Well, you can find lots of different "facts" like that if you read
enough stuff about dieting :-).  Clearly people have a wide range of
metabolisms, and there's not one magic number for everyone.  Some
people are successful losing weight with controlled very low calorie
diets (medically supervised -- on the order of 600 calories a day).
Others recommend a minimum of 8 or 10 times bodyweight.  I'm in a
pretty low-metabolism segment of the population -- post-menopausal
women -- and on top of that I have thyroid disease (treated with
medication).  On the other hand, I get more exercise than the average
older woman.  I don't let myself ever get significantly hungry -- and
I eat when I am hungry.  I haven't lost weight especially fast
compared to some people, but I didn't wish to and don't know that I
could have anyway.  I pretty much experimented to see what the right
calorie level was for me, and adjusted it over time as I lost weight.
Now I'm slowly trying to adjust it upward as I don't want to lose any
more weight (and in fact have lost two pounds since I began trying to
maintain, which I want to regain).

I don't know if you're male or female, but 1800 calories per day would
be a pretty high minimum for most women, I think. However, age,
activity level, current weight, and basal metabolic rate will all
affect that.  I expect the average woman probably wouldn't lose weight
very well at that calorie level unless she was quite a bit overweight
to begin with.  When I started out -- at 262 lbs. -- I aimed for 1650
calories a day.  

I think starvation mode is probably real -- up to a point, at least --
but I don't think many people would go into starvation mode on 1800
calories a day.  The counter argument you always hear to the concept
of starvation mode is, "Did you ever see a fat concentration camp
survivor?".  At some point everyone who is significantly
caloried-deprived will lose significant weight.  But I think the body
is good at resisting this, and calorie deprivation can slow down the
metabolism so that it doesn't happen very quickly.  I expect that
ensuring that one's calories are spent getting the right nutrients
would help inhibit this "hoarding" response by the body.

Really, it's an individual thing.  You need to experiment and adapt.

Chris
262/143/ (145-150)

Sounds like a good lunch!  What's salamino?  We have something called
salami -- maybe it's the same?

Chris (who ate a very big lunch today!)
262/143/ (145-150)