Help! Calories over but macros under?

Williamsonj90

Hey everyone! Been using MFP a while now but never posted on the forum. Recently started tracking my calories/macros and noticed something when inputting data; I can't seem to upload screenshots so I will try to explain. Calorie limit is 2636 with macros 264/263/59.

Yesterday I inputted my food intake and came up with strange results.
I am over my calorie limit by 30 yet I have only gone over my fats by 1g (9 cals) and carbs by 2g (8cals). I still have 11g (44 cals) of protein left over. If my calculations are right I should have 27 calories left to use instead of being 30 cals over? Can someone explain this please

vismal

open your diary for help.

defauIt

Rounding errors. You don't have to be nearly that exact anyways.

StaciMarie1974

Some of the food entries may not have accurate macro details. Sometimes people will input things with calories and leave all other fields blank.

chivalryder

Also, on the nutritional labels, companies round the calories to whatever 5 or 10 calories they feel. I've seen some that were over 20 calories off per serving. In a day, this could seriously mess up your results.

You should be too concerned about it. Everything is just an estimate regardless of how you look at it. There's no need to be 100% spot on all the time.

neandermagnon

the database is not always accurate. one of the entries that you used in your diary may have listed calories only and not all the macronutrient values. or if you used "quick added calories" this isn't going to list the macros in whatever food you quick added.

if you've hit your calorie goal, you are not under on all three macros, so if your diary said that, then the diary is wrong, for one of the reasons above. Look at the food entries to see if any don't add up... 1g of carb or protein = 4 calories, and 1g of fat = 9 calories.

bcattoes

Rounding errors. You don't have to be nearly that exact anyways.

This ^^

DeguelloTex

Yeah, I'd go with rounding errors also.

Williamsonj90

Just for extra info I only use the barcode scanner and weight everything out to the gram.

DeguelloTex

Just for extra info I only use the barcode scanner and weight everything out to the gram.

It's unlikely that your scale is really accurate to the gram and that doesn't change that manufacturer's info can be rounded such that you would see small cumulative discrepancies in the underlying data have you be off by a few grams.

You could do the math on every single entry and figure out which ones don't exactly fit the 4/4/9 calorie totals.

Williamsonj90

Just as a second question as a follow on, would it be better to track macros rather than both?