Help with caloric intake..

Hi there everyone!

Here's my stats, for starters:

Age: 18
Height: 5'5"
Current weight: 130-135 lbs. (I don't own a scale atm, so this is a guesstimate)
Goal Weight: Somewhere around 115

I know you probably hear this question a lot, but I'm a little confused about how many calories I should be eating...
When I first started my weight loss journey, I was eating far too little for my activity level(1200 per day, but excessive excersize) and now I understand I lost that weight very unhealthily... because for the past month I've been struggling with many, many binges to make up for it. 

Now with all that behind me, I'm trying to do this the right way. The scales I've tried have all given me waay different readings, anywhere from 125 to 150 pounds, so I'm not really sure what my BMR should be? After somehow living off 1200 calories or less a day, something like 1500 seems like it would ruin my defecit.

I guess I'm asking for some reassurance that I'll continue losing fat with my current routine? I'm feeling extremely discouraged right now, realizing that I need to eat MORE, even though I gained some of the weight back.

*As for excersize, I do 45 minutes of cardio/HIIT 5 days a week, and two 15 minute sessions of strength training per week.

A difference of 25 pounds on different scales? Thats almost unbelievable. Wear the same type of clothing, or none at all, when you get on the scale.

Do you own a weight and a scale? If not go weigh yourself at the gym. Grab a five pound weight (or 10 or whatever) and put it on the scale. The scale obviously should read exactly what the weight of the dumbell is..if not, the scale is wrong. But still a 25 pound difference on different scales is nuts.

When you do find your actual weight...calculate what your BMR is. Then calculate how to create a deficit from that. 1200 cals a day is not that drastically low...a lot of sources recommend that amount for weightloss, but of course different associations recommend different caloric intakes. As long as cals in<cals out, you will lose lbs.

Yeah, I was pretty shocked! I thought it was completely nuts when I hopped on the scale, and it told me I was almost back at my starting weight!

I do intend to buy a scale very soon, would I be able to buy one from a Costco or department store? I'm not sure where to get such a thing. I don't have access to a gym.

(But just to clarify, 1200 calories a day was low for me because I was expending near to 3000 calories a day.. not good.)

Yeah, scales suck! (I dont personally own one anymore)...Tape measures are the way to go!

If you are lifting weights it not uncommon to gain weight at 1st since muscle ads mass thus weight. Basically given your stats I would not be so fixed on weight as how you look in a mirror naked. Best motivator in the world is too really really look at yourself naked in a mirror. You probably don't need to lose weight so much as tighten and tone the weight you have. It can be really discouraging at 1st to do the "look at yourself in the mirror" but as you see improvement, you gain additonal motivation.

As far as scales go, your weight will wander around at different times of the day, at differnt times of the month and how dehydrated you are. Judging progress by weight is really not a good way to go about it. However, if you DO decide to track weight, I strongly suggest you ONLY weight yourself 1 time a month. I do it only on the 1st day of every month.

Finally, I had really great sucess by using the food log, calorie tracker here. I would measure my activies and my intake and try to keep my calorie intake down around 750-1000 under my activity calories while keeping it above 1500 which is the recomended "healthy" calorie intake for a male. Then I got lazy and put the weight right back on!!!!

Good luck to you! Intresting screen name btw, I am a Military Historian by background and so was surpried to see an 18 year old using that name!