Nutrients Remaining Inaccuracy

iamjanelle8273

Anyone know why the calories remaining do not equal the macros remaining? How do I have 10 g carbs, 1 gram fat, and 1 gram protein left, but -5 calories left? I don’t have exercise tracking on, so that’s not a factor. Help this make sense to me! What am I overlooking?

AnnPT77

The database is crowd-sourced, entered by regular MFP users, and not all of them are meticulous about accuracy. Further, generally all they have to rely on is what is on food labels, and those are permitted in regulations to have some rounding or imprecision.

You can improve how well macros balance to calories by making it a point to choose the most accurately-entered foods from the database.

Now, since you have a day that doesn't balance, go through your diary line by line, and I'll bet you find individual foods that don't balance in macro terms, using the rule of thumb that protein and carbs are 4 roughly calories per gram, and fats roughly 9 calories per gram.

On top of that, if you had any alcohol - even as an ingredient in something, not even a whole intentional alcoholic drink - note that alcohol is roughly 7 calories per gram, but isn't fats, carbs, or protein . . . it's kind of like its own macronutrient, except it's not nutritious.

Another possible factor is mixing net carbs and gross carbs. I don't know whether you have premium and have the net carbs feature turned on, or not; and that may not matter. This is an international site. In some countries, carbs on food labels are net carbs, but in the US and some other countries they're gross carbs, even when we're talking about the same-name food product with the same formulation in different countries.

The balance is unlikely to be exact, ever, but since you're off by around 58 calories total, it's unlikely just to be a rounding problem . . . more likely to be a mix of some of the other issues mentioned above.