confused about net calorie vs calorie goal

coschaffer

is it the goal to get the remaining calories as close to 0 as possible?

i read alot about net calorie but i am very confused about that as it keeps going up, do i want net calorie to match calorie goal, or do i want total calories to match the goal?

😫

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48718628#Comment_48718628

Assuming all the estimates and logging are accurate - a fairly big "if" - what you are able to eat is your base calories plus the exercise calorie adjustment. In theory, that would keep you at the same expected weight loss rate that you requested in your MFP profile.

Some people worry about overestimating calorie burn, so don't eat all of it. That can be OK, as long as stopping short of way undereating. Fast weight loss isn't necessarily better weight loss: It's harder weight loss, and can even cause health risk.

If you follow what MFP gives you reasonably closely for 4-6 weeks - whole menstrual cycles for those who have them - your results will give a reasonable reading of whether your goal is right for you, or needs adjustment.

Ifyour exercise calories are coming from a synced fitness tracker, I'd recommend turning on negative adjustments in MFP.

I'm not answering in terms of "gross" "net" or "total" calories, because those words are used in more than one way. I'd suggest looking at the words (of course) but trying to understand the underlying concept. "Gross" or "total" can refer to calories eaten or burned, y'know; and "net" can be used in any case where calories are subtracted/deducted.

If you look at my 2nd screen grab above, what we're going for, if we choose to eat all the available calories, is for "remaining" in that context to be close to zero.

AnnPT77

Yes, the goal is to get remaining calories as close to zero as possible, short of obsessing over it. Pretty close is fine. Pretty close on average over a few days to a week is also fine. MFP may reset at midnight, but our bodies don't.

I hesitate to say much about net vs. gross calories, because that terminology can be used a little differently in different places. I'll talk about what it means in a specific instance. This is a section of the Nutrition menu option, Calories tab, in the MFP phone/tablet app, for one day:

My base daily calorie goal in MFP is 1850, the "Goal" on the last line there. On this particular day, I ate 2103 calories in total - gross calories eaten would be another name for that: The label here is
"Total Calories".

On this day, I logged 249 exercise calories. Here is the exercise section and the totals at the top of my diary page for that day:

So, my calories available to eat are the 1850 base calories plus the 249 exercise calories, or 2099 calories. In reality, I logged 2103 calories I had eaten. In another way of putting it, I'd over-eaten my goal by 4 calories (which is fine with me - plenty close enough 😉).

If you go back to the first included screen grab, you will see a line labeled "Net Calories" with the number 1854 on that line. What is that 1854? It is my gross calories eaten, 2103, minus my exercise calories, 249. That's just a way of comparing where I am compared to my base goal, pretty much. It's another way of saying that I ate 4 calories above my calorie goal.

So, the number of calories available to eat is base goal plus exercise calories. That's one thing that could be called gross calories . . . it's gross calories available to eat. But another thing that can also be called gross calories is the total number of calories that I actually ate . . . it's gross calories actually eaten.

To figure out whether I'm over or under my goal, we could look at that in either of two ways:

1. Gross calories available to eat was 2099 calories, and I ate 2103, so I ate 4 calories above my goal.
2. Gross calories eaten was 2103, but the 249 extra exercise calories I burned effectively zero out part of the 2103, as if I had eaten 2103 minus 249 calories, or in effect I ate 1854 net calories. Compared to my base calorie goal of 1850, I ate 4 calories above my goal.

I hope some of that makes sense, or at least doesn't make the confusion worse. If it's still confusing, and you can say why, I can try again. 🙂

coschaffer

thanks so very much?, i just needed visuals and an explanation as I am very analitical….so this helped me very much!😀

coschaffer

I guess I have one additional question. Which calorie value do we want to meet goal. Net or total calorie?