Calorie ignorant, need help please. :)

Hello everyone so I am here because I am desperately trying to educate myself on this calorie thing. Years ago I used to be 290lbs. I changed he way I eat and began to exercise and now I bounce from 180-185 (190 after a social event) I got to this point knowing NOTHING about calories.

Now that I am aware that calories exist lol I have been counting calories but I fear I have not been doing it correctly. using the /Katch-McArdle formula I calculated my bmr to 1966.672. (turns out I was eatin way below what I should ....boy was i ignorant) I am not sure what to multiply to get my TEE not sure if I'm moderately active or very active.

Im

38 yrs

6ft and some change

I work out 6 days a week

Weight train and core exercises 50 minutes
Swim for 35 minutes

sit on ass all day at work

Work out again kettle bells 15-25 minutes (4-5 days of the 6)

I eat clean , Whey drinks, Veggies, Wild Salmon, Turkey, nuts, some fruit, 6 days a week, My calories range from 1,800 to 1,900.But now im trying to eat at least 2000 (the idea that i have to eat more is still hard for me to understand.)Drink water. I eat no junk or processed crap during clean days.


Lately however I have adopted a cheat day (Sunday), My friends said one day a week wont kill me or make much a difference as far as getting fat is concerned. My Cheat days DO NOT bleed in to my clean days, and there is no way I will let that happen I don't even get tempted to.

A typical Sunday cheat day I hit 3,000 cals. one day I hit damn close to 4 cals! ?(Mexican food)


My cheat day foods are pretty consistent as well

eggs sausage
Pancakes (A MUST)

grande green tea latte from Starbucks

snack on couple cookies, or nuts, or chips.

lunch , Subway sandwich, or Cheese burger or Mexican I try to avoid Mexican although I love it it makes me feel like **** and guilty)

snack on fruit or nuts

dinner Greek yogurt and some almond butter
1-2 scoops of ice cream or cake (if at a party both, boy I hate parties lol)



My goal is to be lean, I could stand to get some more definition round my gut , but overall I am happy the way I am, my main concern is gaining fat!

So can I keep doing this or am I in danger of getting accumulating fat? I know mentally I feel like a chubby balloon after I eat like that but I am wondering if its all in my mind?

Advice would be greatly appreciated , Im driving my wife insane with all my calorie counting and worrying. Thank you everyone!

If I were you I would make it this simple:
If you are into counting calories (like I am), then simply use the RDI calculator here on Fatsecret. Go to your diet calender, and at the bottom of the page where you can enter your foods, you can recalculate your RDI. Do this, and use that as a general guideline. If you find that you're not losing weight fast enough - it's set for you to lose up to 1 lb per week - then go for no more than 500 calories less, and never under 1200.
This should give you an easy, speedy weight loss journey. This is what I have done, and it works a charm.

Thank you!

Man I did my rdi and it came out to 3300! That was with vey active.
So i tried moderate and got 2700, my daily intake barley reaches 2000. Should I eat more?

yes, eat more to preserve lean body mass

Thank you! Man it feels wired! Eat to maintain lean!!I dunno about everyone else but I am so fascinated by all this stuff, its so cool! Thank you again!

I think that Fat Secret totally overestimates the RDI. Because as you say, "you sit on your ass all day at work" I'd go even lower. You can always add more calories back to your diet if you find yourself losing weight.