I've been reading alot of posts on here that say if your not eating enough calories you will actually gain weight, so since every person is different, how can you find out how many calories are right for you.....

some posts say 1200 min....but is that for everyone???

please help....i might be doing more harm than good...

I'd say for someone your size you don't want to go lower than 1200 calories/day. If you were 4'11 tall and very small-boned or something, maybe you could go lower without causing harm. I'm close to your size, and in my history of losing weight the lowest I ever went was 1200 cal/day, and that was only for a couple of weeks. It's really hard to eat that little, at least for me. And if you're exercising at the same time--which you should be--that's not going to be nearly enough calories for you to be healthy.

If you exercise, you can eat way more than 1200 cal/day and still drop pounds. I've lost weight at a reasonable pace by eating 1600 cal/day and by working out most days of the week (running). Life is a lot more pleasant when you're not starving all the time. And besides, you're a lot more likely to be able to keep the weight off if you lost it in a healthy, moderate fashion. If you cut your calories down too low, eventually you'll have to start eating more, and you'll probably regain since you're body has gotten used to a borderline-starvation diet.

Hippie girl,
Hi there. I haven't heard of too many people actually 'gaining' on too few calories but have heard of LOTS of people who just maintain and can't lose when they consume too few calories.

Good for you on checking it out.

I think that Jenny had some good advice for you. Around 1600 is probably really good. You have to find a place that you can still lose but that can become a habit for life. Why starve yourself to lose for a couple of weeks and then gain it all, and more, back.
This is the time to build some great habits that will carry you through for years.

You are at a good site for advice on building healthy habits and on healthy weight loss. Glad you are here.

You can also vary your calorie and exercise minutes each day. I don't mean have a 4000 calorie day one day and an 800 calorie day the next,:tomato: But you can vary it some. You can also leave your calories as is, if you are maintaining, and add more exercise minutes. But you would have to add enough exercise minutes to burn 3600 calories, the kcalories in one pound of fat! :D