NET CALORIES - I DONT UNDERSTAND!

My mom did the same thing in the 80s. She was netting 200 calories a day and after a couple months, she lost her hair. She has yo-yo diet every since. I set her up on this, she lost about 30 pounds and did great. But I had to talk her into eating.

MFP works because you do not starve yourself. I would suggest researching your BMR and TDEE and it will help you understand. Good luck. Eat more.

Well done to your mum for doing so great and losing 30 pounds (hopefully with a full head of hair too as the hair loss sounds scary!).

My BMR is about 1485 and my TDEE was 1778 when i wasnt doing any exercise but is 2297 if i regularly do exercise at a moderate level. I dont really know much about eithewr of these things and what they mean, so I will definately do some research. Thank you

A good place for you to start your research

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/512956-tdee-what-is-it-and-why-you-should-not-eat-below-your-bmr

Look at the big loosers diary,

Yeah, we have. Sustainability matters.

Most of this advice is so wrong...

Look at the big loosers diary, people who lost 50, 75, 125lbs. They don't eat the exerciser calories period. I eat some, but try to leave 800 to 1200 on the table.

I'm following this guy .... joncowling1988.... regularly he exceeds his calories with exercise and he lost something like 125lbs.

If your not hungry don't eat!

I feel like I need something after exercise, so I eat it. But don't let anyone tell you you have to.

Listen to your body.

With all due respect, I disagree. I have been here forever and never met anyone who did not lose while eating back your calories. When your metabolism is screwed up, it will not give you proper signals.

It is dangerous to advise anyone that netting 286 is fine if you are not hungry.

This.

When you have been eating too little you stop feeling hungry. That doesn't mean you don't need food. Instead of just looking at people who have lost a ton of weight, maybe look at people who have lost weight and kept it off.

OP IMO you should net your BMR. I'm not saying it isn't possible to lose the way you're doing it, but it isn't the healthy way to go about it, and you're a lot more likely to be successful long term if you don't crash diet (which is what netting under 300 calories is).

Most of this advice is so wrong...

Look at the big loosers diary, people who lost 50, 75, 125lbs. They don't eat the exerciser calories period. I eat some, but try to leave 800 to 1200 on the table.

I'm following this guy .... joncowling1988.... regularly he exceeds his calories with exercise and he lost something like 125lbs.

If your not hungry don't eat!

I feel like I need something after exercise, so I eat it. But don't let anyone tell you you have to.

Listen to your body.

Try EdDavenport, who has lost 300+ eating back his exercise calories.

We can all find people/methods to support/justify our own methods. There are people who are sucessfull using every method, and people that have failed using them too.

I find the majority of people I trust aren''t even following the MFP way, they are eating at TDEE less % defict, and no lower that their BMR.

If the OP did that based on her estmated TDEE of 2300, she would eat 1500-1800 calories a day, every day.

Same here!

Im making an effort to get in exercise most days with a good walk and some swimming.....nothing too vigorous!.....and am burning between 500 - 1000 calories a day.

I would think that is a SUPER high estimate for "nothing too vigorous", but I may be wrong. I can run 4 miles in 40 minutes and it is around 550 calories. That might be something to check.

Most of this advice is so wrong...

Look at the big loosers diary, people who lost 50, 75, 125lbs. They don't eat the exerciser calories period. I eat some, but try to leave 800 to 1200 on the table.

I'm following this guy .... joncowling1988.... regularly he exceeds his calories with exercise and he lost something like 125lbs.

If your not hungry don't eat!

I feel like I need something after exercise, so I eat it. But don't let anyone tell you you have to.

Listen to your body.

WOW. How in the heck did I lose those 68lbs by eating back my exercise calories then? I must be a medical marvel :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I never said she wont loose weight eating her calories back, the deficiency is baked into her allowance. I only said she doesn't have to.

As you have just said, the deficiency is alreday baked into the allowance, so when she exercises she is actually making that defict much larger

When it comes to deficts, bigger is not always better.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

The problem is that MFP doesn't take into account exercise when setting calorie goals, and deficts.

So, you and I could be the same weight, height, job etc, and MFP would give us both the same calorie goal for 1lb a week loss, by deducting 500 from our estimated daily calorie burn excluding exercise.

Now, If I just went home every night and sat in front of the TV, and you did your 1000 calories of swimming, our daily energy output would be very different, and you wouldl be expending 1000 calories than me.

to still get the same 500 calorie defict for 1lb per week you would need to eat 1000 calories more than me.

This will also help - http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/818082-exercise-calories-again-wtf

This was part of where i get so confused as i think id probably rather not exercise than eat more than i want

Basically, if you exercise more, eat more. If you exercise less, eat less. Either way, your daily intake should be around 1200 every day so that your body doesnt go into starvation mode. I recommend exercising more and eating more to make up the difference (or some of the difference) because diet itself will only go so far, and when you exercise, you are boosting your metabolism which will help you burn the fat and actually lose fat as opposed to muscle. At the end of the day, make sure your caloric intake is around 1200.

So say you eat 1400 on day 1. You burn 1000 through exercise. That leaves your net at 400 calories. To get back to around 1200, you need to eat 800 (400+800=1200).

Say the next day, you eat 1300. You burn 500 through exercise. That leaves your net at 800 calories. To get back to around 1200, you need to eat 400 (800+400=1200).

The first day represents a high exercise day. You need to eat back more calories to make up with difference.
The second day represents a low exercise day. You don't need to eat back as much because not as much exercise was done.

However, keep exercising because your metabolism will speed up and that increases the process by which you burn fat.

Hope that helps!!

Most of this advice is so wrong...

Look at the big loosers diary, people who lost 50, 75, 125lbs. They don't eat the exerciser calories period. I eat some, but try to leave 800 to 1200 on the table.

I'm following this guy .... joncowling1988.... regularly he exceeds his calories with exercise and he lost something like 125lbs.

If your not hungry don't eat!

I feel like I need something after exercise, so I eat it. But don't let anyone tell you you have to.

Listen to your body.

WOW. How in the heck did I lose those 68lbs by eating back my exercise calories then? I must be a medical marvel :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I never said she wont loose weight eating her calories back, the deficiency is baked into her allowance. I only said she doesn't have to.

As you have just said, the deficiency is alreday baked into the allowance, so when she exercises she is actually making that defict much larger

When it comes to deficts, bigger is not always better.

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html

That's a good article and intresting, but I quote this:

"I’d also note that the combination of big caloric deficits and large amounts of activity clearly isn’t detrimental to everyone. Some folks can get away with it but, for many, it tends to backfire more than anything else."

My advise is still........ Listen to your body.

I just wanted to publicly apologize and say I'm truely sorry for upsetting you, that wasn't my intention. I know you are putting a lot of effort in, I was just trying to be helpful and share the knowledge I'd gleaned from this site and all of its helpful memebers because I didn't want to see you stall out. It just seemed that you were confused that you went over when MFP said you hadn't. As you can see, there are lots of opinions out there, that was just mine. I will keep my "helpful" comments to myself from now on and just be there to support your decisions. Again, so sorry! :flowerforyou:

I just wanted to publicly apologize and say I'm truely sorry for upsetting you, that wasn't my intention. I know you are putting a lot of effort in, I was just trying to be helpful and share the knowledge I'd gleaned from this site and all of its helpful memebers because I didn't want to see you stall out. It just seemed that you were confused that you went over when MFP said you hadn't. As you can see, there are lots of opinions out there, that was just mine. I will keep my "helpful" comments to myself from now on and just be there to support your decisions. Again, so sorry! :flowerforyou:

SMH1067.... You've earned your seat here! Disagreement stimulates intelligent conversation. Don't let what I say discourage you one bit. notsolittlesi is right... your a sweetheart!

Happy valentines day!

Ok, you really should only cut 250 cal's from diet, and another 250 from exercise. At the end of the week, that would equal 3,500 cal's, and 3,500 cal,'s = 1lb of fat. MFP tells you to cut 500 cal's from diet only. It is up to you to burn the 250 from exercise. SO...you should try to eat back atleast some of the calories you burn. Make sure that your calorie burning estimate is as accurate as possible. As was mentioned earlier, MFP doesn't have very good calorie burn estimates. You can look at other sources online, to help, if you need to.