Working on a Weight Loss Plan

Hey folks, The end of college packed far more weight on my than I would prefer. Luckily, I'm rather motivated to take care of that. I'm using the Lose It iPhone app to track calories in vs. exercise calories. I'm around 6'2" and started at 246 about a month ago. I dropped down to 232, but for the past two weeks I've been about stagnant with no significant changes. Obviously, this was frustrating. As this is my first attempt at a real hearty lifestyle change (not diet) I needed to do a lot of research. I've pored through numerous old threads and learned some things. What I'd really like is some help and hopefully some validation that my new plans will send me in the correct direction. The goal here isn't some arbitrary weight point, but reaching a point where I'm happy with my body, don't feel like a lardass and have enough muscle mass to nicely fill out a suit. My current calculated maintenance calorie load is about 3,100 calories per day. Lose It tells me to run 2,074 calories per day to lose two pounds a week. 1,000 calories off a day (or close to it) seems about right, so as it stands I'm willing to trust this app's numbers. My first worry is that initially I assume that no matter what, less calories = more weight loss. For the weeks where I'd had issues, I would eat around 1,600 calories and burn 400-800 calories in the gym. After researching, I've heard numerous numbers tossed around about when your body kicks into starvation mode (1,200 calories or about half your maintenance, which for me is 1550) and it appears that the numbers I've had put me into starvation mode. My first question: when people quote these numbers for starvation mode are they talking only consumption or net calories after exercise? I would assume net calories after exercise, but perhaps I'm wrong. Since I learned this, I've been upping my calories to the around 2,000 figure including any calories lost for exercise. Does this seem correct? My somewhat basic logic tells me that if your body needs 3,100 calories to survive and you tack on 800 calories of exercise, you would need 3,900 if you were to maintain weight. Minus the 1,000 per day for a two pound a week loss and it drops you at the idea that total net calories are the number that matters. Again, I could be wrong and I'm hoping for some sort of verification here. Before really delving into the board, my previous exercise has been something to the tune of half an hour on an exercise bike, 15 minutes on an elliptical and 15 minutes on a treadmill. For weight training, I'd largely use machines and do a few compound motions (leg press, overhead press, lat pull down, row) with a few dumbbell exercises (hammer curls, deltoid lifts, the things where you bend sideways for obliques) and various isolated machine exercises. Long story short, I used every machine in the smallish gym and spent far too long there. After readings around and picking up a copy of Starting Strength, it is my intent to switch mostly to compound barbell exercises with heavy weights, e.g. squats, deadlifts, bench press, military press, as my primary focus. I'll do this 2-3 times a week and do an hour on an elliptical on my off days/in the evenings if I lift in the morning. I figure this will give me better results and make me spend less time at the gym, which is certainly a plus. I've already been doing protein shakes, but I'm now working at hitting a gram per pound while attempting to keep as close to 40/40/20 as possible (Lose It tracks calorie percentages as well, so this is easy to keep an eye on). Basically, I'm hoping for verification that I was likely in starvation mode with my low net calories and that sticking to what I've laid out above should result in favorable results. Any tips would be appreciated, and thanks in advance for dealing with the long post.

mundie: Thanks for the advice! I do have an abnormally large frame and some natural muscle. Even when I was sub-200 pounds, I still wore a 44-46 sport jacket just based on the size of my shoulders. I've been told however that p90x is only good if you're already in rather good shape and are just looking to keep it that way and make small gains. For me, as a relative novice, I think that might be too much. I've heard good things about "Insanity" for someone at my skill and fitness level, though.

Lance: Found they have a PDF, and downloaded it to review later. Thanks for the tip!

And the whole "eating like a normal human" seems to be working. The scale is tipping in the correct direction again.