Need some confirmation please!

Hi! I've been calorie counting for about 6 months now and I just need some confirmation about how many calories to eat since my weight loss has slowed.

A little history,

Female, 38 yrs old, 5' 4"

SW 288

CW 231

The first 2 months I ate 1500 calories (I decided that on my own before I found Calorie Count) and the weight seemed to come off rather easily (no exercise).

Then I found this web site and upped my calories to 1700 (still no exercise).  After a month of that I added walking, 2.2 miles 3 times a week (took me about an hour).  Still the weight came off at about 2lbs a week.

Two months ago I upped my walking to 5-6 times a week, still 2.2 miles but I could walk it in 40-45 minutes.  This is when my weight loss slowed.  I know some of it is due to muscle gain but I'm wondering if my calorie goal for the day is too low?  I work in a factory all day constantly walking around. 

Any opinions?

Well I can tell you, weight loss will slow as you lose weight because your basic calorie needs change as you get smaller. I've found if you want to speed up your weight loss, sometimes it workd to eat a couple hundred more calories than usual for a week or two then go back to what you were doing before.

I would up the cals again. You are pretty active and still pretty large, so you are burning a lot moving your body around. You burn 2100 cals as a sedentary person, and 2700 at 'moderate activity level, 3000 at very active. If you are eating only 1700, you may be cutting too close to the 1000 calorie deficit "limit" and triggering some conservation mode. Try upping to 1900 and see if that helps.

At some point, you will possibly have to reduce your intake, when you've lost a lot of the remaining weight. But that is in the future, and rather than cut back, you will probably have more success continuing with the higher intake and allowing a slower loss. High rates of loss, like yours--consistently losing 2 lbs/week--are really hard to maintain as you get closer to goal weight. Frustrating if you are used to seeing the scale drop like that, but realistically, it's better to let the loss slow down naturally and to be eating more like you will when you get to goal.

And congratulations; you are doing a great job!! Good luck with the rest.

First of all, congrats not only on the weight loss, but the healthy diet and exercise. Changing your lifestyle is no easy task. Plateaus are really frustrating but often inevitable as your body adjusts to less calories. I would first calculate your basal metabolic rate here:

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Then multiply by your activity level and subtract 500. With your activity level, I would say that you are very active, especially given the physical activity at your job. I work a desk job, usually get some walking in a day at work, and then go to the gym or do some kind of vigorous physical activity 4-5 times a week and I put myself as "lightly active."

Hit that calorie goal and you should be good! Keep up the good work.

Congrats on your current progress. All good advice above---but how about walking for an hour and increasing the distance?! Add in some simple weight lifting too. (10-15 push ups against the wall, 10-15 squats, standing chest press -- with maybe 5-8 pound weights--less if that is too high). I think your body is getting USED to the activity level. You might try jazzing it up.... with a little hike or something.

KEEP up the GREAT JOB!

Thanks everyone!  I think I burn more calories at work than I think creating a big deficit.  I'm going to try upping my calories a bit and vary my exercise and see if that helps. Thanks!