A silly question

i'm not too sure but they way i always look at it was like a paycheck. food is the gross and excerise is the taxes they take out so net is whatever is left over. and goal is like the amount you budgeted for that day lol i hope that helps

it's what your left with after exercise and eating. Remember that MFP already sets you up for a goal that includes an appropriate deficit (decrease) in calories for you to meet your goal weight. Going too low can cause problems in the long run.


Think of net like this:
you work 8 hours @ $5.00 an hour = your gross pay is $40
you eat 200 calories 3 x in 8 hours = your goal calories are 600

Uncle Sam take 10% of your GROSS pay (i.e. 4.00) = $40 - $4 which leaves you a NET of $36
You exercise for 30 minutes and burn 400 calories = 600 (your goal calories) - 400 leaves you a NET of 200 calories.

Ideally you want to stay at your goal calories as set by MFP. If you exercise, you will go below those calories and it is highly recommended that you eat them back. However, some people are burning a crazy amount of calories and it would be nearly impossible to eat back an extra 1,000 calories or more on top of your 12-1500 or whatever MFP says you can eat in a day so most will recommend that you eat up to at least the amount set by MFP as if you didn't exercise.

Hope that helps.

i'm not too sure but they way i always look at it was like a paycheck. food is the gross and excerise is the taxes they take out so net is whatever is left over. and goal is like the amount you budgeted for that day lol i hope that helps

I used the same analogy! LOL there were no replies when I started too!

It depends on if you've eaten all of your meals yet or not.


Here is my summary for today, after logging all my meals, snacks and exercise:
Calories Remaining
Goal Food Exercise = Net
1520 1727 - 243 1484


You will see that my daily calorie goal is 1520
today I ate 1727 so technically (ignore the exercise for one moment) I overate by 207 calories.
HOWEVER, since I exercised and burned off 243, I technically under-ate to my GOAL (1520) by 36 calories.

Your net should be a positive number and ideally should be 0 because MFP has already figured your necessary reduction in calories for you to lose weight.

As you add foods throughout the day, your net will change and get larger. When you add exercise it will go down (closer to 0 or a negative number)

ETA: think of it as a scale - food on one side, exercise on the other. You want it to be as balanced as you can make it.