Net Calories

nboblitt

hi guys, i just started this tracking program and on a mission to lose 15 LBS and im wondering what the net cals are supposed to be on my profile? should it be where you expect to be after calorie defecit through meals and excercise?
i.e. my cals to maintain current weoght add up to about 1900 calories. i'm on a 1400 calorie diet and burning an average of 350/day.

should my net cals be 1900-500-350= 1050??? OR should it just be what i plan on eating throughout the day (1400)? any input would be much appreciated!!!

ksimms

Hey there, here's hoping for your journey to be a fun and successful one!

Net calories is you daily intake (1400 in your case) + exercie - food = net

So if your goal is 1400 and you exercise 350 a day and take away your actual daily intake (let's assume you ate 1350 for this example) it will look something like

1400 + 350 - 1350 = 400 (400 is your net)

So if you don't exercise for the day, your net is essentially your goal (1400) minus what the actual intake was (1350) . And it can be negative (but you won't let it right). The exercise is just a bonus, if you work hard your body needs to refuel so you might need to eat a little more that day.

sassyg

your net cals should ideally be around 1400 - i.e eat your 1400, and also try to eat some if not most of your exercise calories too. The program on here does all this for you, you'll notice that if you log exercise, it gives you those to eat too.
You should definitely be looking to eat most of those exercise calories if you are already within a healthy BMI range, and you may also find that a 250 deficit rather than a 500 works better for you. but that's all about figuing it out. if you find the 500 deficit doesn't make anything shift, then try upping things by 50-100 cals until you start to see some results.

CHeers.

jillybeanruns

Hey there, here's hoping for your journey to be a fun and successful one!

Net calories is you daily intake (1400 in your case) + exercie - food = net

So if your goal is 1400 and you exercise 350 a day and take away your actual daily intake (let's assume you ate 1350 for this example) it will look something like

1400 + 350 - 1350 = 400 (400 is your net)

So if you don't exercise for the day, your net is essentially your goal (1400) minus what the actual intake was (1350) . And it can be negative (but you won't let it right). The exercise is just a bonus, if you work hard your body needs to refuel so you might need to eat a little more that day.

Actually that's wrong. Simply put, your net calories are: food intake - calories burned; so 1350 - 350 (in the example above) = 1000

Your "goal" calories don't play a part into any part of the equation other than the fact that's what you want your net to be greater than/less than/or equal to

LittleSpy

Yep net cals = calories eaten - calories burned through exercise.

You want to use your net cals to create your deficit. So, in your case, if your maintenance calories are 1900 per day and you only have 15 pounds to lose, you probably want your net calories to be 1650 (for a 250 calorie/day deficit to lose 0.5 pounds/week) or 1400 (for a 500 cal/day deficit to lose 1 pound a week).

Let's say you're going for 1400 net calories. You'd want to eat 1400 PLUS anything you had burned off through exercise that day.

So, say you went for a run and burned 300 calories -- you'd want to eat 1700 calories that day (1400 base + 300 exercise). And that would keep your deficit at 500 calories and you'd be on track to lose 1 pound per week.