Which one is it...calories net or total calories from food

Just do what works for you... the forums are opinions on everyone else's journey, what works for one person may not work for another.

No, actually it's simple math. SIMPLE math. How do you people balance your checkbooks?

I don't balance my cheque book, I don't have one. I use debit accounts, money goes in money goes out with a statement at the end of each month.

Just do what works for you... the forums are opinions on everyone else's journey, what works for one person may not work for another.

No, actually it's simple math. SIMPLE math. How do you people balance your checkbooks?

'us people' don't... and do just fine, thanks. I've seen many people get confused by this simple math and there's no need for it. Enjoy your math, I'll enjoy what works for me.

don't what? balance your checkbook? believe it math? what works for you? eating random calories every day?

I don't balance my cheque book, I don't have one. I use debit accounts, money goes in money goes out with a statement at the end of each month. I follow MFP's allowances for me, it's been working for me.

MFP always says you burned waaaaay more than you actually burned. I don't log my exercise because I don't plan on eating them back. The only time I'll log exercise is on special occasions like thanksgiving when I might eat a little more. Even then, I only eat half of them back.

I think it must be the opposite for me. According to MFP, I should only be losing 1/3 of a pound each week, yet I am actually losing over two pounds a week.

This is why everyone has to fiddle around with their settings to find what works best for them. Try one way, if it doesn't work then try a different way.

I think the answer depends on the individual. If you are eating your exercise calories and not seeing the weight loss you are hoping for I'd say to not eat them back. If you are not eating them and you are getting the results you want I'd stick with it. And of course if you are finding yourself weak and hungry all day and aren't eating them back I'd say to eat all or some of them back based on the results you are seeing.

Someone already mentioned it and I agree completely that MFP waaaay over estimates calories burned with almost all activities. You have to be realistic and adjust them based on what you know or else you will be lying to yourself and the results you are working for will not be there.

Good luck to you.

Thanks guys interesting discussion. I just got the MFP app and was wondering what to do with the exercise calories. I now log my exercise under exercise notes so it doesn't affect my net calories for the day. Thoughts?

I never have and never will eat my excercise calories back. I would have NEVER lost 100 lbs. if I did.

I would only consider eating some of them back if I were to get into a very serious training routine (P90X or Insanity type of program). Otherwise, the general cardio routine, and light weight training would never allow me to lose weight if I ate it back.

Personally I try not to eat back my exercise calories BUT I have a cheat day a week I don't log. So eventually I eat them back. I just save them up for my cheat day. It's really however you want to do it, but I suggest you eat your calories back. If your body burned it then it means you need to replace at least half of what you burned! Hope that helps!!!

The deficit you can run is based on how well your body can mobilize fat for a fuel source. The less fat you have the less mobile it becomes and the less of a deficit you can maintain.

The basic math is as follows:
Free Fat Mass (FFM) = total fat mass (TFM) - essential fat mass (EFM)
TFM = Body Weight * Fat%
EFM = (Lean Body Mass [LBM])*0.03 for men or (Lean Body Mass)*0.12 for women
LBM = Body Weight - TFM

Maximum Daily Fat Mobilization = 2.5grams*FFM
Maximum Daily Deficit (MDD) = 2.5grams*FFM*9calories/gram

This is the largest deficit that you can maintain per day and theoretically have all of the deficit be supplied by fat oxidation.

So, let's say you're a 30 year old woman, 5'5'' tall and 180 lbs with 40% body fat. Your total daily energy expenditure is about 2200 calories (lightly active).
BW = 180 lbs
LBM = 180 - 180*.4 = 108 lbs
TFM = 180*.4 = 72 lbs
EFM = 108*.12 = 13 lbs
FFM = 59 lbs
MDD = 59 lbs * 2.5g/lb * 9 cal/g = 1327 calories per day

Now let's say that you eat 1200 calories per day and do no additional exercise. This gives you a 1000 cal/day deficit which is less than your MDD, so you're fine for now. Most of your weight loss will be from fat stores since your body can effectively mobilize enough fat per day to fuel your energy needs. However, if you burn 500 calories per day from exercise, your TDEE increases to 2700 calories and now if you only eat 1200 calories you have a deficit of 1500 calories per day. Your body cannot mobilize this much fat per day, so the energy has to come from somewhere else. The first thing that happens is your body uses up its glycogen supplies (we have about 2400 calories of glycogen in our muscles and liver). It will take about 2 weeks at this kind of deficit for your body to exhaust all of its glycogen stores. During this period you'll feel fine though you may find your self tiring more quickly during workouts. Eventually, all the glycogen will be gone and your body won't be able to make any more. This is when things go downhill. Now to properly run itself, the body has to start relying on some tricks to get by. This is effectively where the dreaded "starvation mode" begins, though in the first stages its not all that terrible. The first thing your body does is it effectively turns down the thermostat (metabolism) to save energy. This is a hormonal process that results in a decrease to the resting metabolic rate. Concurrently, it increases its use of triglycerides and muscle protein for energy, resulting in muscle catabolism and a further decrease in BMR. If this goes on long enough, your body will start turning off "non-essential" functions such as reproductive functions, skin, nail and tooth enamel production, decreasing digestive function and impaired cognition. It takes quite a while for this kind of stuff to happen and generally, the first measures employed by the body are enough to stave off starvation.

Now most of this is pretty extreme and won't happen to the average person (plus it takes a long time and willful disregard of your body's distress signals), but it is one of the things that contributes to plateaus and diet failure followed by regaining the lost weight plus some. A month at too high of a deficit can lead to a relatively significant decrease in metabolic function which can be fairly hard to undo.