Increase calories by how much?

Hi all,

I'm a 20-year-old student who has a long history with weight issues.  At 5'2" at 14, I was 165 lbs.  I went on Weight Watchers and was at 5'3" and 130 by age 16.  I've been maintaining between 130 and 135 ever since.  I'm now trying to get down to 120, since I have a small-to-medium frame.

I had been eating an average of 1300 calories a day for a while, and doing either 35 minutes of cardio or 75 minutes of power yoga 5-6 times a week.  I also walk a lot, since I live on an urban university campus and I make the 10-15 minute walk between my dorm and class several times a day.  I got down to 125, but as soon as midterms came around and I had too much work to go to the gym, I quickly shot up to 128.  I then went on a one-week field study in Florida, where the food we were served was usually slathered in margarine, followed by 3 days at home in NYC, where my mom tempted me with fruit tart and chocolate madeleines.  I did try to balance this out by eating small portions or as healthfully as possible when I could.  To my surprise, I lost a pound that week.

So now I'm aiming for an average of 1600 calories a day.  Does this make sense?

with your activity level, you should be able to eat 1600 calories and still lose slowly, but that's slowly...don't expect a huge loss because your burn is around 2000, so this puts you at a deficit of 400 calories, which is almost a pound a week but this is good since you're nearing your goal anyway. great job on the weight loss by the way, and i would increase to 1600 calories especially if it's more attainable for you.

I am also a college student and I just turned 21. I'm 5'3" and I was eating around 1400 calories for months and losing very slowly. I started at 137 and as of the end of February I finally hit 119. Then I upped my calories to 1600 and I quicly started losing, now I'm down to 112.8 as of this morning. I'd say up your cals!

Man, I use to have like have weight issues to, jus don be all like depressed. You go an show yo happiness, jus like i do girlfriend, and you stand all em haters up. Mhm, Ya!