How many calories should I be aiming for?

Hi there! My stats: 29 yrs old, 5'4'', SW 200 lbs, CW 192 lbs, GW 140 lbs.

When I started on MFP about 2.5 months ago I was set to lose 2 lbs/week, and MFP calculated a 1200 calorie daily budget for me. After a few weeks, when I started to add exercise (even though I was eating back my burned calories), I found 1200 was way too low for me and I was always hungry. So I changed my goal to lose 1 lb/week and it increased my daily calories to 1460. This has been MUCH easier to handle. I suggest you try it out at 1200 for a few weeks and then assess things. See how you are feeling and consider changing your goal if you find yourself really hungry, lacking energy, or feeling weak. Remember it's a slow process, you need to be patient with the weight loss.

Best of luck to you

Until someone answers who can explain better than me:
I would start by calculating how many calories you eat in an average day. I am certainly not an expert here but at your age, weight, you should absolutely be eating more than 1200 cals/day. Using a BMR/TDEE calculator, your BMR is about 1422 which is the amount of calories in a day your body burns even if you lay in bed all day long. Even a "couch potato" at your age should be eating around 1700. That is your TDEE.
There are a lot of helpful hints on this site. I personally do not believe in starvation mode, but I know if I am hungry, I am going to pig-out. So, you want to find a comfortable place. Good luck!

I do not think there is any such thing as starvation mode. That is just my personal belief. Are you not losing weight at 1200 calories?

"Starvation mode" is essentially a myth.

If you can eat 1200 calories (healthy calories, not processed food) and feel content, I say go for it.

I have a real hard time getting below 1600, but that's because I'm addicted to food

So I have been eating 1200 calories the last week and a half, and from what I can tell from your responses this is to little and I could force my body to go into starvation mode? Darn, this is exactly what I wanted to avoid.

With MFP you're supposed to eat back exercise calories...so you gross more calories than that. That said, you have to consider that a 2 Lb per week goal is very aggressive...that is 1,000 calories per day deficit from your theoretical NON EXERCISE maintenance number...with only 35ish Lbs to lose, it is very, very aggressive and I would suggest that you will have a difficult time adhering to this.

The way starvation mode is talked about here doesn't really exist...that said, you will stall out...and where do you go from there if you already have the pedal to the medal so to speak?

With the amount of weight you have to lose, your body is likely to respond better and you are likely to be happier with a 1 - 1.5 Lb per week loss rate goal tops...you will have to dial that back as you lean out because you simply won't have the fat stores to go fast.

I have about 10 cosmetic Lbs left to lose to get down to around 15% BF and I will tell you it is very slow...no sense in starving myself...I shoot for about 0.5 Lbs per week which really doesn't show up on the scale as anything in particular for a couple of months. I tell you this so that you understand that this is a process...not a 2 Lbs per week wham bam thank you ma'am kinda thing...I can pretty much guarantee you it's not going to work that way.

what cwolfman said - this guy knows what he's talking about

Phew you guys had me worried there. Well I've been eating 1200 calories and to be honest I've been satisfied with them. I don't really crave other things or want to eat more. Is it alright to go on aggressive weight loss as long as you can personally maintain it without getting depressed or overeating?

@cowwolfman I currently have no exercise calories as I don't exercise. I will probably start exercising in a few weeks but my life currently is very sedentary.

I guess I am kind of jumping the gun and wanting to lose loads right away, it is very possible that I should lower my goal to 1lbs or 1.5. However I want to try it at 2lbs until October since I start university then and I guess I want to lose as much as possible until then.

I guess the bottom line question is: as long as I'm happy with 1200 calories it's alright to eat that few?

Stop jumping the gun, then. "Losing loads right away" is never a good idea, unless you are morbidly obese to begin with (which looking at your stats you are clearly not). You didn't put on all the extra weight at the rate of 2 pounds a week, it is unreasonable to expect it to come off that fast.

My opinion - if you're happy on 1200 a day then stick with it for a while. If you start exercising then eat back your exercise calories. However if you start to feel unhappy/unwell/hungry all the time/not working for you etc then re-evaluate.

My data:

Age: 23
Height: 157cm (5"2)
Current Weight: 79.1kg (157 lbs)
Goal Weight: 55kg (121 lbs)
Activity level: Not active (However I might be singing up to a Gym soon!)

I guess most people don't use both kg and pounds but your numbers for your current weight are off. 79.1 kg is actually 174 pounds. Your goal weight conversion is correct. This could affect other people's BMR calculations and it shows that you've actually got more weight to lose. A lot of people would say it's safer to lose 2 pounds a week when you've got more than 50 to go compared to the 36 you've stated.