Net calories

Pickypeggy

After I enter my food and exercise I see these totals on the home page. Goal 1430. Food 1678. Exercise 582. Net 1096. I have read many times on here not to eat all your exercise calories because MFP is overly high. So I am leaving some calories. Am I doing this correctly? I am not understanding what the net calories are about.

Pebble321

There's all kinds of great stuff in the "Help" section, here it is for you:


What are Net Calories?

We set your nutritional target in Net Calories which we define as:

Calories Consumed (Food) - Calories Burned (Exercise) = Net Calories

What that means is that if you exercise, you will be able to eat more for that day. For example, if your Net Calorie goal is 2000 calories, one way to meet that goal is to eat 2,500 calories of food, but then burn 500 calories through exercise.

Think of your Net Calories like a daily budget of calories to spend. You spend them by eating, and you earn more calories to eat by exercising.

Pickypeggy

I read that but I can't decide if that mean's i still have 1096 calories to eat. Sorry to be so dumb about this, I just am so frustrated that I am not losing weight and want to figure this out.

geekyjock76

If you were to eat all your exercise calories back, then your net would equal goal. So if you ate 1678 calories, and burned 582, you can eat another 334 to net your goal of 1430.

Pickypeggy

Thank you