Not exactly another 1200 calorie thread...

michelle7673

So I have been reading all of these threads about whether eating 1200 a day will make the world explode.

And I saw a few people say "now, does this mean 1200 total calories, or 1200 net?" I thought to myself "that's a good question".

My MFP setting is about 1525 (to lose 1 lb a week). On non-workout days, I eat pretty close to that. But on my workout days, for example on Sunday, it can look like this:

Total calories: 1650
Calorie goal: 2350

Deficit 700

And I think "well, OK, a 700 deficit plus my built-in 500...give or take some room for error, that's a "lose 2 pounds a week" day. That's not every day, but it does happen.

But if I look at it from the 1200 calorie issue standpoint, the truth is that I netted 1650 minus 800 calories (which was my workout), which means I only netted 850 calories on that day??

So shouldn't we really be talking about net calories? And aren't we really saying that you ought to generally net over your BMR? I mean, I'm not really doing this better than a relatively sedentary person with a 1200 setting. Quite the contrary, in fact. I'm losing at a pretty steady 1.5 pounds a week so far, so I'm not complaining, but I'm also not going to rage about how the "1200 setting" is bad if that's not really the whole story...

Because your body doesn't know what your MFP setting is. It knows what you eat, and it knows what you burn. So whether you "call" it 1200, or call it 1500 and end up at 1200 -- or worse, call it 1500 and end up at 850 -- isn't the real issue the net number?