How many calories a day?

I had surgery 11 months ago and have lost 68 pounds. I would like to lose another 10-15. My weight hovers around 142 at 5'2" and I walk 60 minutes a day burning around 300 calories. I am not complaining. I wear a 6 or 8 and size small most of the time but I am not finished and certainly do not want to start gaining anything back. Mindless snacking has begun to sneak back in to my life. Should probably go back to the nutritionist but.....

just curious about what others are doing in terms of calories per day, etc.

Please reply if you would like to share what you do.

Thanks!

Ellen

I am almost 13 months out, not quite at goal so still losing and I'm eating between 1000-1200 calories daily; 1400 when I work out.  I aim for 80-100 grams of protein daily, 128 oz of water, and I generally keep my carbs below 80 g daily (most days they come from fiber in beans and veggies, whole grains).  It's worked for me so far.

My doc is good with this for me.

When I want to lose a few pounds, I still go back to eating under 1000 calories.  Usually, I try to stay around 800-1000 during weight loss (although I stayed under 800 in my original weight loss, but it's to hard to go back there now).  I keep my protein over 100 grams and my carbs under 40.  

In maintenance, I eat closer to 1200-1800 calories a day, most days closer to 1500 and keep my carbs under 80-100 grams.  

I've been eating typically about 1000 -1200 per day.  I am 5'10 and 7 months out and work out ALOT.   I burn about 500 - 1000 calories / day.  

Stacy,

Good for you. Thats a lot of working out. Keep up the good work.

Robin

Thanks!  I have really enjoyed being amazed by what my body can do.  I ran a mile today in 7:19.  When I was a varsity multi-sport collegiate althete - I 9 min mile was pushing it hard.  When we treat our bodies right and build up slow, we can be much stronger than be think we are.

I try for 500-800 a day mostly around 800, 80 protein 30 carb

I think most people over estimate how many calories they burn exercising, It would be hard to burn 300 cal walk for 1 hour 

the way to lose is to eat less calories

It is not hard to burn the calories if a person walks 4.4 miles per hour, which I do. Do you exercise?

I definitely agree that food is the way to lose weight.  When I run for an hour I burn between 500 - 800 calories depending on speed / hills etc.  That takes an hour.  I could easily demolish 800 calories in 10 minutes -- even with the sleeve.  

I think exercise is great for keeping our metabolisms humming, but we need to stay diligent on our food intake. 

My first year post-op, I worked out a lot and built up a lot of muscle and it really kick-started my metabolism so I'm not sure how typical I am. But I find that I maintain on about 1500-1700 calories a day. That's with light working out. I'm in my 50s and 5ft tall with a "normal" BMI. If I do more strenuous working (over 3 hours a week or lots of strength training or lots of high intensity stuff), I end up around 2000 calories a day.

The rule of thumb is that people typically multiple the weight they want to be by 10 if they are sedentary or 11-14 if they are active and that's how many calories it takes to maintain that weight. So for me, eating 1500-1700 calories, I maintain around 120-125 lb. When I was MO and not very active, I weighed about 225 and ate about 2250 calories a day so the 10x number worked pretty well for me then.