so are these charts good for what I did today..? I ate in the morning-- cucumbers, carrots and some cheese... a small peanut butter and jam sam on whole wheat... and a couple of cheest sticks.. ???

source grams cals %total
Total: 1204
Fat: 69 617 52%
Sat: 37 334 28%
Poly: 6 58 5%
Mono: 21 191 16%
Carbs: 78 292 24%
Fiber: 5 0 0%
Protein: 71 286 24%

Calories Burned Today
source cals % total
Total: 2963
Basal: 1697 57%
Lifestyle: 700 24%
Activities: 566 19%

I entered all this on fitday.com I am using those charts to help too.. so I know you cant see everything, but does it look good so far..???? And can someone explain what exactly is Basal..?? My intake in calories was 1204 and my calories burned was 2963.. ..

I just joined that site yesterday, and I'm confused about Basal metabolism as well. Without doing any exercise, it tells me that I've burned up all my food. Is that true? Does it do that for you as well?

Your basal metabolism is the number of calories your body burns just to function and sustain itself. Bascially, it amounts to the calories your body would burn if you stayed in bed asleep all day.

Fitday then calculates the additional calories you burn via your lifestyle - your everyday tasks - cooking, showering, driving, etc. In addition, you enter any additional exercise.

The three together supposedly gives you your total calorie expenditure for the day. Be careful, though. It is all just an estimate and can be wildly inaccurate. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that you can eat a lot more just because fitday says you've burned 1500 more calories than you have consumed. It does work for some people but probably not the majority of them.

Basal is the amount of calories needed for your basic body function. If you lied in bed all day, the basal amount is what your body would "burn". The other numbers are the additional calories your body uses as part of living your daily life - working, chores around the house, running errands, etc., and then there is the additional calories you burn during a workout. So according to your stats, you took in far fewer calories than your body used today. This is great, although you need to be careful of making sure you take in enough calories. You want to shoot for taking in around 500-1000 calories per day less than your body needs to lose 1-2 pounds per week. In your case you are well over that 1000 calorie defecit, which is fine for one day, but doing this regularly will actual kick your body into starvation mode, and your metabolism will slow and you can lose muscle. Given your weight and basic caloric needs, you should shoot for at least 1600 calories day - and safely lose 1-2 pounds per week without damaging your body.