weekly net calories average question

curvygirly911

There is a section where you can see your weekly net calories on the nutrition portion of the app. I am wondering what that number means?
I know that each day's net calories indicates how many calories I ate overall. So I may have eaten 1200, but I exercised 200 calories so my total net calories is 1000 calories consumed.
Now what is the weekly net calories number? Is this how many calories I consumed the entire week minus how much I burned?
My app will say " you are X over your goal", or "under your goal". I am unsure of what way it should be if I am trying to lose weight.
At the moment, I eat 1200 calories daily, to lose 1.5 lb a week and I burn about 300 calories daily. However, I am barely losing 0.5 lbs a week for some reason.

Thank you in advance and I'm sorry if question is repeated ( I couldn't find it in the search).

melissareeder56

Are you eating the extra 300 calories you burn in exercise? Sometimes if you aren't eating enough food, your body will go into a starvation mode. Sometimes 1200 calories isn't enough for certain people. My friend was eating the 1200 calories and logging intense gym time 5 days a week and didn't lose anything. She saw a personal trainer and he told her to up her calories and then she started to see results. I don't know if this applies to you but I thought I would throw that out there. Good luck.

CaffeinatedConfectionist

curvygirly911 wrote: »

Now what is the weekly net calories number? Is this how many calories I consumed the entire week minus how much I burned?

Short answer, yes, depending on where in the nutrition section you're looking. You can see a bar graph of your daily calorie intake for the week, and the final black bar is your average net calories per day (so, for example, I eat less M-Th so that I know I have more calories to play with on Fri-Sun, so I pay more attention to my average net calories than net calories on a specific day).

If you are having trouble with loss, make sure that you are being accurate in your calories consumed - weigh your food with a scale, if you cook from scratch use a recipe calculator instead of using entries from the database, etc. MFP also tends to overestimate calorie burns, so you may well be eating more and burning less than you think. You also don't mention how long you've been exercising, tracking, etc, so there are a lot of factors out there that could be affecting your loss. It takes several weeks, for example, for a body to get accustomed to a new exercise routine.

And also, as previously mentioned, 1200 is pretty low for a low of people. And generally 1200 or 1400 or 1700 calories or whatever you set your daily goal to is what you want to aim for as your net, not your gross calories. So if you burn 200 calories, eat them back, because MFP already builds a deficit into your suggested calories to eat (though again this gets into the fact that the calorie burn might be overestimated). A more accurate way to estimate the calories you should be eating is to calculate your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) using an online calculator like fitnessfrog or scooby's that takes into account your daily activity level, both exercise and regular daily activities, and track your calorie intake and subsequent losses for a few months to see how accurate this estimate is. Weight loss not being linear it is very helpful to have several months of accurate data to work with.

TeaBea

curvygirly911 wrote: »

There is a section where you can see your weekly net calories on the nutrition portion of the app. I am wondering what that number means?
I know that each day's net calories indicates how many calories I ate overall. So I may have eaten 1200, but I exercised 200 calories so my total net calories is 1000 calories consumed.
Now what is the weekly net calories number? Is this how many calories I consumed the entire week minus how much I burned?
My app will say " you are X over your goal", or "under your goal". I am unsure of what way it should be if I am trying to lose weight.
At the moment, I eat 1200 calories daily, to lose 1.5 lb a week and I burn about 300 calories daily. However, I am barely losing 0.5 lbs a week for some reason.

Thank you in advance and I'm sorry if question is repeated ( I couldn't find it in the search).

1200 isn't a guarantee of 1.5 pounds a week. 1200 is just as low as MFP will go (BEFORE exercise).

Some people are physically too small (or older) to manage a daily 750 calorie deficit, without eating too little for nutritional requirements.

For example: I'm over 50 and 5'5." My TDEE (with exercise) is 1650. That's 1650 to maintain my weight (including exercise). If I wanted to lose 1.5 pounds a week, I would need to eat just 900 calories (which would be stupid low).

Keep in mind weight loss will not be linear. Water weight can mess with the scale. higher sodium = water weight, sore muscles can = water weight, TOM can = water weight.

Your body is burning calories 24/7. MFP gave you a deficit with zero exercise factored in. If you are eating 1200 and burning an additional 200 thru exercise, it's like giving your body 1,000 calories in fuel. MFP is designed for you to eat 1200 + 200.

*Edited to add; starvation mode is not really a thing. Yes, people can screw up their metabolism but you generally have to work hard and long do so.

curvygirly911

Thank you for the replies. They give me a lot to think about and I will research this