how to understand how many calories to eat a day?

[ilovemyoboe]

Hi everyone! I have plugged in all my information to my profile but am having a hard time understanding how to read how many calories I should be eating a day. I see that it says how many to restrict....but how many can I actually eat??!! Thanks!!

[Nailkita]

Do a quick google search of "how many calories can I eat in a day" there you can find a calculator somewhere on the nutrition.about.com or health.about.com forget which. There it will ask you male/female, current weight, goal weight and it will tell you how many calories you should eat to maintain your weight, lose weight slowly, or by a pound a week without exercise.

You will need more calories if you are exercising though.

[KatD13]

You can do it right here on this site.

Click the tab 'Weight Goal' ( it is the tab to the left of journal )
Enter your start weight/start date and goal weight/goal date
Click the box: 'update my goal weight'
Then...under the tab 'update my goal weight' click the box Calorie Balance
It's right there for you.

[Inkryptzalis]

This is a very helpful thread!! Thank you, ilovemyoboe & Nailkita!!!

[arribarri]

Thanks!