Hello, showing my face after lurking for a while!

Hiya :wavey:

im switching to slimfast & calorie counting after a few disappointing months on slimming world. have been reading all your posts and very impressed with everyones losses!

im trying to work out how many cals i should have a day. slimfast suggests 1300 but i feel thats too many. myfitness pal says i should have minimum 1265 and that will be a 1lb loss, i really want to go for 2lb though it says i need 1000cals for 2lb losses, is that too little?

also, do you eat the cals you earn by doing exercise? for example, could i stick to a 1200c diet. then do a bit of exercise to bump the 200cals off and round it off to 1000cals?

sorry to bombard with questions in my first post

A woman needs at least 1200kcal a day just to function normally without any damage to organs etc. Eating less than that will play havoc on your metabolism.

Most people who calorie count eat around 1500kcal a day, coupled with exercise (which is the key, really). It helps to vary the amount you have each day - so maybe 1500 one day, 1250 the next, 1400 the day after that etc. - to keep your metabolism in check.

Basically, if you average around 1500kcal and exercise as often as you can (I usually aim for at least 3 times a week), you should lose 1-2lbs a week.