BMR

This should have went into getting started, but I figured this deserved a whole post on it's own since when I try to train people, some just don't understand it. BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate, which means how many calories you would eat if you sat on your gluteus maximus all day. Some people ask "Well why do I need that, why is it so important?" Well, in order to get on the right track to eating right, you need to find out how much your body needs just to survive for the day, let alone doing exercise. Now some of the calculators you find online have activity levels they ask you to choose. Some are pretty accurate, but others don't detail what they mean by which activity level.
For instance, sedentary is when you pretty much do nothing but bare minimum-you don't work out, but you do normal things all throughout the day. Unless you do a job with construction, or something where the first day you were sore all over, you should classify as sedentary. The construction workers and hard labor jobs tend to fit in the somewhat-active/active range. Guys like me that workout 5-6 days a week and have a job that keeps them on their feet, and also do farm work at house get a very active. So that'll give you a range of what to pick. I also found a calorie calculator which I'll post the link at the end of the post which is pretty detailed in what you'll need to eat INCLUDING compensating for the workouts, so when you find out the calories from that calculator, it's adding in if you do that stuff everyday so that's something to keep in mind when using it. Either way, it gives you a good ballpark range to work with and figure out what works in helping you either lose the weight, or gain weight/muscle.
ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you want to gain muscle, you need to meet the satisfaction of what your body needs in a day, and a few hundred extra calories for the workouts you do (depending in intensity, it could be less or more, but a few hundred is a good starting point). If you want to lose fat/weight, you intake just a few hundred less of your BMR + whatever you need for your workouts (for some people just meeting the BMR is enough to lose healthy weight as long as they still exercise).
Anyways, if you have any questions you'd like me to make a post about or just answer, be sure to leave a comment. I hope this helps anyone get a good step in the right direction and makes their way to great gains/losses, and as always, thanks for reading!
Link for Calorie Calculator: http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/calories.shtml