 and 1.5 lb/week.

If you only eat 1200, you'll have a deficit of more than 1000 - not recommended!

Honestly, undereating can be just as bad as overeating - and like I said at the top, there's no reason to make this harder than it has to be.

Thanks Amethyst -- I spent part of the afternoon playing around with various bmr calculators (including the one you linked) and I'm revising my calories upward with a sigh of relief! I'm also realizing that my original goal of losing 3 lbs a week is probably not attainable.  I thought that since I'm so heavy I could start out losing quickly, but it looks like 1lb-2lbs per week is more reasonable.  It's hard to be patient about the pounds dropping, but I know it's the only healthy way to do this.

That sounds great, minuseighty - best of luck!