calories eaten or calories total after deduction

Raycin1019
Raycin1019 Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
When people talk about the total calories, like 1200 calories per day, are they talking about total calories consumed or are they talking about total calories left after the adjustment for calories burned off during the day, like they show on the home page?

Replies

  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
    It depends. If you're using MFP as it was designed to be used, with the calorie goal comprising Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) the 1200 is "net calories," i.e. the calories "left" from what you log after subtracting exercise calories.

    My goal is 1600 net calories right now. Yesterday I burned 860 calories bicycling (3.5 hours, but slowly). So my TOTAL calorie goal for the day was 2460. I actually ate only 2150, so my net calories were 1290. I went a few hundred over on Wednesday, though, so it all balances out.

    Some people don't use the MFP method; they calculate their TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), which includes their average daily exercise. In that case, their calorie goals are total calories consumed.

    So in conclusion, it depends on whether their goal is NEAT or TDEE.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,151 Member
    Yep its all going to depend on if they eat their exercise calories back. I don't, so when it says 1600 calories, it means I eat up to 1600 calories. Theoretically I would get credit for the say 400 I burned in exercise, bringing it up to 2000 total available. I just don't do it that way as it gives me room for error, either in miscalculations in food or exercise.

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