Originally Posted by
clearwaterms
I am primarily looking for a baseline first, and will adjust accordingly later.
If that's all you want and you have no previous data on how many calories you burn, just pick any number. Anything will be wrong. If you honestly and consistently measure the calories you eat and the calories you burn, it should become obvious which way you need to adjust the baseline.
It's a very inexact science at best and your body will be changing constantly to screw with your results even more. Consistency over the long haul is what pays off. Like I said, I've been doing this for over a year, I couldn't tell you how many calories I'll burn today- but I got a pretty good idea about how many I'll burn on average this month.