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

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Replies

  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    My calories eaten are my calories eaten, my net calories are my net calories. At the end of the day the net calories are more telling.

    It's almost as if you're trying to deny that unicorns have anything to do with it. Weird.

    So I want to make sure I'm applying this correctly.

    Do I let the unicorns eat the net calories over my goal? Or can I actually have them create more net calorie for me to eat?

    I do want to include them after all.
  • 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.

    Cheers really helpful :smile:
    Although don't know if I can be bothered going to this much effort to calculate an appropriate calorie deficit. Please let me know if you offer this service lol
  • gingerjen7
    gingerjen7 Posts: 821 Member
    It depends on how you set it up. If you are using MFP's setting, it requires you to eat them back.
    That's true. MFP will ban you if you don't eat back your exercise calories. I heard that once, MFP chased this girl down and shoved brownies down her throat until she had consumed all her estimated calories burned. :noway:
  • It depends on how you set it up. If you are using MFP's setting, it requires you to eat them back.
    That's true. MFP will ban you if you don't eat back your exercise calories. I heard that once, MFP chased this girl down and shoved brownies down her throat until she had consumed all her estimated calories burned. :noway:

    Dang, better keep not eating your exercise calories on the down-low then lol
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Cheers really helpful :smile:
    Although don't know if I can be bothered going to this much effort to calculate an appropriate calorie deficit. Please let me know if you offer this service lol

    In case you missed the post above.

    http://www.weightrainer.net/losscalc.html
  • Cheers heybales!
  • Nerdybreisawesome
    Nerdybreisawesome Posts: 359 Member
    I've constantly heard in these forums pple suggest to not eat exercise cals back for weight loss....now I'm confused...


    Everyone is different but I believe you should eat your exercise calories. I eat 75% of mine.
  • Nerdybreisawesome
    Nerdybreisawesome Posts: 359 Member
    It depends on how you set it up. If you are using MFP's setting, it requires you to eat them back.
    That's true. MFP will ban you if you don't eat back your exercise calories. I heard that once, MFP chased this girl down and shoved brownies down her throat until she had consumed all her estimated calories burned. :noway:

    I heard it was maple bacon donuts.
  • NVM87
    NVM87 Posts: 57 Member
    Woahhhhh I didn't realize this post was gonna be such a hot topic of debate!! Not complaining... Thank u all for the prompt responses.. I have a lot of varying thoughts to ponder on...
  • spoons81
    spoons81 Posts: 51 Member
    This topic has been beaten to death.