What does this mean?

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shelbys222
shelbys222 Posts: 5 Member
in Getting Started
Hi! I'm fairly new to MFP, and I was wondering, what do net calories mean? Am I supposed to be in the negative or positive for those? I'm not sure what they mean on here or how they affect my weight loss. Thanks!

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  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
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    Gross calories-exercise calories burned=net calories.

    Rigger
  • birdiecs
    birdiecs Posts: 237 Member
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    You want your net calories to be in the positive as close to your daily calorie goal as possible. So if you're set for example at 1400 calories per day, then you want to make sure at the end of the day you NET 1400 cal.
  • parkscs
    parkscs Posts: 1,639 Member
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    To add to that, MFP is setup so that if you exercise, you should eat your exercise calories back so that your net calories match your target calories each day. This is why it calculates net calories from you separate from your food intake calories.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    your calorie goal is a net goal...so if your calorie goal is 1200 calories that is 1200 calories net. so if you exercise and burn off 300 calories, you are now at 1200 - 300 = 900 net calories...so you eat those 300 calories back to get to 1200.

    your calorie goal is a big deficit from maintenance without any exercise whatsoever...exercise is not accounted for in your activity level...it is not accounted for until you log it...thus you get those calories to eat back to net to your calorie goal. just be careful in estimating your burn...most people vastly overestimate their calorie burn...the database is highly inflated for most things.

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