Dear Cheryl R.

The conventional wisdom on stable bodyweight is that you must be eating exactly the right amount of calories to maintain your current weight. If you weight 269.5 and are fairly inactive, you are SOMEHOW consuming about 3,775 calories per day.

If you need 3,775 to maintain your weight and are really eating just 1,800 calories per day, that creates a deficit of almost 2,000 calories per day or 14,000 per week. You should be loosing 4 pounds per week (probably too much to be healthy). So either you are eating a LOT more calories than you think you are, or you are eating SO FEW calories that your body has switched to starvation mode and regular caloric requirements don't apply.

So, should you eat less, or more? You need to know. Get a food log then enter your paper data at fitday.com and get the facts. Or buy a Nutricounter and watch your carbs and calories in real time, as you enter them. You may be suprised at what you learn.

Try setting your calorires NOT LESS THAN 3,275 per day and alternating slow walks and easy weight lifting every other day. This should give you a healthy 1# per week fat loss, plenty of rich, satisfying food and better health.