MFP Net Calories + BodyMedia = Completely Lost

YassSpartan

I know there has been posts about the meaning of Net Calories in the forum, I already did a search and read the other posts, still I can't get to figure out this when I compare MFP with BodyMedia. Hopefully someone can help me with this.

BodyMedia suggests that I keep a deficit of 1000 calories in order to lose 2 lbs per week. I wear the BM (BodyMedia) 24 hours a day except when I shower of course. Although BM says I should be eating around 2800 calories a day and burning 3800 calories, at the moment I'm unable to eat that much, but I'm trying to keep the 1000 calories deficit for the most part. Sometimes is more, sometimes is less, but not a huge difference.

Here are screenshots of both BM and MFP.





My question is the following. What does Net means in regards to my Goal? I know Net = Food - Exercise but does the 136 means I still have 1324 calories more to eat, I still have 136 calories to eat or am I 136 calories over of what I should have eaten? :frown:

Anayalata

Since you've exercised 900 calories worth of exercise and eaten 1000 calories worth of food, you've only put in 100 calories of fuel into your body.

So you still have 1300 calories left to eat and still lose weight at the rate you want to.

If you didn't eat those calories, it'd be like you only ate 100 calories today.

YassSpartan

Basically what MFP is telling me there 1460 (Goal) calories is what I should have eaten. Out of those 1460, 919 (exercise) were used for my workout, leaving 541 calories for my body to use for all functions where MFP assumes my daily activities exceed those 541 calories creating an "X" amount of calories deficit a day to accomplish 2 lbs lost a week. Correct?

AFitJamie

Ok, so I'm definitely not an expert here, but... I don't think so...

If I have it correct, and I'm open to correction, MFP is saying you need to eat 1460 cals a day to have a deficit that will lead to your target weight loss. (This is based on what activity level you told it and your target weight loss a week..) this is if you do not do any exercise.

If you do exercise, you are consuming calories in excess of what MFP has anticipated for you, so you need to recognize that by adding the exercise in to the tool... Then, theoretically you would need to ensure you eat those calories to fuel your workout or else you are eating too little and have too high a deficit.

So in your case, your body needs 1460 cals... And this would leave you with your weight loss deficit so you lose if you do not work out (according to MFP). Then you work out for 919 ( careful, I understand MFP exercises overstate calories burned according to some). This would mean that you should be eating 2379 On this day - you will still be eating less than you are burning since MFP has the deficit built into your Goal

The "net" you see is MFP telling you that your actual eating of only 1055 and your workout of 919 suggests you have only given your body 136 cals to fuel it... Clearly not enough when it says you need 1460!

Restating it with just theoretical numbers... If MFP thinks you have a maintenance diet of 2000 cals a day to live without a workout... It will deduct approx 500 a day to lose you a pound a week. So that would have you a goal of 1500 without any exercise... Then lets say you work out and burn 600 calories.... In order to keep you at the 500 calories more burned in a day than you took into... You need to take in 2100 calories. This is what people are talking about when they ask about "eating back their exercise calories" - most suggest you do some portion of them at least. In your case if you are doing a hard workout and burning 919 cals, you need to eat or your daily deficit is very low...

Hope this helps... Clear as mud?

Phrak

Forget what MFP says. Take you BMF reading, minus your deficit (which with your activity level 1000 cal deficit a day is way to much) and eat that amount. Dont use both systems. So from your example. You burned 2550 that day, eat 2000.

YassSpartan

Ok, no I got it. Thanks for the replies guys. Basically this is where the whole "eat your workout calories" come into play.
With what you told me I made an excel sheet using the same format MFP uses and I set up a couple of examples.

- MFP tells me that based on my daily activity levels I should eat 1460 calories. Without working out I'll be losing my weight goal.
- If I eat the Goal but I workout (let's say I burned 919 calories) I would need to eat those 919 on top of what I ate so my Net equals my Goal
- My day yesterday where my Net was 136, I still had to eat 1324 in order to meet my goal.
-The way it should have been, I must have eaten 2379 calories which is my 1460 Goal plus the 919 I burned working out.



Damn, now that I see it that way is not that complicated :laugh: Awesome!
Again, thanks a lot!

YassSpartan

Phrak, I'm with you on that. Although MFP system makes sense, I do like the BM system better, meaning, I'll eat more instead of 1460 calories MFP is telling me to eat. At 5'11" and 179 Lbs I know I should be eating more than 1460 calories just to maintain.