Am I adding this up right?

So im pretty bored today at work and I start looking at the last two weeks of food and exercise ive done on my CC log. So then I look at my daily expenditure and did a little calculation.

I took what my body burns normally (a) , and added the amount I had burned in exercise. (b)  

I then minused what I had eaten (c) and this gives me the deficit?

So A + B - C = D?

I then took all of the D's for every day and added that all up since the 7th January. This gave me a figure of 14, 506. and i know it takes 3500 calories to make one lb. so i divided that by 3500, and got 4.4lb.

and funnily enough that is exactly what I have lost!

So i am doing it right, right?

Yep! The math wont' always be perfect (water weight, etc) but you are doing great!

Thanks Amethstgirl. Just one more questions, is it my deficit that i have to watch so that it does not dip below 1200 for me not to go into starvation mode?

Thats the one bit that still confuses me

this 1200 is driving me crazy. That is not the deficit.  Deficit should be no bigger than 750 cal/day.  1200 is the least amount any size woman should eat per day. It is just a guideline but not for everyone.  Read my post 1200 cals/day is BULL. You should never eat below your BMR. For example my BMR is 1440.  BMR is what you need to live, it is what you burn if you slept 24/hr.  For my body to keep my heart pumping I need 1440 cal/day.  So this 1200 guideline puts me in starvation mode real quick.  Determine your BMR (it will change as you lose weight so keep it up to date) Me for example

BMR: 1440

Sedentary activity : 1700 cal

if I eat 1440 and do not excercise I have a deficit

to increase my deficit the only option is to increase the level I burn because I CANNOT go below my BMR, so to have a bigger deficit I have to up my activity.  YOu can eat as much as you want as long as you burn more , there is really no limit to how much you can eat (as long as you burn it all) but BMR is you limit of how little you can eat.

CC's allotment tool is wrong.  How much you burn at a certain level is correct on CC, but when you ask it how much you should eat to lose weight, it simply takes your expenditure and subtracts 500.  for some this may work, but watch what happened to me:  I put my activity at sedentary in sept 06.  I was 129lbs and did not have time to go to the gym for a while since I was busy with work and school.  so i wanted to see what i should eat to still lose weight without consistantly going to the gym.  It told me that at sedentary I burn 1700(which is right) and to lose 1lb/wk I should eat 1200/day. WRONG!  remember my bmr is 1440(min cal/day) At the time I did not know about BMR.  So I ate 1200/day and burned 1700/day.  1lb per week right? no... By dec 06 i gained 15lb!!!!!

I had a deficit so why was I gaining.  When I finally figured it out 1 year later that i needed to eat more I was 144lbs.  so Oct 07 I still could not go to the gym but I started eating 1440 cal per day.  only a 300 cal deficit yet in 2 months I was back down to 134lbs! without even stepping foot in a gym.  If you eat below you BMR your body will go into starve mode and turn everything you eat into fat because it does not trust you to give it the proper amount for it to keep you alive.  If it has reserves, each day you go 200 below what it needs, it pulls those 200 from reserves and you just keep gaining weight!

OK if i thought this was confusing to start with it sure is now,

So my BMR is 1794, So i should eat nearly 1800 calories a day!!!

And even if i did that it would still leave me with a daily deficit of 1206 calories  a day, as my body burns 2635 plus any exercise.

if your BMR is 1794 (which is not calculated on CC anywhere, you must either use the harry benedict equation or a BMR calc.) then yes you should not eat less than that (when you lose it will go down and that will be your new guideline) If you burn 2635 and eat 1800 that leaves you with a 835 cal deficit which is okay but I would not increase that deficit any more! I would actually decrease it to about 700 so either eat 1935 or decrease your burning to 2500.  I may still be confusing you.  But i'm not sure about your last sentence that you burn 2635 + excercise, what are you doing that without excercise you burn 2635?

coach_k  has the best explanation for the meters I've read.  It clears up all confusion.  Click the link below to read that explanation.

http://www.calorie-count.com/forums/post/6958 1.html

 

what does BMR stand for and where is it calculated? have i missed something?

oH BOY HERE WE GO AGAIN!

  what does BMR stand for and where is it calculated? have i missed something? Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR); the number of calories you'd burn if you stayed in bed all day. ...http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Here is a link to a bmr calculator
http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

Thanks for the links... i feel live i've been readying everything on the site, but that acronym slipped by me... plus, i don't think that THIS website calls it BMR... just your burn rate meter.

total deficit for my first 7 days is about 6400 cals, yet my weight is the same

I agree with you northbeach.  While I was trying to find out what BMR means, I filled in the same exact numbers on 4 different websites and got 4 different numbers.  All of them were close to the daily calories I am supposed to eat shown on my eat meter. 

I love Calorie Count, and every single thing I've checked out so far is dead on right.

I won't say good luck to you, because I don't think luck has anything to do with it, dedication and determination does.

This is the BEST site I've seen on BMR. 

I was trying to figure out how to eat those 2,845 calories in a day!!! The other sites did not mention the "acceptable deficit" of 500-1,000cal / day.

I have 65-70 pounds to loose, so with that BMR my eating 1800 calories a day is just a little low I guess. Since I often have trouble making the 1,800, maybe I better set my goal to 1,900/day.

Ok Liz, I will try your theory for a week or two and see, I dont have anything to lose (well i do actually about 100lb LOL, but im stalled at the moment so its no loss if i dont lose anything) I will try and stick to 1800 cals and see how I go. :)