3 years out - how many calories should I be eating?

I calculated my basal metabolic rate, which is the number of calories you burn if you just lied in one spot and did nothing all day.  That is the number of calories your body needs just to survive.  Then you can base your calorie intake on that.  Mine, for example is about 1353 calories.  If I eat this much per day and do absolutely nothing, then I will maintain.  If I do any bit of activity, I will begin to lose, but that may be very slowly depending on how much actual activity I do.  I haven't calculated my calories in a while, but I wouldn't think I eat more than that in a day anyway, and my weight loss is very slow, although my exercise is still sporadic at this time.

The formula below is how you would calculate your BMR, but the link will take you to a webpage calculator that will calculate it for you.  It is acutally a pretty good page and will also tell you how many calories needs are based on higher activity levels.  Of course if you eat fewer calories than you burn, then you will lose weight keeping in mind that there are 3500 calories in a pound, so if you reduce your calorie intake by 500 or burn an extra 500 calories per day then that will equal about a pound of weight loss in a week.  Hence if you want to lose 2 lbs per week, then you need to eat 1000 calories less than you burn per day.

To calculate your BMR using the Mifflin formula, follow these equations:

Men: (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) + 5
Women: (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) – 161

Lazy? Use this online calculator:  http://www.runnersworld.com/cda/bmrcalculator/0,8210,s6-242- 306-575-0-0-0-0-0,00.html 

Or try a more simple formula for quickly determining how many calories to eat on any given day to maintain your current weight: On days when you’re taking it easy and not exercising, multiply your weight (in pounds) by 15 and subtract 500 from that number. And on days that you're active, use the same calculation, but multiply your weight by 18.

Thanks. I put my stats in the calculator.
My BMR is 1559 and I am "lightly active". To lose 1 lb a week it is suggested I eat 1580 calories a day.

 Just to make it more confusing, I have heard to take your desired weight say 150 and multiply by 10 so 1500 calories is about what you can eat.  If you currently weigh 200 and to maintain, you need 2000, then eating 1500 cals a day would give you a deficit of 500 calories a day, times 7 days would give you a deficit of 3500 calories which means you would lose about a lb a week.

Clear as mud?

I would say that Karen's site worked for me by the way.  I asked to lose 10 lbs in 3 months and it said between 1200-1300 calories a day, which made sense to me.

..you also have to take into account how much you exercise.

 Thats true for sure, but I don't.  I like to consider it a bonus and hope more loss shows up, lol.  Besides, I'd have to exercise for that to happen 

There was a study done in the UK a while aback that determined that those that been at a higher weight and took it off needed significantly less base caloric intake than those who had never had weight. The body's homeostatic response tries really hard to regain to the heaviest point. So I would be very cautious about using an online calculator to determine your caloric goal.

I would start at about 1600 and if you haven't bidged afer about three weeks, try lowering it by 100 in stages until you do.

A co- worker has purchased a device like a body bug (biggest loser arm band calorie counter)from jenny craig. You enter in your food intake on the computer and it programs into the counter and you tell it how much you want to lose and it counts your calories in and out and it beeps once you've met your target calories for the day. She has been using it for 2 weeks and has lost 6 pounds.
I want to get one just to keep track.

Thanks for all of the info everyone. Much appreciated!

Do you know where you can purchase a body bug? I would be interested in getting one of those as well!  Thanks :)