Gross vs net cals

Yes, please someone answer this question.
I am wondering this myself

Gross calories is the total amount you eat in a day, net calories are total calories minus any calories you burned from cardio exercise.

If you are tracking here, it will say at the bottom, "*You've earned 402 extra calories from exercise today." So your net calories would become 402 calories lower. Some people eat more on days they exercise and some don't. People use the phrase 'eating back your exercise calories' when they talk about it on here.

For example http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/diary/cersela?date=2012-07-24 On this day, I ate 1,635 and burned 402, and did not eat them back so I ate 1,233 net calories. If I had ate them back I would have consumed 2,037 calories for the day.

I have not done the research, but it seems counter-productive to eat the exercised calories. I guess the assumption is you are eating less calories than you normally would therefore you should see the weight loss. I personally dont' eat "extra" just because I have exercised unless it is a special occassion or "treat".

I have not done the research, but it seems counter-productive to eat the exercised calories. I guess the assumption is you are eating less calories than you normally would therefore you should see the weight loss. I personally dont' eat "extra" just because I have exercised unless it is a special occassion or "treat".

Please search the forums for more information on this. The calorie deficit is built into the MFP suggested calorie program; so you can, and some say should, eat back your exercise calories.

Basically MFP takes the math out of the equation for you. If you are trying to lose 1 lb a week, MFP takes out 500 calories a day. Most people try to cut calories based on diet AND exercise. So basically, you're just cutting it from your diet here on MFP. That's why it's not detrimental to eat back your exercise calories. I know it seems weird and counterproductive to eat back everything you exercise, but you will still lose if you do. With that said, I try not to eat back all my exercise calories. I use it as a cushion.

Well I am trying for 500 cal in exercise and stopped eating exercise cals mostly because weight loss is a bit stalled. But maybe I should be w/o more if calculator is double counting cals.....

It's hardly double counting.

First if you are using MFP instead of HRM, you are most likely already overestimating calories.
If you using HRM or elliptical, then the difference between gross would be, for example, 330 gross vs 290 net exercise calories in 45 minutes)

I have to disagree on eating back your calories. I usually burn 1000 or more calories in the gym (according to my Polar FT7) and just last night I had cheat night, I ended up eating half a large pizza, drinking a german beer, and having half a pint of ben and jerry's for desert. After consuming all this on top of my normal "clean" daily diet I was still under my calorie goal of net 1900 which is designed to lose half pound a week.

Before this I was speaking with a nutritionist who told me I was eating too many calories everyday (2700 average) all the while I was always under my MFP calorie goal.

Net calories may work for some but I highly suggest everyone speak with a nutritionist and try to have metabolism test performed to find their personal GROSS calorie goal and stay somewhere between their net and gross goal.

As I have been learning more about fitness and nutrition I came across an article discussing gross and net calories. My question is what does the MFP fitness calculator utilize and does anyone use net cals as opposed to gross cals because it seems you may inadvertently overestimating you burn. Also if you eat exercise cals at all this could be detrimental to weight loss?

You came across an article that mentioned 'net calories' elsewhere or here on MFP? I've never heard of 'net calories' before reading here.

OK, so all of this is based on a combination of factors, several of which MFP tries to estimate. If you're honest in your profile, it's probably pretty good in its estimation. The concepts we're looking at have to do with BMR and TDEE. BMR is essentially the number of calories that your body requires to live. If you have a BMR of 1500 calories then you use roughly that number of calories to sleep, breath, digest the food you eat, and do very little else. MFP takes your BMR and your answer to "how active are you" and tries to estimate your TDEE. That's the number of calories that MFP thinks you burn everyday doing your day to day life, BMR plus the calories burned by your job, getting up to go to the bathroom, etc. It then subtracts a sufficient calories deficit from your estimated TDEE to allow you to lose the amount of weight you want to lose. You'll note that when MFP asks for your activity level, it DOES NOT ask about workouts or trips to the gym. This is because those are entered into MFP separately. You're meant to put your activity level based on your day to day life, not your workouts.

So, I have my MFP setup with a sedentary activity level. I have a desk job, and I spend the vast majority of my day sitting in front of a computer. I also work out 5-6 days a week, running 22-25 miles and doing some weights and other stuff. That doesn't improve my overall activity level. If I got a job as a personal trainer and did exercise all day every day, or I was a construction worker or something, then I could up my daily activity level. Instead I just add my workouts into MFP as discreet calorie buffers. So even if I "eat back" all my exercise cals, I'm still eating a deficit. Why? Because I'm a "sedentary" person. My daily calories assume that I'm sitting on my butt all day. If I don't sit on my butt all day, then those calories are "extra"

if I say to myself, "Self, we're running a lot and doing lots of exercise, we should up our activity level to "active"" then I should probably stop putting those runs into MFP. I'd be (at least partially) double counting those calories. Because I'd be basing my "active" activity level on exercise that I'd also be entering to get calories back.

Long story short, as long as you are being honest about your activity level, and not counting your workouts toward that activity level, then a calories deficit is built into your calorie goal every day. You can feel free to "eat back" your exercise cals, because they are in addition to the calorie deficit you already have built in. You don't *have* to eat them back if you'd prefer not to, you'll just have a bigger deficit. That said, if your calorie goal is already very low (say, because you're trying to lose two pounds per week or something), or you do a very serious workout (something that burns in excess of 750 calories in a sitting) you probably want to eat at least some of them back. You don't want to starve yourself.

So then, what's the ideal for losing - in a healthy way? Every time I think I get it, I get confused again....Is the idea to get the net as close to zero? Thanks..."