Staci, Don't worry! You've come to the right place... lots of folks here with answers to your questions. Also, a couple other places to search are:
http://www.nutrition.gov
http://nutrition.about.com/library/b...tion_guide.htm
Just a quick answer to a couple things: To lose one pound you have to burn 3500 calories more than you consume. If you wanted to lose 1 pound in a week (a great rate of weight loss), you would want create a calorie deficit of 500 calories each day. If your body burns 2300 calories in a day, you could create this deficit by eating 1800 calories each day. You could also eat 250 fewer calories per day than your body burns, and do enough extra exercise to burn an additional 250 calories. Make sense?
There aren't hard and fast rules about this; you're going to have to figure out what works for you. Generally, it is said to NEVER go below about 1200 calories per day because you will not get enough nutrients to sustain your body's functions and your metabolism will slow down. However, even 1200 calories is very low and can lead to such feelings of hunger that it is difficult to sustain a diet at that rate.
I good place to start is figure out how many calories you are eating per day right now. Keep a food diary writing down everything you eat and figure out how many calories are in each thing. You can get the caloric information for food through the nutrition website link above, on the food packaging, at
www.fitday.com or in a book with calorie counts.
Once you know where you are at you can make small changes to decrease your consumption, change what you are eating to healthier choices, and add some exercise. But it doesn't have to happen all at once!
You'll get it, and you'll have fun figuring it out! Good luck!
Lindy
