How many calories do you actually eat to lose weight?

[Zucker]

How many calories do you actually eat to lose weight? I am 5' 7" and weigh 11 stone 4 lbs, if I ate 1200 calories I would gain weight. If I ate the recommended 2000 calories for women I would be the size of a house. I walk a lot as exercise as history tells me my knees do not hold up to high impact anything.

So I'm wondering what are slim people actually eating to maintain and how much did you eat to lose?

I would like to get to about 9 stone 7 lbs. It seems to me I would be venturing into eating disorder teritory to lose this weight, I need help.

I'm the same and the only way I can lose weight is by doing the 5:2 diet because it's a shake up to my metabolism

Have you been checked for hypothyroidism?

Just googled hypothyroidism there, I don't think I fit for it. Although I can't afford the €65 doctors fee to find out either.

I am trying to lose weight. I eat 1200 calories a day and 1500 on the weekend. If I manage to stick to that I am losing 1-2ibs a week, although I find it hard to stick to as the calories quickly add up and I don't always feel satisfied. You need a deficit of about 3000 calories to burn 1ib of fat.

The daily recommended allowance for a woman is 2000 calories, you're fairly tall and moderately active so if you're only eating 60% of the recommended allowance and gaining weight then that suggests to me that something is wrong. Either you are under-estimating how many calories are in the foods that you are eating or there is a medical reason why you are not burning off calories. Even if you have a very slow metabolism I can't see how you could be gaining weight eating only 1200 calories a day unless there is a medical reason, that is a deficit of 800 calories a day against the RDA of 2000 so your body should be burning fat.

I keep a food diary in which I record every single thing that passes my lips and the number of calories in them. I realised when I started doing this how easy it was to over-eat, for example I might have three or four chocolate biscuits without even thinking if someone had brought a tin of biscuits to share. That's 300 calories (at 75 calories per biscuit) that I wouldn't even register or count previously. I make sure to write down every single thing I've eaten to make sure I am sticking to 1200, or at least so that when I've gone over I can see by how much.

If after completing a food diary you are definitely eating only 1200 calories and are gaining weight then I would definitely go and see a medical professional as it would definitely indicate that something is wrong to me.

I've just re signed up to mfp, so will start logging food from tomorrow morning on this new account, so I can't easily just add old entries and old food values and amounts.

Thanks for taking the time to reply crazykittensmile and LaurieFairyCake, I appreciate it.