I understand most of it, but...

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brb2008
brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
in Getting Started
I feel I have a good grasp on what my BMR is (approximately) and how that differs from my TDEE, and I can use those numbers to figure out my estimated deficit per day (just for my own mental picture of my efforts). I also have a fitbit who likes to spit huge numbers out at me for my total daily calorie expenditure.

The numbers I am confused about are the "net calories" on the front page of MFP. For today it says: 1337 - 936 (cals burned from fitit)= *401 net calories
I just dont really know what that number means.

Sorry if that seems like such a dumb question but I was explaining my plan to my partner last night and when I got to that part of the equation I was like "hmm... what does this figure actually MEAN" I know how my deficit impacts weight loss but what about net?


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  • CountessKitteh
    CountessKitteh Posts: 1,505 Member
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    Goal is the calories you are given to eat based on the stats you put into MFP.

    Food is exactly what you think it is - the calories you've eaten today.

    Exercise is what you burned through activity.

    Now, MFP is set up so that you eat back your exercise calories, so you can add those back in.

    Goal - Food + Exercise = what you can still eat today!

    Example:

    My daily goal is 1200 (I'm very short and set to sedentary).
    I've eaten 1408 calories today.
    My Fitbit has given me back 453 calories.
    I can still eat 245 more calories and maintain my same deficit.

    1200 - 1408 + 453 = 245
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
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    Okay net calories are food calories I could "eat back" if I wanted? I guess thats where things get complicated, to eat them back you have to assume the figure is correct. I can't be sure of that for a few more weeks so I can assess my weight loss trend over time.

    Am I intended to eat these back? Or is that just personal choice? Cause 900+ calories is a hell of a lot of food!!
  • ashliedelgado
    ashliedelgado Posts: 814 Member
    edited November 2015
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    Net calories is what you have eaten after activity is deducted. Think of it like your pay check. You have your gross check, and then after taxes and deductions, what is left is your net.

    Personally, I try to eat about half of my exercise calories back. I listen to my body though. If I'm hungry and I don't think I should be, I drink a glass of water and wait 10 minutes. If I'm still hungry, I eat until I feel satisfied, not until I hate myself. On the other end, if I am just not hungry, I don't kill myself to hit a goal. I let MFP yell at me for not eating enough that day, and go on with life.
  • CountessKitteh
    CountessKitteh Posts: 1,505 Member
    edited November 2015
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    brb2008 wrote: »
    Okay net calories are food calories I could "eat back" if I wanted? I guess thats where things get complicated, to eat them back you have to assume the figure is correct. I can't be sure of that for a few more weeks so I can assess my weight loss trend over time.

    Am I intended to eat these back? Or is that just personal choice? Cause 900+ calories is a hell of a lot of food!!

    Most people assume some margin of error, so start by eating back only half of their exercise calories. If you're active, you should eat at least some of them back so that you make sure you're properly fueled, and to give your body something to work with for muscle repair, etc.

    In my case, say I only ate the 1200 I was given, and then I earned another 500 working out. That's a net of only 700 calories of "fuel" for the day, since 500 of it was used up in my activity. (1200 food - 500 exercise = 700 net), which isn't nearly enough to make me not feel like crud.

    You absolutely don't want your net to drop below the minimum 1200 for a woman, but you really don't want it to drop much below whatever MFP set your goal as, since that already includes the reduction you need to lose weight.
  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,626 Member
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    Calories eaten - calories burned = "Net calories"

    While I don't mind the "net calories" term, it does make the calories eaten "gross calories", which is funny. I tend to think of broccoli calories as gross calories, but not edamame calories. :)
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
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    CountessKitteh wrote: »
    You absolutely don't want your net to drop below the minimum 1200 for a woman, but you really don't want it to drop much below whatever MFP set your goal as, since that already includes the reduction you need to lose weight.

    Oh dear I kind of figured as long as I was EATING at least 1200 I was doing alright. If I look back, that could be why last weekend was so tough. By Sunday/Monday (my weekend), I felt SO hungry and emotional I ended up eating way more than I planned. Possibly could be a subconscious way to try to make my body get closer to a higher net calories.

    Maybe today I will try getting that net calories to at least 1200. Sounds like it might be tough for me given that my fitbit adds calories throughout the day and I may end up needing to do what I tried yesterday. I ate a really calorie dense dinner to try to fill the gap more. I couldn't quite finish it so today I will try to add some more calories in at lunch time because I have turned out to be not a big breakfast eater. Hopefully I can get this all fine tuned soon and start seeing awesome results!

  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
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    brb2008 wrote: »
    CountessKitteh wrote: »
    You absolutely don't want your net to drop below the minimum 1200 for a woman, but you really don't want it to drop much below whatever MFP set your goal as, since that already includes the reduction you need to lose weight.

    Oh dear I kind of figured as long as I was EATING at least 1200 I was doing alright. If I look back, that could be why last weekend was so tough. By Sunday/Monday (my weekend), I felt SO hungry and emotional I ended up eating way more than I planned. Possibly could be a subconscious way to try to make my body get closer to a higher net calories.

    Maybe today I will try getting that net calories to at least 1200. Sounds like it might be tough for me given that my fitbit adds calories throughout the day and I may end up needing to do what I tried yesterday. I ate a really calorie dense dinner to try to fill the gap more. I couldn't quite finish it so today I will try to add some more calories in at lunch time because I have turned out to be not a big breakfast eater. Hopefully I can get this all fine tuned soon and start seeing awesome results!

    Fitibit is supposed to add extra calories back because it's based on your activity for that day. Unless you're really short, you should be netting 1200 or above, so yeah, that's probably why you were so hungry! It's true that MFP can overestimate your calories burned if you let it calculate it for you, but you've got a Fitbit, and that will be more accurate. Especially if you have one with a heart rate monitor. So let Fitbit handle your activity and exercise, and let MFP handle your food. The two working together isn't perfect, you may need to tweak here and there, but it's fairly close to giving you an accurate count.
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
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    I feel like my fitbit's estimates are crazy high! For example, yesterday I got my net to the highest its been all week (except for the binge weekend days of course). The net was something in the 900-1000range, but fitbit says I burned 3700! I am pretty active but jeeeeeeez it just seems crazy high so I dont put too much trust in it. I do have the heart rate monitor and wear it religiously! I love it, but I just dont want to trust that number blindly :)

    I trust my BMR+ the 'exercise calories' fitbit tells MFP which for yesterday would put me in the range of 2650-2850 (just seems more reasonable) but now that I look at it analytically its all coming together. Even if I go with the lowest daily burn (and hope its accurate as at least a minimum) I am having a solid 1000 cal deficit just from food alone, and me moving around and being active is cutting me even below that which I would caution any other person against doing. So I will be stepping it up in the fuel department *a little*

    Lots of guess work, estimates, and now waiting to see if its all coming together! Giving it at least 30 days to see the trend, if its too fast I'll know for sure I havent added enough food.

    Thank you all so much! I appreciate thd advice :)
  • aylajane
    aylajane Posts: 979 Member
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    The calories burned from the fitbit should JUST be those calories above your "normal". it should not be your total calories for the whole day. For example, my baseline in fitbit is about 1600 calories. My "adjustment" in MFP would be 0 until I have burned more than that for the day (which I can only do if I move more than a little... a typical day laying on the couch is about 1400 for me). So if at the end of the day my fitbit says I burned 2000 calories, my "adjustment" in MFP would only be 400.

    Sounds like some setting may not be right? There is a fitbit group here that can help make sure. Maybe go post more info there?
  • CountessKitteh
    CountessKitteh Posts: 1,505 Member
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    aylajane wrote: »
    The calories burned from the fitbit should JUST be those calories above your "normal". it should not be your total calories for the whole day. For example, my baseline in fitbit is about 1600 calories. My "adjustment" in MFP would be 0 until I have burned more than that for the day (which I can only do if I move more than a little... a typical day laying on the couch is about 1400 for me). So if at the end of the day my fitbit says I burned 2000 calories, my "adjustment" in MFP would only be 400.

    Sounds like some setting may not be right? There is a fitbit group here that can help make sure. Maybe go post more info there?

    OP, you may want to unsync and then resync your Fitbit account to MFP. Several of us were having issues where either food was posting to Fitbit twice or exercise calories were posting to MFP twice. It seems to resolve once you take them apart and put them back together. :lol:
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
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    aylajane wrote: »
    The calories burned from the fitbit should JUST be those calories above your "normal". it should not be your total calories for the whole day. For example, my baseline in fitbit is about 1600 calories. My "adjustment" in MFP would be 0 until I have burned more than that for the day (which I can only do if I move more than a little... a typical day laying on the couch is about 1400 for me). So if at the end of the day my fitbit says I burned 2000 calories, my "adjustment" in MFP would only be 400.

    Sounds like some setting may not be right? There is a fitbit group here that can help make sure. Maybe go post more info there?

    No I know this information, I am adding my BMR to the exercise calories provided by fitbit to come up with an absolute minimum energy usage for the day, and then via the fitbit app I get a huge number that I am to assume is my energy usage for the whole day but it is much much higher than my minimum figure so I estimate my true energy usage to be somewhere between the two.

    I'm not confused about those figures :)
  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
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    brb2008 wrote: »
    aylajane wrote: »
    The calories burned from the fitbit should JUST be those calories above your "normal". it should not be your total calories for the whole day. For example, my baseline in fitbit is about 1600 calories. My "adjustment" in MFP would be 0 until I have burned more than that for the day (which I can only do if I move more than a little... a typical day laying on the couch is about 1400 for me). So if at the end of the day my fitbit says I burned 2000 calories, my "adjustment" in MFP would only be 400.

    Sounds like some setting may not be right? There is a fitbit group here that can help make sure. Maybe go post more info there?

    No I know this information, I am adding my BMR to the exercise calories provided by fitbit to come up with an absolute minimum energy usage for the day, and then via the fitbit app I get a huge number that I am to assume is my energy usage for the whole day but it is much much higher than my minimum figure so I estimate my true energy usage to be somewhere between the two.

    I'm not confused about those figures :)

    What I did was take the average of two weeks of daily calorie totals (minus exercise because i don't exercise frequently) and used that as my TDEE. I took the deficit off that myself and entered the same custom calorie goal on both. I still had to do a little tweaking, but that's what I had to do to make the two work together for me. I use exercise mode on my Fitbit when I do exercise so it will know to add that as extra calories, and I don't have negative adjustments enabled because if I stick to my average, yeah, I might be short calories burned one day, but I'll be over the next, so it balances out.
  • aylajane
    aylajane Posts: 979 Member
    edited November 2015
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    Well, you said "1337 - 936 (cals burned from fitit)= *401 net calories"... Are you sure the 936 is not your actual calories burned for the day (meaning BMR too, not just exercise).

    It is 2pm in the afternoon here for me. MFP says my goal is 1580 calories. My food for today is 745 calories. My exercise calories are 0 (cause I have not burned more than my DAILY bmr/normal yet). So my "net" for today is currently 1580-745+0=745 net calories left to eat today.


    You are saying that your goal is 1337? And your "exercise" that is posted on the main page is 936? That is pretty intense exercise if that is above your BMR+sedentary/lightly active setting (or you set it way too low for your actual activity rate). I could not burn 936 "extra" calories in one day unless I ran 2 marathons back to back I think. What did you do to burn that many "extra' calories (on top of your BMR+sendentary/lightly active/etc)?

    I still think something is wrong here. When I look at the exercise calculation for fitbit, this is what they say:

    You're using Fitbit to measure your actual activity level throughout the day.

    To accurately reflect any extra calories you're burning, we use this data to adjust your daily MyFitnessPal calorie goal.

    This is how we calculate your calorie adjustment:

    Fitbit Calories Burned
    Full Day Projection
    (Based on 843 calories burned as of 1:51 pm) 1508
    MyFitnessPal Calories Burned
    1572
    Fitbit Calorie Adjustment
    0 *
    * Negative adjustments are disabled for you. To change this setting, go here.

    Can you post what yours says here?
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
    edited November 2015
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    Oh yes Im QUITE sure I burn significantly more than 936 calories in a day. You may be upset to hear my exercise calories were actually 1206 by the end of the day.

    Fitbit calories burned: 3019
    Projection based on 1994 cals burned as of 1:56pm
    MFP cals burned: 2445

    I think you're being a little too critical of the post. I was simply looking for an explanation of what net calories means, and I understand now. I knew it was a dumb question but I didnt expect to have my entire plan picked apart :-P I apologize if my numbers are way different from yours and if that lead to the confusion. Im big, my body uses a lot of fuel just to keep my heart ticking.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
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    It means you get to eat a LOT more and still lose!
  • brb2008
    brb2008 Posts: 406 Member
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    Liftng4Lis wrote: »
    It means you get to eat a LOT more and still lose!

    Yes I am indeed seeing that! I havent been eating enough at all :) Im glad I understand what the net means now! I am considering bumping my food goal from 1400 to 1600 next week and see if that helps. Should at least close the gap a bit more.

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