Net Calories

Can someone explain Net calories to me? I have googled it but it just confuses me. I would really appreciate your input!! Thanks

2400 Calories eaten
1200 Calories burnt doing exercise
Take one from the other
1200 is what remain and this is your net calories

If, as recommended by the site, you eat back your exercise calories it would look something like this

3600 Calories eaten
1200 Calories burnt doing exercise
Take one from the other
2400 is what remain and this is your net calories.

What's the point of having such a high (2400) net calorie number? Most days I'd say I'm not above 1000 net.

It was a random example, but saying that, today I burnt 1350 calories in one hour of cycling. so having eaten 2300 calories I've netted less than 950, not the greatest result, as I'll be doing it all over again tomorrow.

I got this explanation off of Calorie Count and it explains it really well (courtesy of amethystgirl)
http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/weight-loss/net-calories-dummies

"You burn calories all day long. If you exercise, you burn calories at a faster rate during the exercise.

You log the food you eat, and that gives you your total Intake for the day.

A deficit (negative net) of 500 calories/day results in about a pound of fat lost per week (500 cal * 7 days = 3500 calories = 1lb fat).

Depending on your size, you might be able to have a higher deficit, but generally that's a good place to start.

If your starting weight is over 200 lbs, then you might be able to handle a 1000 calorie deficit per day, which would yield about 2lb lost per week.

In CC's analysis, it uses Net to mean the difference between your Intake and Burn.

So Intake - Burn = Net.

If Net is positive (Intake is greater than Burn) you have a calorie surplus, which leads to weight gain.

If Net is negative (Intake is less than Burn) you have a calorie deficit, which leads to weight loss.

If Net is zero (Intake is the same as Burn) you have a calorie balance, which leads to weight maintenance.

The exercise gets added to your total burn, so yes, if you now logged exercise, it would make your deficit higher. It doesn't matter for weight loss if your deficit is created by eating less or burning more, but I'm a big fan of making sure you are getting enough nutrition, and being more active is a very good part of the road to getting healthy."

i actually think it's the opposite for MFP- a positive net = weight loss, a negative net= weight gain. Am i processing this right??

Okay, so I've read these posts, and I think I understand this concept slightly better. I want to look at yesterday's data to see if I get this.

Calorie Intake: 1682
Exercise/Burn: 474 (elliptical) + 796 (job) = 1270
Intake minus Burn = 412

So, 412 would be my net calories, right? I'm still confused as to what my net *should* be...I've never eaten my exercise calories back. I lost 50 pounds my first year of being on MFP by eating 1600 calories a day and exercising, but gained 15 of it back when I did 60 days of P90X ending in January/February of this year (while still eating about the same amount of calories). I haven't been able to lose anything since then.

...also, should I not be logging the calories I burn at work? It's a tough job and I do break a sweat (retail--it's more than just standing around), and I don't really get breaks.

If you ahve an active job, I'd redo your MFP profile and change your settings to "active". Then there will be no need to log work or any exercise. it will give you a higher day to day calorie count, but still low enough to lose .5lb to 1lb per week depending on what you set it at.