Eat Meter and Burn Meter - New to this

I am so new to all of this and feel quite stupid as to figure out how everything works.  I don't enter all the foods I eat because some are not listed - How do you list a stir fry that I made from scratch?  I don't know how many carrots I ate or snow peas etc...so on that part I am finding it a little difficult. 

The second thing and I feel totally dumb here is the Eat Meter and Burn Meter- the goal is to keep the eat meter lower than the burn meter?  The burn meter is what exactly ?  Can't it just write calories burned?  This is where I am a little confused.  I need to eat 1500cal a day..so how does that work for the burn meter?  Can someone out there help me out.

Thanks.

Charmed1

re:  recipes.  It is a little tedious, but you can get analysis on homemade food by going to New Recipe and entering the ingredients and the number of servings, then press analyze.  You can then add it to your food log.  If it is something you make all the time, you can then tag it, so you will be able to add it on other days.  You will need to get experienced on how to enter the ingredients in the recipe analyzer so that it will actually recognize what you really did, there are some tips on that page will help you.

If I don't think that I will be making the dish often enough to mess around with exact recipe analysis, I sometimes just enter the individual ingredients.  For example, 2 oz. cooked shrimp, 1 c. snow peas, 1 T. peanut oil, etc. I tend to lump vegies together if there are multiple plate, and focus on getting accurate with the higher calorie items like rice or oil.  Condiments can be tricky to find, sometimes I substitute something, or actually get the calories from the jar and enter them one-time.  But once again, it it doesn't have fat, and is a small qty, I don't sweat it too much (I am not hypertensive so don't worry too much about salt).

There is quite a bit of help with the Eat Meter and Burn Meter in various forums (you can search), and there is the little question mark in the corner that also helps.

The burn meter uses the settings that you entered to determine what your average calorie expendature is on a normal (for you) day.  If you exercise or do an activity that you do not normally do, you add it in to the activity log and the burn meter adjusts your 24 hour calorie count to include it (the little number at the top) The big number in the middle is the calories that you have burned today so far.  The eat meter works the same.  The calorie goal is set based on the settings you entered (weight, age, goal weight, goal date, etc) and as you enter food into the food log, it calculates the calories taken in.  The point is awareness.  Being aware of what you have actually eaten vs your calories burned.  If you have burned a lot of calories, you may need a snack.  If you missed a workout or had pizza lunch with friends . . .You get the idea, I hope.

simply put, just shoot to not consume too much more calories than your burn meter says you have burned at any point of the day.  to ensure the calories you are consuming will be burned.

On the eat meter, if mine says 1452, am I suppose to try to eat as close as I can to that number, or what?