New and Need a little Guidence...

Hello, I am very glad I found this site.  After doing atkins for a year and a half and losing 120lbs, I had 2 babies and gained 75 of that back and am more than miserable.

I have tried and tried and tried to do Atkins again and while I know its great intitally for weight loss, it just is not feasable to me for the long haul.  Im trying to re learn doing this the right way.

My stats tell me I should consume around 1330 cal p.day to see weight loss.  My questions would be, at what lb increments in loss should I recalculate that figure?  I know that will go down as I lose weight, when Is a good time to or how often should I re-calculate?

I hope that made sense.....

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to CC.  I joined at the end of March, so am a relative newbie as well.

You might want to consider starting at a higher calorie count than 1330 if you have 75 pounds to lose.  I don't know how tall and active you are, but if you could start at something closer to 1500 to 1700 calories now it might make it easier to find a sustainable way of eating both to lose and then to maintain once you are at goal.  Also, if you can add in at about 30 minutes of movement (even taking a walk) each day, it will give you a few more calories to play with.  I also think it may help offset the necessity to revise your calorie target as you drop weight, since muscle seems to be more active metabolically.  I know that I am still dropping weight at about the same rate, even though I haven't changed my calorie target and have now lost a fair bit of weight (but I still have lots to go).

I played with the tools when I first started, plugging in various weights, including my goal weight, to see what maintenance would look like.  Then I chose my calorie target to be about 500 less than my current burn at light activity.  I actually find that I am closer to moderate activity, so the weight has been dropping a little faster than 1 pound per week. 

This means I am only eating about 200 calories less than will be maintenance at goal weight, which means that my weight loss will slow quite a bit as my weight drops, but it is teaching me good habits all along the way, and helps me with my mindset that this isn't a diet, it is a new way of life.  And really, as long as my weight is going down and my health is improving, it doesn't really matter when I get to goal weight.

I really recommend that you go through the Ask Mary archives, there is a lot of great information there.  Also, I am reading Thin for Life, which Mary recommended in a recent answer, which also has some great advice about customizing your strategy.  Good luck!