I know people count calories they consume during the day, but how do you know how many you are expending? How do you know you have enough activity in that particular day, or if you should do more?

I found a calorie calculator that shows how much you burn during a type of workout, or walking stairs, vacuuming, etc. But what about sleeping, sitting at the computer, or my favorite...scrapbooking? How do I know how many calories I burn in total?

I found a few, but thier results are well iffy at best. FIrst of all, noone has the same metablic rate as someone else, or does the same thing as someone else during a day.

http://www.room42.com/nutrition/basal.shtml

This one says for basal calorie needs(ie calories for my blood to pump, body to work, what have you) I need about 1900 calories being 5'11'' and 180 pounds. It also says I need about 2600 calories for all the activity I do during the day. I'm pretty sure I'm active enough(just always on my feet, walking) that its a little higher.

Remember a woman needs alot less calories(still women naturally have higher lvls of body fat, and less mussle) then a man does, and that dieting can lower your MBR.

You first calculate your basal metabolic rate which gives the calories you consume while resting. Then you add the calories you spend for various activities, for example approx. 1.6 Cal /hour for reading , 2.5 Cal/hour for standing , etc to get your total calorie consumption

I've always had an easy time with the calorie-counting until I add exercise. In the past, I try to get my weight under control first then I add the exercise.

This time around, I found a really helpful calorie counter: http://www.globalrph.com/dieting_calc.htm

It's been working great for when I've been sedentary (lost 12 pounds alreadyi), and I'm using it now that I've added a couple miles of walking each day (on the mildly active).

Here's another chart:

http://www.foodanddiet.com/NewFiles/...burnchart.html