Net Vs total calories

sarahkanzalone

I was looking at nutrition report and it shows net and total calories. Could someone explain what these mean? Thanks!

CaptainJoy

Total calories is how many you have actually consumed. Net calories is your total calories minus exercise calories.

sarahkanzalone

Thank you I thought it might be something like that but wanted to make sure

benji96m

Its also worth bearing in mind the differences in gross / net when exercising. Most exercise equipment will give a calories burned reading in the gross figure, unless it is sophisticated enough for you to be able to customise it. This means that it works out how many total calories you have burned during that period of exercise (lets say 100 in 1 hour for arguments sake). What people don't realise is that they haven't actually "earned" 100 calories worth of food for them to eat back (if they wished to), as the average adult requires between 40 and 60 calories per hour simply to keep the body functioning (1000 - 1400 calories per day) as a Resting Metabolic Rate (doing nothing). So, if you base yourself at the top of that scale, and spend a couple of hours on equipment which tells you you've burned 300 calories, whatever you do, don't think you can treat yourself to that 300 calories treat as you've only actually earned 180!

Christine_72

@benji96m How do you explain those people who eat back 100% of their exercise calories per fitness trackers which as far as i know show the gross calorie burn? There are also folks who use MFP's calorie burns and are able to lose or maintain eating all of those back too.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just generally curious in hearing your opinion.

CattOfTheGarage

Christine_72 wrote: »

@benji96m How do you explain those people who eat back 100% of their exercise calories per fitness trackers which as far as i know show the gross calorie burn? There are also folks who use MFP's calorie burns and are able to lose or maintain eating all of those back too.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just generally curious in hearing your opinion.

I eat back all my exercise per myfitnesspal estimates. BUT I am conservative when I enter the time spent exercising. If I'm not sure whether it was 10 min or 15 min walking, I put 10 min. If I spent 30 min in the pool I will only log 5-10min swimming to allow for pauses, breaks and time spent floating around.

Tbh I think logging your exercise through myfitnesspal works fine if you are honest about it. The problem comes when someone is constantly giving themselves the benefit of the doubt and pushing every exercise entry to the extreme - the highest intensity, the maximum time - and not allowing for all the little breaks and pauses and slacking off that naturally happens.

TimothyFish

Christine_72 wrote: »

@benji96m How do you explain those people who eat back 100% of their exercise calories per fitness trackers which as far as i know show the gross calorie burn? There are also folks who use MFP's calorie burns and are able to lose or maintain eating all of those back too.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, just generally curious in hearing your opinion.

With fitness trackers MFP attempts to make an adjustment up or down based on what the tracker reports. If used properly, a fitness tracker won't add calories on top of normal activity calories but will give you a better idea of what your normal activity calories are. (In theory anyway.)

Also, it isn't always true that exercise equipment is reporting gross calorie burn. If a power meter is being used by the equipment ignoring the normal calorie burn is easier. They would just take the average wattage times the duration in hours times 3.6 to get the calorie burn. There would be some overlap with normal calorie burn, but it tends to get canceled out due to the inefficiency of the human body to produce power. (You burn more calories than the power meter measures.)