Questions about Net Calories in MFP

quirkygeek83
quirkygeek83 Posts: 1 Member
in Getting Started
Hey everyone,

While I've had MFP for a while, I've only truly been a user of the app for a few weeks now. My question today is about Net Calories, which seems to be a debatable topic depending on where you search.

I understand the calculation behind Net Calories (calories eaten - calories burned = net calories), but where I'm confused is where it affects my calorie goals for the day. The app kind of makes it confusing. I see on my home page and diary where it takes my goal, subtracts food, adds exercise and gives me my "remaining" calories. But I can't imagine I need to eat all those calories, especially when it's tracking calories burned from steps all day on top of exercise!

Let's use this as an example:

2000 calorie goal - 500 calories eaten + 1000 calories burned in exercise = 1500 calories remaining.

But here's where it gets confusing. If I go under nutrition in my diary, I find my Net Calories, so taking the numbers above, I get the following.

500 calories eaten - 1000 calories burned = -500 net calories

So then my net calories are in the negative in that case.

All that to ask these questions in my quest to lose weight:

1) Should my goal for the day be the Calories remaining or should my net calories equal my initial goal by the end of the day?

2) or should I be shooting for a negative in net calories in order to lose weight?

Any feedback is welcome!

Thanks!

Replies

  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
    Mfp is designed for you to eat back your exercise calories. If your calories are 1400 for example. You'd eat 1400 calories plus any additional exercise calories.
  • sugaraddict4321
    sugaraddict4321 Posts: 15,863 MFP Moderator
    Welcome to the MFP Community. :) Keep in mind that activity trackers calculate based on averages. For short people like me, it always over-estimates, so I don't eat 100% of exercise calories back, just some of them. :)
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    edited July 2020
    The general MFP strategy: your calorie consumption goal is assigned based on lifestyle. It assumes you do not exercise. So you can 'earn' more by exercising, and thus eat more.

    What works for you? You kind of have to figure that out. If you set your weight loss goal based on something aggressive like losing 2 pounds per week (1000 deficit) AND work out a good bit: you should probably eat something additional to help fuel your exercise.

    Then you have the other end of the spectrum, where perhaps you set your weight loss goal to be something moderate like .5-1 pounds per week and your workouts are not intense. IN this scenario, you may not feel the need to eat additional for exercise.

    If you fall somewhere in the middle: moderate weight loss goal and moderate exercise intensity, then you are somewhere in the middle and perhaps can judge what you need by how you feel.

    PERSONALLY I base my consumption goal off of my TDEE (which uses exercise and activity/lifestyle, so there is nothing for me to 'eat back').

    The basics to take away: you want to eat enough, and there is some debate over what is 'enough'. AT a bare minimum 1200 cals for women and 1500 cals for men. Unless you're obese and/or under a doctor's care, you should probably not have a deficit greater than 1000 daily. TDEE calculators and activity trackers can help you to get an idea of what your total daily average expenditure is, but it is a little bit of guesswork. If you're eating 'enough' by your own standard, feeling energetic and you're certain you're getting a good variety of nutrition: you're probably ok.

    And depending on your true stats - you're probably not burning 1000 cals in exercise. But it depends on the person, the time invested and the activity. For me to burn 1000 cals in exercise it would mean running a half marathon. But I'm female, 143ish pounds. Someone heavier, younger, and/or male could burn 1000 with less time invested perhaps.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited July 2020
    Which tracker?

    That "Exercise" is not really just or even exercise - it is merely the difference between what MFP thought you would burn with no exercise and your possibly wrong guess of activity level, and what the tracker says you have burned being on you all day long.

    You could have told MFP you were sedentary and MFP estimated 2000 daily burn say.
    But you are really Lightly-Active with kids, house, ect.
    Tracker says you burn 2500 on days with no exercise.

    Tracker 2500 - 2000 MFP = 500 cal adjustment.
    Base eating goal 1500 (500 cal deficit from the estimated 2000) + 500 = 2000 new eating goal.
    And burned 2500.
    Deficit 500.
    1 lb weekly loss.

    But if you had told MFP you were Lightly-Active in the first place, it might have gotten the 2500 at the start, given a 2000 cal eating level, and there would be no adjustments - and you wouldn't wonder what was going on.
    Right?

    Same end result.

    For exercise same thing - but the tracker is going to obviously report a bigger calorie burn.
    Perhaps you did a 1 hr 400 cal burn during the day in a workout.
    Tracker reported total burn 2800 (you gained 400 in a workout, but lost 100 in daily activity - easily happens).

    2800 - 2000 = 800 adjustment
    1500 + 800 = 2300 new eating goal
    Still 500 deficit.
    1lb weekly.

    So many people give trust to MFP and are only picking from 4 rough levels of daily activity.
    But enter the tracker actually seeing the activity you do and trust is out the window.
    No it's not 100% correct, but you tweak for known daily issues (distance from steps is wrong, which is basis for calorie burn moving daily), or known workout issues (HR inflated calorie burn for interval type workouts).
    And then you hold to that for a month and see what may be wrong.


    The NET makes more sense if you think of non-tracker usage when MFP started.
    MFP said eat 1500 say for 500 deficit, that's based on sedentary level.
    If that was reasonable deficit that should cover what body requires for base metabolism and taking care of what is needed.

    Then you burn 500 calories in a workout - well you for sure just spent those calories on purely movement for the workout - taken from what the body can use for the normally required things.
    NET 1000 is what the body is left with for daily energy use now. If 1500 was safer, 1000 isn't good.
    Hence eating back exercise to keep the same hopefully reasonable deficit.

    With trackers none of that applies since the "Exercise" can easily be only extra daily activity which is easily pulling from fat stores.
    The level of deficit still applies to keeping it reasonable though - so the final eating goal is still the goal.

    ETA:
    Answer questions:
    1 - Your goal for the day should be what it says is the "Your Daily Goal" on website in Food Diary.
    "Remaining" is how much more to eat to hit that goal.
    On the main Home page that will cause the Net to equal the Goal. Remaining will be the same.
    2 - If in your setup you selected some rate of weight loss - your goal already includes that.
    They are already attempting for you to eat less than your burn.

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