Someone explain Net calories for me please

Example:

A person needs to eat 2300 calories to maintain their weight, but they want to lose weight. They join MFP, set their settings to lose 1lb a week and get a goal of 1800 calories.

Maintain: 2300
Goal : 1800
Deficit: 500 per day / 3500 per week

Say said person works out and burns 300 calories, but chooses not to eat their exercise calories. You get something more like this-

Maintain: 2300
Goal: 1800
Exercise: 300
Net: 1500
Deficit: 800 per day

If said person were to eat there exercise calories back -

Maintain: 2300
Goal: 1800
Exercise: 300
Net: 1800
Deficit: 500 per day

In this scenario it wouldn't be to harmful for said person not to eat their exercise calories back. For people on lower calorie limits though it can put you under 1200 calories which can be harmful to your body in the long run.

So point is your net should be around your goal. It doesn't need to be exactly at it and slightly over isn't a big deal, but it should never be 0 and you should really try to stay around at least 1200.

my net right now is 171, so that isn't ok?

That is extremely far from ok.




See how your diary says your goal for today is 3,085 calories? That's because your regular goal is 1500 calories and you burned 1585 calories today from exercise. Therefore you need to eat 1500+1585 calores today to meet your goal of 1500 NET CALORIES.

It is extremely dangerous to have a net under 1200 calories, nevermind in the low hundreds. Your calorie goal of 1500 net calories already includes a deficit from your maintenance, thus you don't need to eat less than that to lose weight. In fact eating so low will prevent you from losing weight and is why you've been struggling (I'm a friend of yours I've seen that you've been struggling with losing weight). It may feel difficult at first to reach 1500 net calories, but I would recommend not exercising at all for a week or so while you work on eating at least 1500 calories per day. Then start doing light exercise and eating back all of your exercise calories. Please message me if you have any questions. xox

my net right now is 171, so that isn't ok?

You're not a hamster, you're a human being.

Who starves hamsters?!

Note: Please eat more than that, netting under 1000 is dangerous let alone what you're doing

bump

I'm a little concerned that you burned 1585 in one day. You may be, not only starving yourself, but also over exercising. I just spent 2 weeks recovering from over exercising. Your body needs time to recover. You need to do something that you can enjoy and maintain, long term (like, for a lifetime). Please don't abuse yourself.

i know today i had a bad day due to eating out but can someone please see if i am close to what i am suppose to eat back while exercising. On a normal day i do not eat out so sodium went through the roof. I just want to know if i am doing this correctly with figuring out the net