What I have always read is that it takes 10 calories / pound to maintain your weight. So if you were 200, you could eat 2000 calories to stay the same. To lose a lb it would be 3500 calories so cutting by 500 a day would take you to 1500 calories.

I honestly believe if I followed that, if many of us did, we could still lose weight. Not eating ENOUGH calories is as detrimental as eating TOO MANY in my humble opinion.

Hope this helps