But I'm just failing to understand why 1800? How does one work this out? Why not 1200? 1400? 2200? etc? I'm just having trouble understanding it.
People dont just make up a number, you need to work out your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) to begin with and then you need to work out your TEE (Total energy expenditure) you can use this calculator here to workout both for yourself:
http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
Thats the best one I've ever found and have used it for past year, its really good and simple to use, I doubt you'll find a better one then that, all the others on other sites are just drop down menu's, this one has a proper GUI (graphical user interface.
Lets say your BMR is 2500 and your TEE is 3500 then you could start at 3000 calories or even 2500 calories and then stick to that everyday and be consistent.
Some people suggest 300-500 calories less then your TEE will be enough to lose weight but others suggest 1000 calorie deficit, but at the end of the day, we're all different, you have to listen to your body.
So if you eat 2500 calories every day for 1 month and you weigh yourself everyday and you see that you're losing around 2-3 pounds a week then your doing well, if your weight isnt moving or you're gaining weight then you would cut your calories back another 300-500.
It's about listening to your body.
I've been cutting for past three months on around 2500 calories a day and my weight is going down nice and slow, the reason its good to drop weight slow is so you dont lose muscle.
You'll hear a lot of people talk about BMR but its not often you hear people mention TEE is but you need to know both your BMR and TEE to make your own calculations and crunch the numbers. Your TEE can be drastically different depending on your lifestyle and how active you're and what kind of job you work in.
Also its important to remember not to starve the body of calories, if you eat way too low, say 1000 a day, that would be kind of daft because your body would go into starvation mode which is referred to as a catabolic state and it would break down muscle and use anything it could for energy and you'd find that you don't lose weight, you might at first but then you'll hit a brick wall, plus you'd have no energy to go to the gym either, these extremely low calorie diets don't work.
Also another tip from me is to manipulate carbs and learn about carb cycling, in my experience dieting isnt just about a calorie deficit, its also about the types of food you eat and how much protein/carbs/fat you eat, you should keep your protein high, carbs and fat low whilst dieting/cutting. You can find articles online on bodybuilding.com and elsewhere though that will explain all this to you.
Also if you write up your diet and all the meals you consume each day, you can then post it on bodybuilding.com and they will critique your diet and perfect it for you. It's best to eat small meals more frequently, I'd say 5 meals minimum, but some will recommend anything from 8-12 per day. When we use the word meal, we dont mean a massive plate full of food like a sunday dinner, we just mean you eat something every 2-3 hours per day to keep your metabolism at a faster rate which will result in your body burning off calories faster. Someone who eats 8 times a day every 2-3 hours will have a faster metabolism then someone who only eats 3 times a day, its been scientifically proven. All those fat people who complain and say they're only fat because they have a slow metabolism are talking rubbish and making excuses, your metabolism is dictated by how frequently you eat.
I hope that helps.
