What does net calories mean?

curleegirl68
curleegirl68 Posts: 53 Member
edited January 6 in Food and Nutrition
Hi I've been on MFP for almost a month. I did read the instructions of using your net calories when you exercise, but really does that mean I can eat the rest of the calories?

There are times when I do a double workout during the weekend or on a particular day and I will have about 500-900 calories left over. When I close my days, I wil get a message saying that I will possibly be in starvation mode. Help!

I hope I am making sense. :flowerforyou:

Replies

  • Mokey41
    Mokey41 Posts: 5,769 Member
    Some people eat exercise calories back, some eat a portion back, some eat none back. It's up to you how you want to handle your food intake. I generally don't eat mine back because most of us underestimate our food intake and over estimate our exercise. If you are really truly feeling hungry after a big exercise day then eating some back probably isn't going to hurt.

    Just remember you don't HAVE to do anything regardless of what it says. If you've taken in a good amount of nutritious food your body gets first choice at taking the nutrition it needs which is much different than undereating.
  • 5stringjeff
    5stringjeff Posts: 790 Member
    Hi I've been on MFP for almost a month. I did read the instructions of using your net calories when you exercise, but really does that mean I can eat the rest of the calories?

    There are times when I do a double workout during the weekend or on a particular day and I will have about 500-900 calories left over. When I close my days, I wil get a message saying that I will possibly be in starvation mode. Help!

    I hope I am making sense. :flowerforyou:

    Yes, it does mean that you can eat those calories. MFP calculates what your net calorie intake should be - that's your daily calorie allowance. If you are exercising to the point that your net calorie intake is <1200/day, you need to either eat more or exercise less.
  • curleegirl68
    curleegirl68 Posts: 53 Member
    Thank you, I will keep that in Mind. I thought I was doing something wrong, but I wanted everyones opinions.
  • 7under2
    7under2 Posts: 16 Member
    I have a follow-up question along these lines. When I record in MFP how many calories I burn during exercise, I use a heart rate monitor and then this web site:

    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/heart-rate-based-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx

    That gives me the total calories burned during that workout, not the net calories burned. Because MFP deals with net calories, I then plug the numbers into this web site to get the net calories burned:

    http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/net-versus-gross-calorie-burn-conversion-calculator.aspx

    Does the MFP exercise tracker already do all of that for me, or does it also just give a total calories burned? I ask because I just went for a 6 mile run and my average heart rate was 160. Using the above utilities I have a net caloric burn of 972. MFP says I burned 1052. Not a huge difference, but the gross calorie number using the above utilities was 1070, which leads me to believe MFP isn't using net calories for exercise entries. Any thoughts?
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