How I have been losing weight (tough and tedious, but works)

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This is long, I know, but hopefully someone will find it useful! I have been working on losing weight for only about 5 weeks now, but I have lost 10 lbs in those 5 weeks. I started off cutting calories dramatically to what "experts" say should be a woman's minimum (1200 cals/day). I also began to use the elliptical trainers at work on my break. The ones I use have tension adjustment and count calories according to weight and tension. My first week I was burning around 600 cals a day. Well, I certainly was not feeling satisfied as far as food was concerned. I did start to lose, though. My second week I decided to take in what my metabolic rate burns in a day (for me at age 23, weight at the time 160, and height 5'6.5", I burn about 1500 just sitting around). This turned out to be more satisfying but I also had to up my activity and start burning 1000 cals a day. This would ensure that I would lose 2 lbs per week (net burn of 3500 cal/wk). I lost about 5.5 more lbs like this, but I still wasn't feeling fully satisfied in the food sense. So last week, I started taking in an average of 1800 cals/day and burning 300 + the initial 1000. It is much more tedious, but I don't feel like I'm hungray all the time. I weigh myself Monday mornings and this morning I actually weighed in at 152 which means I lost 2.5 lbs rather than the normal 1.8 lbs eating until I was full and exercising more! To make a long story short, don't starve yourself. If you feel hungry and don't eat, your body will lower your metabolism and you won't burn as many cals naturally. Just make sure your net burned calories remain the same for how much you want to lose every week. Oh, and I also started circuit/weight training the third week. This has contributed to some matabolism boost and lots of toning. I site I recommend for calculating your metabolic rate, calories burned doing exercise, and articles, is fatburn.com. They have a free toolbox section to calculate stuff. Good luck to everyone! :D

great advice.. thanks for sharing what you're doing with us! it sounds like you are well under way to accomplishing your goal :)

I wish you much WILLPOWER! Robin :D