OKAY???? I only capitalized my comment because you read it the opposite way in your reply. The reason I suggested you estimate your prior calorie intake is because it seems lots of people who start to diet often feel like they need to go from 10,000 calories a day to 1,000 or else they wont lose weight. I have a friend on this site who felt that way. Now she eats 2000 cals a day and realizes she's much happier and also that she can lose weight without torturing herself with starvation and salads without dressing. So I figure if you were gaining on 10,000 a day, maybe that means you would stay at the same weight at 8,000 a day, and that would then mean that you could get away with 3,000 or more a day and actually lose a large amount of weight. It also helps to be very conscious of what you were doing before so you dont find yourself slipping back into that slowly but surely. So why I have offended you I dont know, but I'll just leave it at that.