Hey guys. Ive just got a quick question. My current weight is about 270. Im trying to lose lbs. I started tracking my diet and saw I was only taking in about 1200-1400 cals a day. I thought that was way too low, so I have tried to bump it up to at least 2000 a day. I try to shoot for 2000-2300 a day. Ive looked at a few calorie intake calculators online. If Im reading right, it looks like I need around 3000-3100 to maintain my current weight. So I figure to lose 1-2 lbs a week, I need to get about 2000-2300 cals a day. I work out 3 days a week, do cardio every day, so Im pretty active. Is that a good number of calories to shoot for with a goal of weight loss? Im still learning, so Im trying to make sure Im not getting too less or too much. Thanks.

That sounds a little low to me, but not too far off.

Best thing to do is try it for a couple weeks, see what happens. It is safe to lose 1% of your body weight each week, so for you, that's 2-3 pounds. As you get lighter, you'll need to scale that back to 1-2 pounds. If you're losing much more than this, add calories back.

If you've been taking only 1200-1400 calories / day, I would suggest bumping up to maintenance (3000) for a week or two, just to give your body a chance to recover from that. Since 3000 is maintenance, you shouldn't gain any weight, except maybe from water, but that's easy to lose. You see, the problem with such a low calorie diet, is that your metabolism drops dramatically because your body is in "starvation mode" so it conserves energy as much as possible, burning as few calories as possible. We want to start this good fat loss program with your body being free with calories, giving them away quickly, not hourding them. So, I would suggest 3000 calories for a week or two, then cutting back to 2100 calories and monitor your weight for two weeks. If you're losing 2-3 pounds / week, then keep it there. Adjust up or down by 300 calories each week if less or more than 2-3 pounds / week.

That's my advice. Hope it helps. Welcome to JSF. Glad you're here.