Net calories

CINDYRN33

I am new to this and trying to figure all of this out so bare with me here. I was just reviewing my diary and I think maybe I am not eating enough so today for example i am allowed 1420 calories and I have eaten all of them. I also earned 453 calories working out (figured per heart rate monitor) I am done eating for the day and when I go to home screen it shows that for today I netted like 967 calories. I am 34 5'1" and around 200 lbs Same for my husband who is also MFP member he is allowed 1770 calories to eat each day he worked out and "earned"" 615 calories ate some back netting him 1540 I dont think this is enough his stats are 6'1" about 191 lbs and 36 years old. so my question is should our net calories be what our goal was for the day? At the end of the day should they match goal and net goal? I hope this makes sense.

Pebble321

If you are using MFP to calculate your calorie goal, then they assume that you will eat extra on days that you exercise - which means that you want your net calories to match your goal calories - or another way to look at it is to eat enough calories that you have 0 left over at the end of the day.

Having said that - all the numbers we are working with are estimates (food, exercise, calorie goals) so don't get too stressed about eating a little bit under or over your net goal. I think the best thing to do is to try this out for a month of so and see how your body responds - if you find you are losing weight much faster or slower than expected you can look at whether you need to change your goals.

CINDYRN33

ok this makes sense then, I will start eating all my calories plus most exercise calories. Thanks