I'm confused with calorie goals...

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Off10h8ed
Off10h8ed Posts: 282 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am confused. This place has my calories set at 1200/day. If I exercise, it ups the amount. If I don't, it doesn't. Someone just posted on here in a community thread that we shouldn't NET less than 1200/day? I have been doing about 100-200 less than "goal" and I am losing fairly well. What should I be doing here? What does "net" even mean?

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  • GuineaMother
    GuineaMother Posts: 59 Member
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    I wrote a reply to your status but it seems to have disappeared, did you get it??
  • maisita509
    maisita509 Posts: 6 Member
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    If you "net" less than 1200 cals a day, chances are your body will go into starvation mode. You may lose a lot of weight quickly, but then the body will start conserving calories, your metabolism may go down, and your weight loss will slow down. If you then go back up to 1500 cals or higher, you will gain back the weight. That's basically the scariest scenario, so don't freak out :)

    Try to stick to the 1200 net, which is a number that is necessary for your body to function well, for your metabolism to stay at a healthy level, but which would still allow you to lose weight well.

    I'm not a nutritionist or anything, but this basically sums up what I've read on the subject so far :)
  • JesterMFP
    JesterMFP Posts: 3,596 Member
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    "Net" means your calorie goal + the calories burned through logged exercise.

    Myfitnesspal gives you a calorie goal based on the info you enter when you set it up - this goal is based on the assumption that any additional exercise you do (over and above your declared "activity level") you will log and "eat back" those calories. It's just the way MFP is designed. Otherwise, it would include your normal daily exercise in your activity level, and would give you a higher goal to start with. I'm not surprised you're losing well at what you're doing, but you may find that you do a bit better on a higher calorie intake. 1200 is quite low for someone who is exercising. It's up to you, but the point is, if you "eat back" your exercise calories, you will still be at the calorie deficit that MFP gave you originally.

    One last thing - if you are using MFP's exercise database to calculate your calorie burn, it can be quite inaccurate, so you may not want to eat them all back, to leave some room for error. It might take a bit of experimenting to find the right level for you.
  • Off10h8ed
    Off10h8ed Posts: 282 Member
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    So I need to get 1200 calories a day and not under.
    So when I exercise and it adds 300 calories does that mean I need to eat 1500 calories a day in order to keep up with a healthy weight loss?
  • Off10h8ed
    Off10h8ed Posts: 282 Member
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    I wrote a reply to your status but it seems to have disappeared, did you get it??

    No... *blush*
    Sorry, I deleted it there when I realized that only my friends would see it. I don't have that many friends yet so I was wanting to see what I got for information on a larger scale. I thought I caught it before anyone responded as there was nothing there yet.

    Sorry about that, didn't mean to cut you off there.
  • Off10h8ed
    Off10h8ed Posts: 282 Member
    Options
    "Net" means your calorie goal + the calories burned through logged exercise.

    Myfitnesspal gives you a calorie goal based on the info you enter when you set it up - this goal is based on the assumption that any additional exercise you do (over and above your declared "activity level") you will log and "eat back" those calories. It's just the way MFP is designed. Otherwise, it would include your normal daily exercise in your activity level, and would give you a higher goal to start with. I'm not surprised you're losing well at what you're doing, but you may find that you do a bit better on a higher calorie intake. 1200 is quite low for someone who is exercising. It's up to you, but the point is, if you "eat back" your exercise calories, you will still be at the calorie deficit that MFP gave you originally.

    One last thing - if you are using MFP's exercise database to calculate your calorie burn, it can be quite inaccurate, so you may not want to eat them all back, to leave some room for error. It might take a bit of experimenting to find the right level for you.

    OK! I get this!

    Thanks!

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