What About: Is there a minimum number of calories I should eat?

What about calories? I hear that you don't need to count calories from some people and from others, I hear that you do.  So what's the deal?

It is true that you don't need to continue to count calories throughout the 17 Day Diet, but I have found in talking to people that very few of us (if any at all) have a grasp on "what 1,200 calories looks like" for each of us.  It's a good idea for the first 4-7 days to track your calories so you get an idea for what the minimum of 1,200 calories looks like for you.

While the book does not mention this, the minimum you should eat in order to sustain healthy weight loss, is 1,200 calories per day.  For some, the point at which they lose the best is considerably more (my lose-best point is 1,350 to 1,375; others do best at 1,700+). MyFitnessPal is a good site to track calories and look up nutritional information on. The link is below:
MyFitnessPal link

Here is a link to a post on how to get your 1,200 calories in and to double-check where you may be lacking.

If you are following the menus in the book, you need to add some calories until you hit 1,200 calories a day. A lot of times, people start to lose again when they increase calories slightly (I'm talking even 10 or 15 calories or more).

The menu plans in the book only provide you with 800-900 calories a day -- I went through a number of them and added the calories up and was quite surprised.

The menu plans from the book are too low in calories (too low for most of us, both from a health and nutrition standpoint).

Following them without adding some more "freebies" (lean meats/seafood and cleansing vegetables from the lists in the book) could very well be slowing down your metabolism -- causing your weight loss to stall.

Dr. Mike mentioned on a radio broadcast that someone told me about that the lowest calorie intake we should have is 1,200.  I've talked to some women who are consuming 1,300 to 1,500 and actually started losing faster when they added calories.