I just count what I take in, but I know that is not the best way. I am lazy, but it would be better if I would also take into account the calories that I burn, which I should start doing.

Counting what you take in is really the only way to do it. The simplicity is overlooked. If you are losing more than a moderate level of weight with your current intake, then raise it a little. If not losing fast enough, decrease calories (within reason, and/or, increase activity)

You can reverse engineer all these numbers to find your maintenance calories. This obviously changes as you lose weight, but is still useful for a while, at least it let's you make educated decisions on your intake.

Eat the extra that you burn during exercise otherwise your deficit will be too sharp, you will waste muscle and your metabolism will slow down.

That is true in the most basic way, but the fact that it is really hard to calculate calorie burn, the best thing is to set a number, that takes into account your estimated general activity level, and then monitor for a couple of weeks.

If you are losing too much weight, increase food or decrease exercise, and vice versa.

The only real way of hitting the spot is to see how your body reacts to your intake and exercise over time. Calculators give nothing more than a best guess, something to work from at the start. You should be keeping the numbers and results as you go to see what needs changing up to meet your goals.

BTW, eating adequate protein at a minimum (preferably some resistance training too) is the best way to preserve muscle whilst dieting, and not eating in too big a calorie deficit., most people don't do that!

I've been paying a lot more attention to where my calories are coming from over the past week or so, making sure I'm getting enough protein and fiber, and not overly (or under) restricting the calories. I plan to give it about a month and then take measurements and weight. I also stopped using the heart rate monitor, so I'm just tracking calories in instead of calories in and out. Fingers crossed!

Sounds like a plan, getting enough protein is vital to help keep you full and satiated, it's probably the one thing more people should do to get dietary success and compliance.

The HR monitor is a great tool, for making sure that you are working out at an appropriate intensity, but I ignore the calorie burn bit pretty much. Well, I note it, and then after a couple of weeks, look at my intake and expenditure and see if it tallies up with fat loss.

Heart rate monitor training is definitely useful, I love it, but I use it to keep me very aerobic, so burning fat as my primary fuel source when out on a run. BTW, I definitely don't do carbs before a run, fat burning is likely to get turned off as the body will utilise carbs first where it can.

If you are interested in running for example, look up Maffetone Method online, there is some really simple info on selecting your target heart rate and using it to improve your fat burning ability, as well as exercise without the risk of overtraining or injury.

I've written a post on it, I can post the link if anyone is interested.

You might end up having to drop the carbs and up the fat, but I would see how it goes first, 150g of carbs is low carb when compared to most folks, but if you keep to unrefined carbs from vegetables, a little fruit, and so on, you can get quite a lot down you for that 150g.

One can eat a lot of food this way, but the key is consistency and sustainability, it's no good just binging out 2-3 times a week, one needs to really be strong and make sure that there is always a good food choice to lay your hands on, rather than a bad one. Some people do better skipping brekkie, medium sized lunch, then 2 meals on the evening, one at 5pm, another supper type thing at 7.30, this can often proven that late evening piggery.

You probably don't need to be concerned about eating all of those calories back unless you exercise for an hour or more, many times per week, at a moderate to high level, or you're intentionally attempting to gain weight.

interesting