I use 1500 net as a hard bottom. Generally I eat most of my exercise back. I'm still over 300 and average about 14 lbs a month. I also tend to weigh my food or eat the whole package of something (over the course of a week) figuring that way I capture all the calories, even if one day may have been a little higher than logged and another will be lower by the same amount.

You can't really rush the weight loss, and I have big fluctuations throughout the week I may put on three then take off 5 I figure that is my body just doing what it needs to do. So long as my graph's best fit line is headed in the right direction I try not to worry about it.

It took me 22 years to get to 378 I guess if it takes 3 to get where I want to be that is just the way the universe works.

You will probably be surprised how fast your life improves, out of proportion to your weight loss. I have to keep reminding myself that there are things I'm still to big to do (running) because I want to make sure I don't get injured.

i would never go below around 1700 - i weigh 183 now (5'6") and my bmr on fat to fit tells me to eat around 2200 calories. i will admit i have cut back lately - i was at 2000 plus exercise then eating it all and losing but then my weight popped up - now i'm at 1750 and not eating my exercise calories and i seem to have stalled as well. Still going to stick it out for the weight in but i'm not overly optomistic. I did read somewhere to eat your base (whatever your base would be) because your body needs the nutrients. It did say that you dont need to eat back calories if you didnt want to but it does recommend to from time to time. I like the ideology behind that and think its a good long term strategy. I do see some guys eating around 1000 calories - if i did that i'd be waking up with hunger. i do use the http://www.fat2fitradio.com/tools/mbf/ from time to time as well as a reminder of how i am doing.