At risk of being repetative

I made a post in another forum about the importance of taking excersize into account when counting calories.

I have noticed that a lot of people seem to be concerned that they aren't eating enough, or they are eating too much, because of the confusion surroundinf calorie defecits. This made me doubt my own idea of what is healthy for me and what isn't. Haha, while trying to clear things up I seemed to have just confused myself.

I understand BMR, it being what you body burns all by itself, without physical activity.

My question is then do you add your daily routine in on top of your BMR , and then add how much you work out to find your maintainance calories?

So, as of now, I am eating around 1600 calories a day to maintain my weight. My BMR is somewhere around 1300 (I think), and I am pretty active. I walk to all my classes on my college campus, I am on my feet a lot at work, I'm even a leg bouncer! So according to CC, with light activity, this puts me at 1700 calories.

Now if I burn about 200-300 calories every day (give or take) on the eliptical or treadmill, that would put me at needing to eat around 2000 calories a day to maintain?

So, 1600 is falling a little short of what I should be eating to maintain? Or have I miscalculated something here?

I'm 5'.75' and about 98 lbs (I haven't weighed myself in a few weeks)

Could someone give me some input on my numbers, please?

anyone willing to help?

What you have described is how I have understood the situation, but I am no expert by any means!  I have theoretically been on maintenance for a month or so now, but I realized recently that I still have been psychologically cutting myself short calorically speaking and exercising in a subconscious attempt to continue losing!  Your post caught my eye because I decided tonight to up my calories to the recommended BMR amount, but to not count my exercise calories to give myself a "cushion" so I don't gain anything back.  Since I understood the exercise calories the same way you did, I should be able to eat about 200 extra calories a day (approximately), that I am not going to eat for my cushion.

All your calculations make sense to me. You might want to eat a bit more, or just wait and continue on at the 1,600 and see if your weight starts trending down. It's hard to nail down the maintenance number because we are trying to stay even, rather than lose. Good luck.

None of the online websites or BMR calculators will tell you exactly what you need to eat.  They are all based on averages, none of us are average.  You need to monitor your own results.  If you continue eating 1600 cals a day and see a weight loss, then you need to up you intake. If you are gaining, the you need to cut back.  Don't forget to ignore daily fluctuations than can be +/- 5 lbs.  The trend line on this site is a good tool for that. 

FWIW, from your info above I would recomment the 1700 cals/day.