Confused!

That's actually a very good question that I'd like answered too! - thanks for asking - would be interesting to see what the answer is

This question may be pretty dumb, but I'm confused!

I just calculated my BMR, and it is 1,295. Therefore, I need to eat 1,295 calories per day. If I exercise and generally don't feel hungry for more food, will my body go into starvation mode if I net under 1,200 calories?

Thank you for any help!

No, your BMR is what your body needs just to survive, like if you laid in bed all day, this is what you would burn. On top of that, you burn calories just by doing everyday things, moving around, your job, etc. You should not eat below your BMR, however, that is not your calorie goal.
To figure your calorie goal, you take your BMR and multiply it by these factors -
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

That gives you your TDEE. Then you subtract a calorie deficit from that number. How much depends on how much you have to lose. 500 calories per pound per week. If you have less than 20 lbs, your goal should be no more than .5-1 lb a week, so you would have a deficit of 250 -500 calories per day off of your TDEE.

Or you can just let MFP do the figuring for you. It is set up to do that automatically.

Sorry, just joined today and I'm also confused by some entries. For example, it gave me credit for 230 calories on Elliptical but 0 calories for the 5-6 strength training exercises I did. They must burn some calories at 3 sets each. Also the 1490 calories per day on non exercise days ( I put three times a week) seems a couple of hundred low for a 240 pound guy (5'9") to lose average 2 pounds a week. Any thoughts...?

Here is the suggested calorie deficit based on how much you are looking to lose -

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/506979-correct-calorie-deficit
If you have 75+ lbs to lose 2 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 40-75 lbs to lose 1.5 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 25-40 lbs to lose 1 lbs/week is ideal,
If you have 15 -25 lbs to lose 0.5 to 1.0 lbs/week is ideal, and
If you have less than 15 lbs to lose 0.5 lbs/week is ideal.

Sorry, just joined today and I'm also confused by some entries. For example, it gave me credit for 230 calories on Elliptical but 0 calories for the 5-6 strength training exercises I did. They must burn some calories at 3 sets each. Also the 1490 per day on non exercise days ( I put three times a week) seems a couple of hundred low for a 240 pound guy (5'9") to lose average 2 pounds a week. Any thoughts...?

First, you need to understand that MFP uses a slightly different formula from above. MFP does not factor in exercise when creating a calorie goal. The above table does. That is why there is often a lot of confusion over "eating back" exercise calories or not. So if you follow MFP's suggestions, you should eat them or at least some of them.

As for the strenght training - if you search for "weight training" or "strength training" under the cardio seciton, you will find an entry for it that will give you calorie credit. It is pretty low. It is hard to make an accurate entry for strength training since programs vary so much.
1490 is low for a male. How much are you looking to lose? 2lbs a week may be too high of a goal. You can change it to 1.5 lbs a week.
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I'm actually losing more than 2 pounds a week on Weight watchers (11.5 in 4 weeks). I've added this site because the tracking is much easier including the exercise component. The tracking will be my ultimate downfall at Weight watchers because their system is far more cumbersome. If all goes well here, I'll drop Weight watchers after another 4 weeks I've already paid for. Their Points plus system is really just a different way of tracking calories without calling it that. I should be able to tell soon if 2 pounds/week is realistic going forward. Thanks for the quick response. I love this site so far...

The BMR calculation is not as accurate as one would hope. It can easily over-estimate or under-estimate caloric needs because it does not take a person's lifestyle, metabolic rate, or medical condition(s), if any, into consideration! The BMR typically WAY over-estimates my caloric needs and I therefore never use it. Indirect calorimetry is by far superior to the BMR because it measures CO2 expired versus O2 inspired, meaning that it records what your body is using based on the number of breaths you exhale relative to what you've inhaled. It also tells you which substrate (carbohydrate, fat, protein, or a mix) you are primarily expending in your breath.
I said all of that to let you know how incompetent the BMR calculation is. A body-builder like Dwayne Johnson and an overweight man of the same weight/height may have very similar BMR because it does not measure LBM (Lean Body Mass) or fat. Same thing for BMI. The real "math" lies in your current body weight. If you are a heavy person, you will burn calories at a higher rate because you have more lean tissue to support your skeleton.

If you truly want to know how many calories to eat, take your current weight, divide it by 2.2 kilograms (kg). Take your kg and multiply it by 20. That is your caloric need, leaving exercise out of the equation. If you never exercised, this calculation is what you need to get you through the day. Add exercise on top of this and you go into calorie deficit...ergo, weight loss. Easy as pie.

If you truly want to know how many calories to eat, take your current weight, divide it by 2.2 kilograms (kg). Take your kg and multiply it by 20. That is your caloric need, leaving exercise out of the equation. If you never exercised, this calculation is what you need to get you through the day. Add exercise on top of this and you go into calorie deficit...ergo, weight loss. Easy as pie.

That is so funny, you say BMR isn't accurate as it doesn't take many factors, such as Lean Body Mass into consideration, and then you come up with a standard one-size-fits-all calorie equation.

our weightlifting ladies who weigh around 130lbs would never survive on this - it would give them less than 1200 calories a day!

If you truly want to know how many calories to eat, take your current weight, divide it by 2.2 kilograms (kg). Take your kg and multiply it by 20. That is your caloric need, leaving exercise out of the equation. If you never exercised, this calculation is what you need to get you through the day. Add exercise on top of this and you go into calorie deficit...ergo, weight loss. Easy as pie.

That is so funny, you say BMR isn't accurate as it doesn't take many factors, such as Lean Body Mass into consideration, and then you come up with a standard one-size-fits-all calorie equation.

our weightlifting ladies who weigh around 130lbs would never survive on this - it would give them less than 1200 calories a day!

There are calculators that you can find that take into account body fat and lean body mass.

Nothing is going to be perfectly accurate unless you have the ability to actually be tested. That usually costs money and is not available to everyone. The best we can do is general equations that apply to *most* people, not everyone.

yes, and this one is hardly any different to the *multiply your weight in lbs by 10*.

These have to be the most innaccurate as they ignore activity levels completely.

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Created by MyFitnessPal.com - Free Calorie Counter

If you truly want to know how many calories to eat, take your current weight, divide it by 2.2 kilograms (kg). Take your kg and multiply it by 20. That is your caloric need, leaving exercise out of the equation. If you never exercised, this calculation is what you need to get you through the day. Add exercise on top of this and you go into calorie deficit...ergo, weight loss. Easy as pie.

That is so funny, you say BMR isn't accurate as it doesn't take many factors, such as Lean Body Mass into consideration, and then you come up with a standard one-size-fits-all calorie equation.

our weightlifting ladies who weigh around 130lbs would never survive on this - it would give them less than 1200 calories a day!

There are calculators that you can find that take into account body fat and lean body mass.

Nothing is going to be perfectly accurate unless you have the ability to actually be tested. That usually costs money and is not available to everyone. The best we can do is general equations that apply to *most* people, not everyone.

yes, and this one is hardly any different to the *multiply your weight in lbs by 10*.

These have to be the most innaccurate as they ignore activity levels completely.

BMR calculators are not supposed to account for activity levels. BMR is your basal metabolic rate, the basic amount of calories your body burns to survive, with no activity included.
A TDEE, total daily energy expenditure calculator accounts for your daily activity.

The BMR calculation is not as accurate as one would hope. It can easily over-estimate or under-estimate caloric needs because it does not take a person's lifestyle, metabolic rate, or medical condition(s), if any, into consideration! The BMR typically WAY over-estimates my caloric needs and I therefore never use it. Indirect calorimetry is by far superior to the BMR because it measures CO2 expired versus O2 inspired, meaning that it records what your body is using based on the number of breaths you exhale relative to what you've inhaled. It also tells you which substrate (carbohydrate, fat, protein, or a mix) you are primarily expending in your breath.
I said all of that to let you know how incompetent the BMR calculation is. A body-builder like Dwayne Johnson and an overweight man of the same weight/height may have very similar BMR because it does not measure LBM (Lean Body Mass) or fat. Same thing for BMI. The real "math" lies in your current body weight. If you are a heavy person, you will burn calories at a higher rate because you have more lean tissue to support your skeleton.

If you truly want to know how many calories to eat, take your current weight, divide it by 2.2 kilograms (kg). Take your kg and multiply it by 20. That is your caloric need, leaving exercise out of the equation. If you never exercised, this calculation is what you need to get you through the day. Add exercise on top of this and you go into calorie deficit...ergo, weight loss. Easy as pie.

What? So you go through this whole speech about indirect calorimetry, and how accurate it is compared to "The BMR Calculation," (which one? Mifflin St Jeor? Katch-McArdle? Harris-Benedict? There are many different formulas.) Ands then you tell people to just multiply their weight in KG's by 20? That doesn't make any sense what so ever, and it majorly underestimates the caloric need for the average person. Using your formula would put me at about 300 calories under my actual BMR, and about 1000 calories under my maintenance needs.