calories

Ive never heard of that calculation before, but I really don't believe it to be valid whatsoever.

For example, if you weight 300 pounds, according to the calculation you'd have to eat 3300 calories in order to loose weight, which is just not going to happen.

Your body will go into "starvation mode" if you starve yourself significantly, or if you don't eat at the right times (e.g always eat breakfast even if it's just a couple almonds!). To be honest, I've gone through stages when I've eaten very few calories, and i never notice an adverse affect... I think the whole "starvation mode" concept really relates to people who consistently eat very, very little. The consistency is what sends a message to your body to go into starvation mode.

In fact, one of my girlfriends whose overweight asked her doctor about how to effectively loose weight and she said that you can essentially "trick" your body by eating very few calories one day, then a normal amount the next day, then very little the next day, and so on and so forth.

I would say try to stay around 1000 before taking into account your exercise and if you go drastically low one day, try to up your intake the next. As long as you don't make it a pattern, your body's metabolic rate shouldn't change.

Hope this helps!