Net Calories???

Only if I am hungry... for the most part I try to stay as close to 1200 as possible. I never let myself go hungry so I will have a small snack. Even if that means I am over net or on a few occasions over all together.

yep- maybe not all of them but I eat at least half. Some I "save" for the next day if it was a really big work out. Remember it's net calories over the week that you are looking at, the per day is just a guide.

your net calories in NOT the amount of calories you eat. its your calories you eat - calories burned = net calories

yep- maybe not all of them but I eat at least half. Some I "save" for the next day if it was a really big work out. Remember it's net calories over the week that you are looking at, the per day is just a guide.

Can you elaborate on this? Or point me in the direction where I can find the information? I've recently switched to counting calories instead of "points", so I'm still learning. From what I understand in order to lose weight, your need a deficit of about 250-500 calories per day from your daily caloric needs(which I believe is your BMR). MFP takes into consideration this deficit and deducts it from the daily calories that are given to you. Realistically if you were supposed to get 1200 NET calories a day, then you would have to eat 2400 calories & burn 1200 calories, correct? You're indicating that the NET calories are over the week, can you explain this a bit more?
TIA

1200 net would be (ie) eating 1500 and burning 300 for the day. That assumes that the 1200 you did not use for that extra exercise ("extra" because it's not already accounted for in the activity level you set for your MFP settings... now, if you set to "very active" because you go to the gym every day, you would not need to eat back any calories, or log your exercise even, because it's already accounted for in the # MFP gave you, but if you set to low activity or sedentary, you need to tell it when you are more active than usual - hence logging your exercises)... anyway.... it leaves those 1200 calories that are left to cover all the rest of the calorie burn you need to function throughout the day - everything from walking around to and from your car, to just the calories it takes to breathe and digest food and regenerate cells and pump blood. If your body takes 1700 calories to do all of this and you eat 1200 (after that aside exercise calculation and eating) you are eating 500 calories fewer than your body needs - so it will turn to other parts of your body to fuel that - you hope it uses fat stores, but it can use muscle stores as well. You want to do what you can to get it to use more / most fat than muscle to "feed itself" the deficit. (do a search if you want more info on the fat vs muscle thing...)

Same concept can apply to the whole week. You eat 1200 cals 7 days a week = 8400 calories. You have a 500 deficit a day = 3500 a week. If you eat 1000 some days and 1400 others you can still = 8400 a week which works the same as eating less each day. The perk it has is it does not allow your body to get too used to having just the same # or the same deficit of calories every day. Some people take this to various extremes with complete fasting days and "overeating" days. (not necessarily overeating like junk food... just # of calories).

Different things work for different people. Best to just make sure you educate yourself best you can on all the different topics and watch the scale, your measurements, your counts, your accuracy (meaning how accurately and honestly you log your food like using a food scale vs volume...), and most importantly how your body and energy levels feel.

Same

This Net Calorie stuff confuses the heck out of me. Feel free to checkout my profile numbers for the day, but - today i drank plenty of water, ate a Lean Cuisine for lunch, and large salad from Chick-fil-A for supper. I also burned 626 calories at the gym on the elliptical. I'm actually stuffed 'cause i just ate the salad, but i'm -71 for Net Calories for the day. Maybe that'll balance out by the end of the week with all the sushi i ate last night for a cheat meal lol, but i can't imagine forcing myself to eat almost 1300+/- calories by the end of the night on my gym days in order to LOSE weight

Sometimes when i'm this low on Net Calories, i think back at how bad i was eating when i wasn't losing weight, and that method of eating seemed right in line with the amount of calories i should be taking in now to get to 1200/day. McD's for lunch and cereal or another McD's meal for supper back then typically, yet i'd lose nothing. I've lost 11lbs in a few weeks thanks to MFP and that involves salads or lean cuisines for lunch and supper, and 6 miles on the elliptical 3 days a week. I do have cheat meals sometimes, so i'm hoping that'll keep my body/metabolism confused enough to stay outta starvation mode. But 500 calories eaten - 600 calories burned = 1300 calories i still gotta eat to *lose* weight (??)

Eating breakfast is a good place to start to increase your calories - it's an important meal!! You definitely need to be eating more. Try incorporating high-calorie but healthy foods like salmon, avacado, fruits, nuts, whole grains like oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice, etc. You may feel stuffed if you're used to eating this few calories, but that doesn't mean your body doesn't *need* more. Eating this few calories won't necessarily cause you to not lose weight now, but it can damage your metabolism over time - your body will adapt to eating this low of a calorie amount and your metabolism will slow. It will become harder to lose weight, and when you increase your calorie level, you will gain weight easier than before.

Try slowly increasing your calorie goal - go for 1000 cal/day for a week, then 1200, then 1400...etc. You get the picture. Obviously eating too much is bad, but too little is bad too. I know it's hard to understand, but the healthiest way to lose weight for the long-term is to eat *enough*.