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I'm a young 19 yr. old guy here trying to lose fat. What range of daily calories would be a good idea? When I had a trainer, he kept me on a diet that ranged from 1100-1400 calories. Is that right or should I take more? I'm looking at some calorie calculators online and it says higher than 1500 calories. What do you guys think? Oh and does this daily diet change for days I'm resting and days I'm excercising?

Without seeing a picture for a start its a hard one to answer as each frame is different.

1100 - 1400 is low even for a woman! and would not be prescribed for a teenager unless they are totally inactive or on a medical recovery plan.

What is your activity?

As for strategy I personaly prefer to keep it simple and go for the same amount each day as the differential in fat loss is ounces and doesnt make it worthwhile neither does food timing and all the other stuff you can read about.

If you are going on a calorie range then going roughly by your height and weight I would start a weekly cycle of 1800 cycling down 200 one week then up 100 another and so on until you hit 1400 calories then start again. But your training needs to be short and sweet to match this approach.

i can only assume that the figure your trainer gave you you were either much younger, doing little exercise or was a post exercise level

Uh I go to the gym 3 days a week now and I do cardio once or twice every week. I'm just confused because people tell me I should eat less if I'm trying to lose weight. All my stats are in my profile. Is it really important to stick to 5 meals a day? Is that what you mean by "timing meals?"

You're a young guy who's not in bad shape according to your stats (5'8" and 155#). A very low calorie diet of as little as 1,100 calories is not a good idea.

But on the other hand, I don't have any confidence in many online sites that supposedly calculate the right amount of calories you should eat. I tried one that said I should be eating 3,600 calories a day. Yeah, right. If I ate that many calories a day, I wouldn't be able to see my feet by Christmas.

I subscribe to the simple idea that you should moderately limit calories (for me that's around 1800 to 2000 a day) and regularly exercise about four days a week, both cardio and weights.

This has always worked for me. My biggest problem staying in shape is just sticking to that plan.

No I didnt mean that but dont worry about it its not important

yes yuo should be aiming for 6 feedings a day (try not to think meals it becomes arduous) a feeding could be a small banana and a glass of semi skimmed milk that's roughly 180 calories

OK first off exercise to burn calories is hugely inneffective but thats a matter of choice your diet is low so its doing the hard work. But either way you have a choice yuo have less overall calories by eating less as you are doing or alternatively increase activity to burn more calories (that you may not have needed in the first place) It takes seconds not to eat 500 calories yet an hours running to burn them off.
I dont know how effective your weights routine is or what the structure or format is so couldnt possibly comment on that, its not enough to go on.

Yes your stats are in there but so are mine but they dont tell you that even tho I have a 42 inch chest most of that is my broad shoulders and my lats and I personaly thing I look pigeon chested as I have piss poor pecs!

Losing fat and your goal is pure maths. Im now thinking that the 1100 - 1400 calories a day was less of a cycle more of a window ie eat between this figure. You need to know exactly and that takes effort, scales and a method of calculation. But like most people your diet wont be that varied so after a couple of weeks it becomes easy. But dont expect teh fat to drop off if you dont know that figure within 10 calories either way.

Dieters under estimate weight gainers over estimate.

best thing you could do is start your reading up, also log your food if you dont already on a tool like www.fitday.com, keep an excel sheet or other training log to show your weights progression and then come back in 2 weeks and post up the results and we can look at in more meaningful detail