If I do a BMR at discovery health it says that my BMR is 1594.6. So exactly what do I need to do to lose weight. I am 5'8". I know you have to reduce calories by 3500 to lose 1 pound, but how do I know how many calories to take in?

First, tell us what you weigh! Do you exercise? How often?

BMR is the number of calories you would burn a day if you were in a coma! You also burn calories doing daily activity things, like driving to work and brushing your teeth.
Exercise also burns calories.

All three of these numbers change with our weight. The more you weigh, the more calories it takes to do anything.

If you add up those three numbers, that is the total number of calories you burn in a day -- your expenditure. Of course, the trick is being able to accurately figure out your expenditure. There are a number of formulas, but they are just a guess, based on what your metabolism (and other factors) might be like.

Then there's the input -- what you eat.

If you want to lose weight, input has to be less than expenditure, right?

Let's say you want to lose a pound a week. You need to have 500 fewer calories in than out every day to lose a pound a week.

I hope you're still with me!

So, you need a way to figure out how many calories to eat, given your weight and how many calories you use a day. There are calculators that say things like, if you want to maintain, multiply your weight by 12, or something (I'm sure someone else can tell you) and if you want to lose multiply by something else. I don't know those numbers.

What I did was start playing around in nutridiary-- an online program that tracks calories, exercise, etc. Many other people use different programs.

When I started I entered my current weight and said how active I was (I said lightly active) and how much I wanted to lose/week. At the time I weighed over 280 pounds. Here are the figures I got:

+ Basal Metabolic Rate*: 2003 kcal
+ General Activity*: 801 kcal
+ Extra Activity and Exercise: 0 kcal
- Weight Loss Goal: 500 kcal
Day Quota: 2304 kcal

So, at my starting weight, with no exercise, it figured I could eat 2300 calories and lose a pound a week. I started at 2000 calories (nice round number) and played with it from there. For me, it is generally accurate over time, but it's taken me a while to figure out how it works for me. I think it generally overestimates calories burned, for instance. So, I don't enter any activity other than exercise (which I do to track minutes) and keep my activity level set low. My husband also uses it, but it overestimates his weight loss over time. Still, both of us have been very successful with it as a tool.

Good luck! Sorry for the thesis!

I weigh 179 as of this morning. I have a desk job so I don't get much excercise, I do ride my bike to and from work but it's only about 1/4 mile one way. I still don't know how to figure it out but thanks for your post.

Fitday might help you to count calories. It will also tell you how much you should eat. Fitday.com

Kristi -- If you don't want to take the time to figure it, start with a reasonable figure for someone your weight -- maybe 1600 to 1800 calories? Then track what you eat (it won't work if you aren't honest with yourself) and see what happens over a couple of weeks. If you start to lose, then you're on to something. If nothing happens, drop it a little.

I find it also helps to try to get my calories from "healthy" sources -- lots of lean protein, lots of fresh veggies etc...