Calorie Counting 101
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Hasn't been bumped in a while.1
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This old is GOLD0
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Seems like there are a few threads that could use a bump today...
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Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?0
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Net calories refer to how much you have consumed after calculating how much you burn. In my opinion they confuse things and should be ignored. Simply count your calories and monitor your results. If you eat a consistent level of calories and do not lose weight after 3-4 weeks it's generally safe to assume you are not in a caloric deficit and you either need to burn more calories, consume fewer, or a combination of both. Trying to get the math perfect between what you eat + what you burn is too difficult. Simply getting an accurate idea of how much you consume is hard enough (and is why this guide exists in the first place). Accurately knowing how much you burn is even harder (bordering on impossible IMO) and simply not necessary to see results.Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?
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Tacklewasher wrote: »New here but read through this thread yesterday and bought a scale.
Now I'm pissed off.
I like the Quaker Harvest Crunch cereal for breakfast. Maybe not the healthiest, but I like it. And the calories weren't too bad. As the description give 1 cup (45g) 300 Calories.
So I weigh it on my fancy new scale. 1 cup = 97 grams. So over 600. Dammit! Had oatmeal this morning.
This is what is on the box.
1/2 Cup (45 g), 200 calories. So your 1 cup (97g) is 400 calories, not 600.
( I realize that your post is old but someone bumped it so I just read the last page and saw your comment. It got me curious so I looked up the box label.)0 -
Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?
That's (Calories eaten - calories exercised). If your Net Calories is less than your daily calorie allowance, you can calculate the new 'calories available to eat' as (calorie allowance - net calories). If math isn't your forte, do it vismal's way.
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thanks for all the answers! and what if what you consume it's already low and you burn quite a lot of calories but still not losing weight?? could it be something like ''metabolic demage''?
I have hypothyroidism taking t4 and t3 but still hard to find a balance1 -
Even if you're excellent at math I still think it's a bad way to do it because getting an accurate "calories exercised" number is quite difficult.JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?
That's (Calories eaten - calories exercised). If your Net Calories is less than your daily calorie allowance, you can calculate the new 'calories available to eat' as (calorie allowance - net calories). If math isn't your forte, do it vismal's way.
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Thanks for this post!!0
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Just giving some bumps tonight to cut through the woo.3
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Vismal, have seen some of your posts this evening while procrastinating (dishes. I already worked out)... thanks for the time you take to deliver very good information.1
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I'm just starting and am thankful for the great info. You pretty much nailed all the questions I have at this time.0
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(Adding 10% if you think you are under your count) What do you think you are under counting. Take a guess of what you under counted, then add 10% more of this food in weight rather then just adding calories.0
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I don't like this because if you are guessing, and also guessing at macros, adding 10% of the food might lead you to believe you are getting more protein than you really are and you end up being deficient for the day. Adding 10% to plain calories requires you still meet your macronutrient goals. It's not going to be the end of the world either way but IMO it's a better long term strategy.WilsonAndrewN wrote: »(Adding 10% if you think you are under your count) What do you think you are under counting. Take a guess of what you under counted, then add 10% more of this food in weight rather then just adding calories.
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Hasn't been bumped in a while.0
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Thanks bumping this! Good post.
Adding 10% to restaurant meals is a good idea. 1 -
Needs more bumps this time of year.3
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Even if you're excellent at math I still think it's a bad way to do it because getting an accurate "calories exercised" number is quite difficult.JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?
That's (Calories eaten - calories exercised). If your Net Calories is less than your daily calorie allowance, you can calculate the new 'calories available to eat' as (calorie allowance - net calories). If math isn't your forte, do it vismal's way.
assuming your nutrition logging is on point, and you have a reasonable period of data (6 weeks or so -- perhaps even more for women) can't you estimate the accuracy of caloric burn by looking at the average actual weight change vs weight change predicted by net calorie deficit to determine which percentage of exercise calories it's reasonable to eat back.0 -
fuzzylop72 wrote: »
Even if you're excellent at math I still think it's a bad way to do it because getting an accurate "calories exercised" number is quite difficult.JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Does everyone know what the ''net calories'' mean ? is it what your body has to work with?
That's (Calories eaten - calories exercised). If your Net Calories is less than your daily calorie allowance, you can calculate the new 'calories available to eat' as (calorie allowance - net calories). If math isn't your forte, do it vismal's way.
assuming your nutrition logging is on point, and you have a reasonable period of data (6 weeks or so -- perhaps even more for women) can't you estimate the accuracy of caloric burn by looking at the average actual weight change vs weight change predicted by net calorie deficit to determine which percentage of exercise calories it's reasonable to eat back.
You could, but I find that there are FAR too many variables involved in that approach. First off, it requires you to have excellent logging for 6 weeks straight, not an easy thing for most people. You'd also need to have a pretty consistent exercise regimen and lifestyle. Its difficult to assess whether a fitness device or MFP or whatever is overestimating your actual exercise, your bmr, a particular type of exercise, etc. Thermic effect of food is important here as well so you're diet would need to be rather consistent as well.
The biggest caveat to this method is NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis). This all of your daily movement that isn't exercise or BMR related and it can make up between 15 and 50% of your total calories burned each day. Now using a step counter and keeping a consistent number of steps per day/week helps with the variability of this number but things like fidgeting or performing an activity while standing will burn calories but not register on the fitness device. This number is also shown to decrease as dieting is prolonged and body fat decreases.
I still think if you are logging very accurately you really don't need to track calories out. If you're consistently eating 2000 calories and your trended weight over time is not going down, you need to eat less. If you must track something else, track steps. This at least allows you to know if your weight is stalling due to a sharp decrease in overall physical activity. If you normally get 15k steps a day and all of a sudden for whatever reason are only getting 5k, then you can pretty much figure out why you've stalled in weight loss despite maintaining an accurate and fixed intake. IMO it's just the simplest way for most people to do it.
Eat a fixed number of accurately counted calories, monitor weight (trend), keep activity consistent. After doing that for 4-6 weeks ask yourself is weight trending down? If yes, keep going, if no, examine the accuracy of your counting, if inaccuracies exist, remove them, if your count is accurate, reduce intake. That is literally weight loss in a nutshell. It's simple and really only hinges on one variable, how accurate you count.1 -
Thankyou for the tips:) . This is just my 3rd day and weighing everything i eat/drink . Ihave 196kc left but if i add fruit or anything else on my protein and sugar levels go well into red
. Do i have to use the 196kc up or can i leave them . Any tips please 0 -
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'nother bump.0 -
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I have a scale, but it’s not digital. Do you recommend digital, or do you think the traditional is fine?0
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New to fitness pal, it is best to eat all of your calories allowed daily? I don't always use the total and wonder if that is causing me to loose slowly? Please help! Thx
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fortyloveiwin wrote: »New to fitness pal, it is best to eat all of your calories allowed daily? I don't always use the total and wonder if that is causing me to loose slowly? Please help! Thx
If you are a woman you should not go any lower than 1200 calories, 1500 calories if you are a man otherwise it will negatively impact your health.
Eating less will never result in losing at a slower pace but exactly the opposite. If your calories in are less than calories out you will lose weight, less calories in results in faster weight loss but you should not aim to lose more than 1% of your body weight in a week.1 -
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