Confused on what netting is

IanBee93

I logged in all the food I plan on having today, and it came to 1474. I added 55 minutes of exercise, and this site is saying I burned 647 calories, which sounds like an exaggeration, but whatever. It's now saying my ''net'' is 827. I have noticed this before but never paid it any mind, until I kept seeing others mentioning on here, ''stay in your net''. What does this mean? Is mine too high??

cwolfman13

The calorie goal MFP gives you includes a weightloss deficit net of exercise...meaning exercise isn't included in the estimation of how many calories your body requires to maintain your weight and thus what your cut would be to lose. Exercise is an extra activity and you get credit for it when you do it and log it. Then you eat those calorie back to net to your calorie GOAL.

You may want to check that burn against several sources...data bases are notoriously inaccurate due to the fact that there are so many variable involved and also people tend to overestimate their level of effort. 647 in 50 minutes seems like a lot but it's going to depend greatly on you intensity, distance, and your weight...the more weight you have to move around the bigger your calorie burn is going to be.

For a sanity check I burn around 600 calories or so per 15 miles on my bike as a 183 Lb male...running or walking I just assume roughly 100 calories per mile...you burn a few more running than walking but pretty negligible unless you are routinely doing half marathons and marathons, etc.

QuietBloom

Calories eaten - calories burned by exercise = net calories.

You are supposed to eat back your exercise calories, so your net stays the same. That calorie burn does sound kind of high though. I like to use this site, because it seems to give me better estimates.

http://www.healthstatus.com/perl/calculator.cgi

guroprincess

MFP overestimates burns, yes.

1474 food MINUS the exercise (647) = 827. Although you're actually consuming 1474 calories, MFP is set up so that you eat back your exercise calories. It gave you a bonus of 647 to eat back today. If you ate another 647 calories, your net would go back up to 1474.

Be careful about eating back /all/ of your exercise calories based on what MFP says though. It overestimates enough that you could actually be eating at maintenance or (God forbid) gain weight if your goal is set very modestly underneath your TDEE. Just find a healthy balance (some people eat back 50% etc).

KateGifford

If MFP is telling you that you get to eat 1400 calories a day, that means without exercise. Let's say you burned 400 calories and added it to your diary. That means if you already ate all your calories for the day, MFP would say that you only ate 1000. When people say stay in your net, they basically mean eat back your exercise calories. so although you already ate 1400 calories, you burned 400 and need to eat an additional 400. Your total calorie consumption for the day would be 1800 calories.

I agree MFP overestimates exercise calories. I have a HRM, and use that to figure out my calories burned. It is always lower than what MFP tells me.

IanBee93

Thanks! I went to a different site and put low intensity (in case it over estimates), and it said I burn 501. Seems more realistic.

Mr_Knight

Thanks! I went to a different site and put low intensity (in case it over estimates), and it said I burn 501. Seems more realistic.

As a frame of reference, 500 calories is the number of calories a 200 pound person would burn walking 8 miles or running 4 miles. Scale the distances based on your own weight - if those aren't tasks you could handle, the odds are your burn estimate is...optimistic.