I've always wondered about this and it's never been clear to me.

Do I need to BURN 3,500 calories to lose a pound, OR do I need to REDUCE my caloric intake by 3,500 calories for each pound I lose? Like, if I was eating 2,000 calories before, would I have to eat 1,500 calories and then lose about a pound a week, or could I eat 1,500 calories a day, burn 2,500-3,500 a day (basal + exercise) and then lose 2-4 pounds a week, instead?

...or am I overanalyzing this... and running circles around the same concept?

Either one will work. To lose 1 lb a week, you can either cut back what you eat by 500 calories, or burn 500 ADDITIONAL calories in a day (for example, jog 5 miles a day), or a combination of the two (ie reduce calories by 250 and jog 2.5 miles a day). To lose 2 lb a week, you can either cut back your diet by 1000 calories a day, exercise to burn an additional 1000 calories a day, or a little of both (for example, cut back diet by 500, plus burn an additional 500 by jogging 5 miles a day). The exercise has to be on top of whatever exercise you were doing before dieting, though.

huuummm.... good question. I don't have a fact filled answer, I still don't quite 'get' all the specifics to calorie counting and all the tricks to it. I think that's a good question and I'd like to know too.

I get the general concept: intake less calories+burn more= weight loss. Is my goal to burn MORE calories than I eat for the DAY? SO everytime I burn more than 3500 calories I lose a lb? So if I burn 875 more calories than I eat for 4 days (=3500), I'd lose - 1 lb in those 4 days? I do remember seeing a personal traininer at the gym, and he told me to try and burn 500 calories a day to lose 1lb a week. soooo 7x500=3,500.

Sorry Nightengale! I think I just made your question THAT much more confusing!! But I'm confused on this too! I think over analyzing def doesn't help!! LOL

Rock on.

Yeah, my weight is kind of stubborn and I feel like I have a slug's metabolism, though according to my fitday, I'm burning almost twice the calories I'm consuming. I should be going at a rate of ten pounds a month, but we'll see if that's actually going to pan out! haha

They're both the same.
If you reduce your calories by 3500- youre creating a deficit of 3500
If you burn 3500 thru exercise- you're creating a deficit of 3500
if you burn 500 and reduce calories 3000= deficit of 3500
The result is the same ...create a deficit of 3500 and lose a lb of fat.
However your body isn't a math equation, and sometimes you will see no change, sometimes 2lbs in one day.
But, if you CONSISTENTLY create a weekly deficit of 3500 calories,
then your AVERAGE weight loss should be 1lb/wk.

but what about basal metabolic rate?
I haven't heard anyone mention that your body burns calories without you doing anything. The heavier you are, the higher your bmr because more energy has to be burned to keep your body operating normal. Shouldn't you be adding the number of calories you burn to your bmr to find out how many caloris are expended in a day. And then you can subtract the number of calories you take in. from that you can see a real calorie deficit

The only calculation you can make fairly accurately is how many calories you are eating. All of the calculations you see for BMR or for individual exercises are little more than guesses, they will vary not only from person to person, but from one day to the next. Determining your unique metabolism is going to be very difficult, if not impossible. Trying to do the math for calories expended (BMR plus) is going to be guesstimates at best, and could drive you crazy!

That doesn't mean you shouldn't DO exercise to lose weight, just that it would be very difficult to calculate how much it will pay off in pounds lost ahead of time. You pretty much have to incorporate the exercise and see what happens.

One value to exercise calorie charts, is that they do help you compare which exercises tend to burn more calories, but trying to determine whether you are burning the same number of calories as the chart lists, well I wouldn't rely on the information too much.

A deficit is a deficit, no matter whether it comes from food or exercise.

This is why I love exercise--it speeds up weight loss by contributing mightily to the calorie deficit, AND once you hit maintenance, it allows you to consume more calories. And this is also why I love my Heart Rate Monitor--I get very accurate counts of calories burned during exercise and can adjust my calorie intake accordingly (now that I'm maintaining).

Hooray for exercise!

Yes,
The OP does have the word basal in parentheses.
You would subtract the calories from what you eat from your basal calories. Hopefully , there's a deficit I do not tend to add my exercise calories to the basal calories though, becasue I don't get a ton of exercise and I don't want to start the thinking, well I can eat x y and z becasue I'm exercising, KWIM? It seems like amny of the calorie counters don't add their exercise cals to their basal cals..I mean I would if I were a dancer or an olympic athlete..
but I tend to think that the readings given me for my bmr are a little high anyway so it kind of averages out

Exercise expenditure calorie calculators can be ridiculous. Fitday is no different. If you've been at fitday for a while, it might be worth having a look in retrospect.
Say (for instance) that you lost 5 lbs last month. Find your average calories eaten for that time period. Fairly foggy science will tell you that that was a 17500 calorie deficit over that same time period (or let me get my calculator) Provided fitday uses a 28 day month ... that's a 625 cal deficit each day. Either burned or not eaten.

To simplify things.....Eat less, Exercise more.....you will lose weight.