LIES!! Teach me to cal count deficit Legit!!!!!

ReinasWrath

***So if you are easily annoyed by noobish questions off with you before I frustrate you OK...
once I thought I had the formula of calculating my daily deficit of calories and predicting what my weight loss of the week should be I was hit with doubt. I have been exposed to a number of ways that people count calories and now I'm completely confused. Really I feel like by now I should know how to do this perfectly but all these questions keep nagging me. (And lately I have not been losing what I predicted I would be so I am trying to isolate the problem. A little info is that I weigh 198lbs, 5"7" and was eating 1330 calories before, After being advised that I may be eating too little I recalculated my BMR -1732- and found that a calorie intake of 1758 would be enough to give me a 600 deficit (I found this target cal intake by BMR x's 1.55 for lightly active= 1758) then I would try to additionally burn off 400 calories at the gym to make a total of 1000 to give me a loss of 2lbs per week.)

*So this is how I have been calculating things:
I would have a target cal intake of 1758. which would equal 600 deficit from just eating less.
Then exercise to burn a total 400 cals. So I would simply take the 600 (from eating less food) and the 400 (from exercise) and that would give me 1000. Then I'd add up the deficits of each day for a week and divide by 3500 then get the amount of weight I should see lost on the scale. And if I went over in calories I would just take whatever amount I overate away from that 600 I would have gotten had I behaved. **should I be adding in my calories burned by just living (BMR?) as well?

*And here is another way I saw someone insisting was the right way but this seems wrong to me.
You take your cals burned just by living and add that to cals burned through exercise, then subtract the amount of calories you've eaten and that is your deficit. So ex: 1732(BMR) +400(work out) =2132 2132-1758(food eaten) =363(Total deficit for the day).

Obviously one way versus the other has quite a dramatic difference and personally I'm pretty sure it is the first way but since I have stopped losing weight I want to double check and be sure. I have a few variables that may be the problem: plateau or like aforementioned eating too few calories (like I said I was taking in 1300 and usually burning about 600 calories through exercise which I had thought I was doing well... but I also want to rule out this possibility as well.)

Any insight would be great and sorry for asking a question that is probably common sense, I have gotten no straight answers through searching other forums or sites. Also do you guys eat back your exercise cals (in full? Just enough to give you a little more energy? ) or not at all? It makes more sense to me to not eat them, because if you burned 300 then eat them back it was if you never worked out at all... (I know! I'm sure my post will be the most annoying posted today :P But I need some help from people who are having success..)
:flowerforyou: