How Many Calories Should You Eat?

I struggled for a while trying to find out how many calories I should eat per day in order to lose weight.. MFP said 1200, but based on my activity level, that seemed like too little. I also didn't seem to be losing weight eating only 1200 per day. I also didn't want to do trial and error. I mean, who wants to gain weight and waste valuable time while you could be LOSING it?


I then came across this website, which explained about calculating BMR, Harris Benedict Formula and how much to subtract in order to lose weight. I decided to add the whole process simplified below, since there is a lot of back and forth in the website and can get a little confusing. So here you go: 

So here is how mine worked: 


My BMR is 1472
So, since I do crossfit 3 times a week and run once a week, I would fall under moderate exercise. Therefore I calculate 1472 x 1.55 = 2281
The number of calories I need to eat to maintain weight is 2281.
I decided to subtract 800 from that number, and here is my magic number: 1481
Once I started eating this amount of calories per day, my weight started dropping about 1 - 2 lbs per week. 


Pretty cool, huh?