Net weight....calories remaining....? I'm soooo confused!

It's all about net calories in order to maintain a consistent calorie deficit. For example, if you told MFP you wanted to lose a pound a week, that is a deficit of 500 calories per day (a pound of fat is 3500 calories). When you exercise you burn extra calories so those are added back in in order to maintain that 500 calorie daily deficit.

Your numbers look really good.

Imagine it's money.

You deposited $1577 in your calorie bank (by eating.)
You spent $421 (through exercise.)
So currently there is only $1156 in your account (your "net")
Your goal is to have $1290 in your account at the end of the day.
So to meet your goal, you would need to deposit $134.

Many folks will say you should really try not to end up with a "net" under 1200, although there is lots of debate about why that is the magic number.

This is actually one of the best explanations of it that I've seen on here.

Your goal was to eat 1290 calories today
You actually ate 1577 calories today
You burned 421 calories exercising so they subtract that from what you actually ate leaving you with a "net" of 1156 calories.
You may still eat 134 calories before meeting your goal of 1290.

That is my understanding.
Welcome and good luck!!!!
Kathy

I still get confused with this too. I almost feel like I shouldnt eat back my calories, well...all of them that is. I understand half but I dont understand why they allow you to eat back all of what you burned? Weird.

MFP sets your calories low. It doesn't assume you are going to exercise until you actually do it. Your calories are calculated so you would lose the weight without exercising.

Now when you DO exercise, you need to have extra fuel for that, because without it, you have created too large of a calorie deficit.

Eating too little is just as bad as eating too much, it comes with hazards and consequences. Be eating too few calories, you suppress your metabolism (so you actually burn less calories and that is the opposite of what you need when you want to lose weight). You can throw off hormonal balances, causing stress and other problems. You may create deficiencies of certain vitamins and minerals.

Koldnomore wrote: »

Net should be Close to goal? Help me understand please!
Goal : 1230
Food:1623

Ex: -1435
Net: 188. I thought the goal was to get the net to zero?
Cal remaining 1042. Don't even know what to do with that! Ugh! Frustrating! Thanks!

This means that MFP has calculated that in order to lose 1-2 lbs a week (whichever you set it up as) you need to eat 1230 calories per day. When you exercise you burn calories and they disappear from your total (1230) like you never ate them in the first place. In your example above it shows that you ate 1623 calories for the day BUT you exercised away 1435 of them (that's a TON).. they disappeared..like you never ate them so what you have left over is 188 calories that your body can use to fuel you and that's all you have. You are 1042 calories SHORT from having enough calories to feed your body. At that rate your body will not be able to sustain you for very long. You may lose a little weight but then it will stop because your body will start to react like you are starving and will fight to hold on to every pound.

The debate is open on if you should eat back exercise calories and/or how many. It seems that many people agree that if you do not eat close to 1200 (after you subtract your exercise) you soon stop losing weight. In your case it would be suggested that if you work out as hard as you did today you will need to eat WAY more. Alternately, you can just work out less and then you don't need to eat so much!

Hopefully that makes it more clear