How high can you go?

My boyfriends is over 2000, which is annoying when mine's 1260! I think it just depends on how much you weigh and how tall you are. If you're taller or weigh more, your body burns more calories in a day doing normal things. Also, it would depend on your activity levels. I think this is why, although it doesn't stop me getting jealous of my boyfriend!! Lol.

Also, I think I could go up to like 1400 and still lose, but it would be way slower than now!

Mine is 1950, but I'm maintaining... So I guess I'm no help for this question. :ohwell: Oops.

1200 is definitely a baseline and i definitely think it's possible to lose weight by sticking to this. it depends what you're eating too though, so try to get the most out of your calories!! you don't want to still be hungry, you need to eat foods rich in proteins, etc.
i know that before i started tracking my calories again i would graze all the time, and probably ended up eating easily 500 calories daily over 1200....but because i wasn't tracking, i wasn't accountable for it!! andddd hello easy weight gain!

I could probably go up to about 1800 and still be losing. However, I still have a lot of weight to lose, so its coming off easier for now.
Im currently at 1500 and see (appox) 1.3lb loss a week, although its set at 1.6lbs.

It depends on how much you have to lose. The less you have to lose the less calories you get.
When I was losing I only had 1200. Now I have 1400 to maintain.

My maintenance is about 2300. So yes, I've eaten 2000 PLUS exercise calories and lost weight. I'm a big (5'9"), active woman. If I'm as big as a man, there's nothing to say I can't eat as much as a man....

Right now I'm trying to bulk (add muscle mass) so I am eating an average of 2800 calories plus exercise and I track a weekly average so that some days I'm well over 3000.

I think in general, women on this site could eat more than they do and still lose weight (and be happier).

I maintain at 3000, I'll lose consistently eating anything less than that. Keep in mind I'm a man, so that may skew my results a bit. :laugh:

It also depends on what you weigh. I'm early in the program and just slipped under 300. I was very suprised to find out that my baseline was about 2100 calories. Makes me shudder to think I've spent many days at 4000+. Old conventions are what did me in. I have fought counting calories my entire adult life because I knew I could do it my own way. What a delusion that turned out to be. So, I finally decided, I have to do something different and here I am! Five days and feeling good.

I am on 1910 at the moment, I am 5'11 and 111kg. On days I work out you will see me eat more than 2000kcal.
Fact is, we are not all the same. The 2000kcal is a guidance only, based on facts from a survey (no pictures this we measure a certain amount of women in world population and find the averga, then we make our guidelines for the average women).
Take for example the average height of german women (apparently 5.5) or in the UK (5.4 1/2)...
Now, it's also important what your goals are. Are you looking for the quick fix and want to lose as much as possible in the shortest time possible? Or are you actually looking to get away from dieting and just want to change your life style, therefore lose slow but most likely, once you have reached your goal will be able to maintain it without having to fight food for the rest of your life.

So, lots of factors that influence your calorie count, not everyone is the same.

There are people that are overweight because they've worked up to eating 8000 calories a day in order to maintain their mass. They could eat 7500 calories and start losing.

There are 3,500 calories in a pound. So to loose one pounder week Your average calories per day need to be 500 less than your maintenance level. Two pounds equals a 1,000 calories under your maintenance level per day. So depending on your goals some people can eat more than others. Also don't feel like a failure if your goal is two pounds a day and you go over your goal slightly because anything under 1000 calories is still leading to weight loss and should be considered gain. It will just take longer to get to your goal.

I set my goals based on the formulas I was taught in my nutrition classes since it was my minor. Specifically, I go with the formula that uses lean body mass instead of total body weight and activity level not counting exercise so that I can add more for exercise per MFP. My maintenance calories for a highly active person not counting exercise is 2957, which is what I have set as my goal on here. I set it as my goal so that after I add my exercise calories I can do one calculation (multiplying the total goal after exercise by 80%) to get the minimum number of calories I need for the day. I haven't been logging recently because I'm getting into my routine of my internship for my exercise physiology major so time has been scarce, but I'm pretty consistent with what I eat so I'm not worried about it. While I've only lost 14 pounds on the scale in the last year, I've also cut my body fat by 15% so the difference in what I lost in fat and what I lost on the scale is the addition of lean tissue, so obviously a high calorie intake is working great for me.