net?

lisabel87

I know this probably has been asked numerous times, but I'm really confused about net calories. On my profile it says my net is 717. Isn't that bad? Does this mean I'm eating too much??

Forensi

That means you have 717 calories left to eat for the day. You should always make sure your net is as close to 0 as you can. You should only be worried if it goes into negative.

lisabel87

ohhh! haha thanks!! I thought I was in the hole. haha. All this stuff confuses me!

melpru

Your net calories, if I understand it right, are what you eat minus your exercise. You should not let your net fall below 1200, so today you have eaten too few calories and that is bad. So if you log more food your net will go up, and it should be around what your goal calories are. It's confusing.

chris0912

717 net calories ACTUALLY means what is left when you subtract the calories you have exercised off from the calories you have eaten. let's say MFP gives you a calorie goal of 1200 for the day and you burned 300 in exercise. that increases the calories you should be eating to 1500 to keep you at the minimum recommended of 1200. basically, you want to provide enough fuel for your body to be able to support the exercise you're doing.

this is a common, and often heated, argument on the site. some say eat the exercise calories, some say don't. personally, i eat as many of the exercise calories as i can. i tend to exercise in the morning, so that i know what i can eat for the rest of the day. but when i know that i won't be able to exercise until the evening, i estimate what my calories burned will be so that i'm not left with 300+ calories to eat at 9pm.