yeamac 

I was wondering how many calories I burn each day with respect to my height/weight/age and my activity level. I ran across this web-based calculator. Give it a try!

https://nat.crgq.com/energy/daily.html

jbrams

You know, that really is a pretty good calculator. I've used maybe 12 different tools like it on line but this one is very adaptable, just requires honesty from the user.

Thedailyplate.com and sparkpeople.com also have very good, intuitive calorie calculators that they apply to your profile when you sign up.

I reviewed a few such calorie counting websites, if you're interested, look here.

crtreedude 

Interesting, it says that I should consume 3500 calories a day - no wonder I am dropping about a pound a week - after I bottom out (just a few more pounds) I am assuming there will be pies and such in my future.

dobber

Ditto, unfortunately I found it's very easy to put it back on. I went svelte after 4 months of really watching the diet, walking during the week (was out of town a lot) and riding like a demon three days a week.

Got to the point I started buying stuff in smaller waist sizes.

Stopped traveling, started hanging around the house more, snacking with the grandkids (somebody had to finish off those half eaten pop tarts), wasn't able to do the long rides.....basically 180 degrees.

Faster than a cheeseburger disappearing into my mouth, my belt is out a notch, my pants are suddenly tighter (honey did you wash these in hot water, again?).

BroMax

I gave it the same data as my doctor's Tanita Body Composition Analyzer. It says my maintenance calories are 2806. The doctor's device says 2823. I'd say they're virtually the same for one who is going to live in the real world and not consume a carefully calculated formula as a diet.

crtreedude 

What is weird is I know I don't eat anything near that amount of food - probably more like 2500 calories - no more than that. And, I tend to drop 1 pound a week. It is very possible that as our conditioning improves, our efficiency with calories does as well.

jbrams

How do you know you don't eat that many calories every day? Try using thedailyplate to count your calories and be honest ... it's really quite a lot of calories, at least it was for me.

kensuf

Mmm, cherry pie.

bigmallard

The only problem is, that the weight that they ask you is not your lean body mass. What they are telling you there is what you need to keep what you've got now. I work 10 hour days 4x a week as a butcher, and on those days I get about 1 hour of cycling in. It told me that I need to intake over 5600 calories on those days. If that were true I would weigh 30 lbs lighter than I do now.

If you can get your Body Mass Index(BMI) taken. It will show you the % body fat that you have, then you should use the calculator based on that weight when you have taken off the body fat from your total weight. Also remember that these are your absolute maximum needs.

OperationOrange

Yep, I smell something fishy here.

I drive in the car 3 hours a day, and sit at a desk for 8+, with winding down at home at night being reading, watching tv, etc.... no exercise lately, as i'm recovering from an injury. 328 lbs. at 5'10" and I should eat 4412.4 kcal a day to maintain???? If I ate that much I'd be gaining like crazy....

jbrams

Doesn't sound too far off actually, buy maybe you should try the estimator on www.thedailyplate.com (which gives me a more accurate estimate, see below). I got a high estimate from the OP's site too. But the estimate at thedailyplate was off by only 73 calories/day for me. Here's how I found the accuracy of the estimate:

I was 326 (300 even today after almost 8 weeks) and it estimated me at 3730cal/day. (6'0", 326.5lbs, mostly sedentary with .5 hours light or medium activity/day ... walking to work, walking the dog and riding bike on weekends).
I've been counting calories (which sucks, but it works very well) and keeping it under 2000 calories give or take. the average is very close to 2000.
So my estimated daily deficit is 1730 calories/day, 12110 calories/week

Estimated pounds lost/week
To find how many pounds I should be losing a week, I divide the estimated weekly calories needed to maintain weight by the number of calories in a pound:
12110/3500 = 3.46lbs/week
That means, based on the estimate I should be losing about 3.46 lbs each week.

Actual pounds lost/week
So looking at my progress (which is independent of the estimated calories needed measurement) I find that since January 3rd (start date) it's been almost 8 weeks (two days short, a pretty good sample size), and I've lost 26.5 lbs. The number of pounds lost divided by the number of weeks gives me pounds lost per week:
26.5/8 = 3.313lbs/week

Comparison of Estimate to Actual
That's not too far off the what the estimate suggested (3.313 vs. 3.46). The difference is 73.5 calories/day; within less than 2% of my actual caloric needs to maintain weight. That's pretty good for an estimate!

Just a note, the estimate is actually more accurate than these numbers suggest. My initial estimate was 3730; but if I repeat the estimate today, now that I weigh less, it tells me that I need 3500calories/day. The "real" results are actually an average between those two estimates! The accuracy is VERY high.

I_Bike

I gotten figures from other sources - If you're honest this one's pretty much right on...