[bellytimber]

Kinda--thanks for posting that, I'd never seen that formula before. And you're right: It's a good starting point for people who have never thought about BMR, but there's no such thing as a one-formula-fits-all when it comes to health stuff like this, FWIW that formula is off by ~1000 calories for me.

A few years ago I heard there was a breathalyzer-type machine that you could exhale into and it would tell you your basal metabolic rate; health clubs were offering a session for like $100. I never heard how accurate they were though, and anyway your BMR is only half the story because the amt of calories that you burn during the day is so hard to measure. Charts that are like, "OK you burn 500 calories chopping wood and and 400 calories chopping broccoli and 700 calories looking at hobbit porn," these charts are pretty retarded IMO. There are just way too many subtle variables going on here. Do you fidget? Do you sleepwalk? Do you sometimes do the centipede to work? (400 cal)

The best answer is the boring one--by trial and error and decent recordkeeping over many weeks you just eventually get a sense for how many calories you can eat in a day/week at a certain activity level before your weight starts changing. And the good news is it sounds like this isn't going to be that hard for the OP to figure out, he already knows exactly what puts him in a caloric deficit. And congrats on that weight loss btw!