How many calories should I net?

karaks

I'm sure this has been asked a million times, but I'm going to ask anyway. Lol. Okay, so I basically haven't been able to lose weight for a very long time. Like years. I've tried everything from Weight Watchers to counting calories to low carb and nothing has worked. I've lost about 9 lbs in that time and most of that has been in the last year when I went low carb for awhile. However, I haven't lost anything in the last 6 months. I finally went to my doctor and asked him to help me figure it out. He tested my thyroid, blood sugar, etc etc. Everything came back normal. He said my eating habits were great and that theoretically I should be losing weight easily. He then recommended that I go to a local nutritionist and get my metabolism tested. I went yesterday and had the test done. I followed all the instructions, including not eating anything that day (before the test), got a good night's sleep, and didn't work out the day before.

I've done the online RMR calculations and they always come back around 1550-1600. This test said my RMR is 2140, which, if accurate, means I haven't been eating nearly enough for a very long time. Normally, I would think that was way too high, but I also wear a BodyMedia Fit armband and that number is actually pretty much right on the money with what my armband tells me. However, I never thought my armband was that accurate because the numbers just always seemed too high. I had tried raising my calories once to around 2200 calories, but didn't lose. Now I'm thinking I still wasn't eating enough. On a day that I'm running around a lot and also work out, the armband will tell me that I'm burning around 3200 calories or so.

So my question is this...if this RMR test was accurate and my armband is accurate, then I burn around 2400 calories when I'm not running around much that day and as much as 3400 when I'm really busy the whole day. I seem to average around 400-500 calories burned when I work out for an hour, which is usually 5 times per week. How many calories then should I net every day to lose 1 lb per week? Should I just try to net the 2140, which would mean eating around 2540-2640 calories? Or is that just way too high? I've looked into this so much that I'm just confusing myself now....

karaks

Bump. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!