Calorie intake for the day

[twotoohappy]

I'm not sure if I'm taking in enough calories, because my weight loss has been slow. I know if you don't take in enough your body will go into a starvation mode and shut down. I think I'm eating plenty, but I'm not sure what a good rule of thumb would be for calories. (I'm 5'4" and 157 and soon to be 38years )
Any suggestions would be great. My plan is eating sensibly.
Thanks!

 

[clarabelle]

As a rule I have read (in more than one place)
no less than 1200 without a doctors supervision and a 500 calorie deficit/day should make for a one pound a week weight loss.
Here is an article on the Baylor med school site with a calorie calculator


http://public.bcm.tmc.edu/pa/caloriesneed.htm

 

[newholiday]

Doc told me last May not to go below 1200 calories each day

After I reached goal, Ive been maintaining at 2000 calories/day - some days more, some days I eat less to balance it (like right now cos of that darn bday cake & ice cream I need to eat less to balance what I ate this wknd!)

 

[DVCTiff]

Hi Two - I'm 5'4", about to be 38 (in Aug.) and I've weighed 157. Now I weigh 140 on my way to 128. There's an intricate way to find out how much your body needs for fuel every day and then you can try to eat below that by about 500 calories, as it's been said. I will try to find a link for that. For me, in a normal day, I need about 1470 so I would imagine yours might be around there. A 1200 calorie program should work great for you with nice steady results. If you exercise, you'll get even better results.