That's because it's very hard to come with a number that will be the right
one for YOU! Except for pluging you to a device that will calculate how much
oxygen you burn, there is no way to know exactly how many calories you need.
You can search for my posts and others in the "calories per day" thread
about that.
So, each site has its own formula, which they believe is the best. Also,
each site has its own definition of what exactly is "light" or "moderate"
activity, and you probably have your own as well, which is usually
over-evaluated ;)

That's why some people, myself included, suggest that you just eat your
regular amount of food for a week or so (I think balancing caloric intake on
the week rather than the day is both more accurate and flexible) while
writing down everything you eat. Then, you can calculate how many calories
you have been eating, and, assuming you were naturally maintaining weight,
that will be a much better estimation than any site can come with. Then, you
can lower than amount *a bit*, like removing 300-400 calories from it and
see what happans during the next week or so. Rinse&repeat until you find
something you are comfortable with, both in term of hunger and weight loss
(3lbs per week is a max), only doing *little* changes at a time.

Another strategy is to use your hunger and satiety as a clue, if these
signals are still good quality for you. Your brain gathers information from
all around your body and computers them. It knows your body fat better than
any tanita scale, it knows how many calories have been made available from
food... Then, it does all the computation and just switches on the green
light to tell you to eat, and the red light to tell you to stop - hunger and
satiety. For many people, this mechanism is pretty messed up because they
have learnt to ignore it (diets, eating disorders, in a few cases metabolic
problems...). But if it still works for you, or if you can tune to it again,
that's probably the most accurate way of managing your caloric intake.

Most of those formulas are based on certain assumptions that may or may not
be true for you.

I agree with what Lictor posted, and think that the whole focus on calorie
counting is difficult and error prone.  It's hard to accurately count
calories in what we eat.  And, even if you do, that's only the "in" side of
the equation.  If I eat 2000 calories on Friday and 3000 calories on
Saturday...what does that mean?  If I spent Friday sitting at the computer,
but rode my bike 40 miles on Saturday, I probably lost more weight on
Saturday.  Unfortunately, as hard as it is to count the calories "in",
counting the calories "out" with any degree of accuracy is next to
impossible.

From what I've read on the subject, the key to weight loss is to achieve a
daily caloric deficit of around 500 calories per day (which will yield about
1 lb of weight loss per week).  But, how do you do that given the
difficulties of counting calories in and out?

While researching this, I realized that my digital scale could provide some
answers.  So, I started weighing myself every day.  But, after doing this
for a while, I noticed a problem...weight changes quite a bit from day to
day.  Variations of 2-4 pounds are not uncommon (due to many natural causes,
in addition to that container of Haagen-Dasz!).

Fortunately, the problem of "variability" in data has been addressed in
other fields.  Scientists and stock market analysts use a technique called
"linear regression" to filter out the daily ups and downs in their data.
So, I decided to write a program to do this for weight management.

It's a weight and health diary called "WeightWare"
(http://www.WeightWare.com).  It includes tools to assess your current
weight, set reasonable weight goals, and track your progress.  The key
feature, however, is the automatic calculation of your "Weight Trend".
Using the linear regression calculations, this will tell you exactly how
much weight you are losing or gaining per week, along with your calculated
daily calorie deficit (or surplus).  These important numbers are derived
solely from your weight, not from counting calories.  I'm hopeful that it
can be a useful tool in weight management (it's helped me get to my lowest
weight in 15 years).

You can download a free, fully functional 45-day trial version from the
website to see if it meets your needs.  Sorry for the somewhat lengthy plug,
but I've been working really hard on this program, and just officially
released it this morning (yeah!).

I doubt anybody is going to maintain weight
after losing on 3100 calories unless they are
working at a heavily physical job plus
exercising in a lot of their spare time.

2000 IIRC is based on at least 30 straight
minutes of moderate physical activity a day.
Needlework (my passion) or office work
like using a computer doesn't qualify as
moderate, that is why as more and more
people do office work the population gets
more and more obese -- in their spare time
they are not working out but watching TV.

Beverly probably has better data.

continuing from my reply to Gary G's post in this thread...

a) read the Hacker's Diet

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/hackdiet.html

There's a lot of good wisdom on dieting in this book.

You'll need to find this by trial and error.

Me, I was on a stable weight for most of 2003 (after cutting out the
Mt Dew), so I just figured cutting about 1000 kcal out would give me
the 1000 kcal/day deficit I needed.

But the important thing (for me at least) is to INSTRUMENT your daily
diet.

I've been updating a worksheet in Excel daily for this.

Every day I enter my weight, and the spreadsheet does the rest:

Eg. today says:

Weight: 206.5   (this is the actual scale weight I type in)
Averaged Weight: 208.4 (this is the running average, see below)
Daily Gain/Loss Trend: -0.624 (today's average - yesterday's average)
Gain/Loss Delta: +0.338 (the Gain/Loss number - my desired loss rate,
which is 0.286 lbs/day)
Over: 26.4 (how many lbs I'm over my goal weight of 182)
Goal %: 45.1% (how far I am toward my goal weight)
BMI: 27.49 (current BMI)

(plus 2 more numbers that I'll keep proprietary for now, since they're
a pretty nifty innovation that I tempted to patent LOL).

Anyway, the most important number is the Averaged Weight, since it
provides a pretty good estimate of your true weight even as it goes up
& down each day due to daily fluctuations.

The averaging calculation is pretty simple:

Today's average = yesterday's average + (today's weight - yesterday's
average ) * 0.25

So basically if I drop a lb today, the average will drop 0.25.
If I gain a 2 lbs for some reason, the average will only rise 0.5.

This provides a smoothing effect for the daily numbers that really
helps keep a good picture of your weight loss when graphed; see Gary
G's website for how the graphs look, or here:

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/www/subsubsection1_2_4_0_4_4.html#SECTION024044
0000000000000

I heartily recommend Gary's product, for while I haven't used it it's
doing exactly what I'm doing with Excel, and for $25 it seems like a
good deal.

You can do a free assessment in this site (no need to be a member or to
submit your e-mail address to the site). The results are displayed in a
java-script pop-up window.

http://www.caloriescount.com/

That's where I found out how many calories I needed to consume a day in
order to lose weight.

Good luck.

Vlupina

Thankyou again to those that have replied.

I am left wih an understanding that the question that I posed does not allow
an exact answer that can be applied to each and every person. Maybe I should
not have expected one although there does seem to be many "professional"
bodies of people insisting that they have one...!!!

I don't want to become too obssessed or focussed on this diet as I do
recognised that I can have certain traits which means for me that I will
either feast or famine. I do though want to have an understanding of the
balance of nutrients needed within a daily calorific intake, I was
underestimating the value of protein, and be aware of the nutritional value
of the food that I am eating.

If I had already got that right then I wouldn't have become almost 17st.

Is there an "agreed" maximum weight loss per week that is ideal and why..?
In the UK there was a programme (Celebrity fit club) with one person who
weighed around 22st and she was given a target of 4lbs to lose over two
weeks following a diet and extensive physical exercise. A doctor,
psychologist and physical trainer monitored their progress each week.  Now
her, and the other people on that show, were there to lose weight and they
were filmed over many months but I could not understand that if you have the
potential to lose that much weight then surely you would expect it to "fall"
off you if your calorie intake is them modified to only what you "need" and
not what you desire....?

Understanding the above did not surprise me on my initial weight loss from
eating around 3500 to 4000 calories a day that I was having to the 1200 or
so that I have now been on for the last 11 days and increased physical
work - as I can do it.

I will have a look at that and if I try it out I will post my feedback and
thoughts. My wife too is dieting with me and she has read through the
information already.

Thankyou I am having a good read of the site and I will try that out.

If you don't mind explaing that why would it happen....?

Bob