I need help with calorie intake

Ok. I thought I had been eating the right amount of calories but I have found out different.

I thought I was supposed to eat 1550 each day(I weigh 216,5 foot 3 inches tall,52 years old and female) I rechecked because I have stopped losing any weight. My BMI is 38.3 which is very over weight. Calorie Target is 1200(on sedentary is what I started at),Burn Meter 1900. What I'm asking is do I subtract from the burn meter calories 1900-500=1400? Or do I subtract from the 1200? If I do that I'll only have 700 calories and it will starve my body. I am confused about this as well as are a few others I see. I have been eating 1550 and haven't lost anything since Jan.7th. I haven't been doing much excerise at all right now as I have a pulled shoulder. Thanks!I need some help as fast as possible to correct this.

look i would suggest boosting your metabolism my friend i dnt know how many times i tellpeople this you boost your metabolism= more calories burned witch means you dont have to starve yourself 

I have tried that and I have ended up gaining another two pounds as of this morning.

If the burn meter says you burn 1900 at the sedentary level, keep aiming for 1550 and add some activity (doesn't even have to count as "exercise) and you will easily have a deficit of 500+.

If you add exercise, be sure to add food, maybe splitting the difference. For example, if you burn 300 extra, add another 150 in food. Remember not to let your deficit get over 1000. It's easy to do when you are still heavy b/c you burn so much with exercise. Big bodies take a lot of energy to move! That's the only "good news" I can find in being still big :)

Best of luck!

You have to take a more long term approach and have faith that lowering calories and increasing exercise will work...because barring a 1/100 chance of some medical condition stopping you, it does work for 99/100 people.   It doesn't work in days or weeks, it takes months or in your case a couple of years to get to where you want to go.  It took me about 4 years to go from 180 to 240 and it takes a year of very hard work or two years of pretty hard work to get back to 180.  You can do it by caloric deficit alone but for many people, your body simply adjusts it's metabolism to the lower calorie intake and little weight is lost.  By raising your heart rate and using muscles through exercise, you are sending a signal to your body to up your metabolism and burn more energy and if it can't find it in food because you are eating less, it will burn the fat stored in your body, which is exacty how things are designed to work.

I've had various minor aches and pains and injuries over the years. What I do is just avoid that area and exercise another area until it heals.  I hurt my shoulder once trying to lay 600 sq. ft of ceramic tile in 32 hours over two days so I just concentrated on low impact, lower body exercise for a while until it healed.  Walking would do the trick, elliptical machines etc. 

Hard work and committment never fails!!

Thanks everyone for the advice. Yes johnypenso I didn't get to this weight overnight I have been at my lowest 118 pounds at 20 to my largest which was 232 pounds at 52, this past August. This morning I had gained another 2 pounds putting my total weight gain back as 4 pounds. I'm not giving up by no means. I'm going to fight this weight off pound by pound. The problem with me is that sometimes I get down on myself about it. So I weigh 218 right now and have been yo yoing from 214 to 216 since Jan.7th and like I said this morning I had put the 2 extra ones on. I weigh every morning after going to the bathroom. I think I'll stop that and just start weighing in on Fridays from now on.

Original Post by mafabo:

Thanks everyone for the advice. Yes johnypenso I didn't get to this weight overnight I have been at my lowest 118 pounds at 20 to my largest which was 232 pounds at 52, this past August. This morning I had gained another 2 pounds putting my total weight gain back as 4 pounds. I'm not giving up by no means. I'm going to fight this weight off pound by pound. The problem with me is that sometimes I get down on myself about it. So I weigh 218 right now and have been yo yoing from 214 to 216 since Jan.7th and like I said this morning I had put the 2 extra ones on. I weigh every morning after going to the bathroom. I think I'll stop that and just start weighing in on Fridays from now on.

 That's what I do - weigh in on a weekly basis - otherwise it's an emotional trauma and discouragement sets in.  As woman - our weight will fluctuate depending on water weight/ cycle time etc.  Once a week is plenty to make sure you are on the right track.  Never give up - you are worth it.

Yes, your right we do deserve it. Thats why I love this site so much. Everyone is so helpful and I find that this site is the first one that really really does help me.

Sorry Mafabo, I didn't mean to discourage you...lol.  My apologies if I did.  My intent was to encourage you to look long term, really long term so as to get you over the little humps and bumps that happen to everyone along the way.  When I was in a weight loss phase, my goal was always 1 lb a week, but although I measured every day, I never tallied my success other than on a monthly basis.  So long as on the same day each month, if I had lost that 4-5 lbs, I considered it a success, no matter how I yo-yo'd in between.  Coming down from 240, that meant an outloook of about a year to get down to 190.  Of course I wanted success right away, but I tried not to get too excited about a day here or there or a week here or there, and focused on the plan and the work, and the results naturally came in time, with adjustments of course.  

A female friend of mine in her late 30's took about 18 months to go from 240 after two babies and letting herself go in an unhappy marriage (her words...lol), down to 135 by doing exactly that:..focusiing on the long term and sticking to her own  program.  And I can tell you, she had the best looking, size 7 butt in a pair of Tommy Hilfigers I've ever seen!!!  I would love for that to happen to you too Mafabo!!!..lol..

Wow johnnypeso your making me "Blush"Lol! No you didn't offend me. I know what I have to do now and I'm going to make it like I said one pound at a time. I've been sitting on my arse too long. Gotta get to moving more. Up until last year I walked two-three miles every other for three years,then I just got lazy and stopped putting back on 60 pounds,I had gotten down to 170. Thanks again. I do have a treadmill and a elliptical machine that I had started using again(used faithfully when I walked)but havn't used them but three times since I started over this time. I love to walk and excerise and I will start tommorrow on my treadmill the other will have to wait as my shoulder is still hurting and my machine has ski bars.

Original Post by johnnypenso:

 although I measured every day, I never tallied my success other than on a monthly basis. 

Bingo! This is really important and also, if one recognizes that, it helps you shift the focus from the numbers on the scale to the healthy habits you are developing.

My thinking often is, "I don't know what I'll weigh one month from now, but I do know that I can do these healthy things for myself TODAY and they are likely to pay off in some fat loss and improved health/outlook, so I'll do them NOW regardless of what the scale says."

Well done, jp and op!