Net Calories- What are they?
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healthy_juls
Posts: 36 Member
I understand the calculation of net calories but can someone please explain to me what this number means? Thx.
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Replies
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Total calories you eat - calories burned from intentional exercise.
If you're using MFP to calculate your goal calories, you want your net calories (the above calculation) to approximate MFP's calculated goal calories each day.0 -
It's the calories you've consumed over the day minus the calories you burned through exercise. So, if you eat 2000 calories and exercise burning 500, then your net is 1500. I think.
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I'm so confused about this0
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The goal is to eat less than you burn so if you burn calories through exercise (beyond the normal amount burned through daily life) it is added to your calorie goal for the day. So if my goal is 1300 calories a day but I workout and burn 500 I could eat 1800 and theoretically still lose weight.0
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Net are daily PLUS exercise
1530 daily + 400 exercise= 1930 NET calories I get to eat!
But most people don't eat all their exercise calories because they are usually over estimated!0 -
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healthy_juls wrote: »
OK so super long-winded explanation...hopefully it will help.
Think of 'calories' as fuel for your engine (body).
Just existing (breathing, heart beating, brain functioning) requires a certain number of calories each day. This is called your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). Don't need to know the fancy term, just the concept that your body will burn this base amount each day, even if you were lying in a coma.
Then on top of that, you burn calories doing your every-day activities...walking around the house, typing on a computer, watching TV, cooking dinner, doing your job, chasing kids, etc.
Finally, there's a third layer of calories burned, which comes from intentional exercise above and beyond what you just do on a day-to-day basis.
Add all three of those up, and you get your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Assuming a perfect theoretical world, where these amounts were able to be exactly calculated and remained exactly the same each day, if you ate that many calories per day, you would maintain your current weight. Your calorie intake would be exactly equal to your burn.
So to LOSE weight, you need to upset the equation - either burn more or eat less.
The way MFP is set up, is you input your stats (height, gender, weight, etc), which MFP uses to calculate your BMR (first layer of calories). Then you enter your every day activity level, which MFP uses to calculate that second layer of calories burned. And then you choose your preferred rate of weight loss, which MFP subtracts off those first two layers to give you your daily calorie goal. Note that MFP does not include exercise calories in calculating that daily goal.
So when people refer to 'net' calories, it's just a term for the way MFP calculates your goal.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you do no exercise, then you should eat 1500 calories.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you burn 300 calories from exercise (creating that 3rd 'layer' of calories burned), you should actually eat 1800 calories.
In both instances, your "net" calories are 1500, which is your daily goal.
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MFP does not include deliberate exercise in its caloric formula. It expects you to eat those back to maintain your daily caloric goal.
Total calories consumed - Calories burned via deliberate exercise = NET Calories. The system is designed around keeping your NET and dialy caloric goal the same in an ideal world ... as close as possible in reality.Net are daily PLUS exercise
1530 daily + 400 exercise= 1930 NET calories I get to eat!
But most people don't eat all their exercise calories because they are usually over estimated!
No ... you get 1930 GROSS (Total) calories for a 1530 NET in your example.
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Net calories is the number you eat minus the calories you burn. So, a net of zero means you will neither gain nor lose weight. MFP confuses the issue by using a different (but similar) calculation for net. The MFP net is the number of calories you eat minus the number of calories you burn with the exercise you log. Since they aren't subtracting out the non-exercise calories burned, you will have a net of zero when your MFP net is equal to your calorie goal plus your calorie deficit. For MFP purposes, you just want your MFP net to match your goal.0
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ceoverturf wrote: »healthy_juls wrote: »
OK so super long-winded explanation...hopefully it will help.
Think of 'calories' as fuel for your engine (body).
Just existing (breathing, heart beating, brain functioning) requires a certain number of calories each day. This is called your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). Don't need to know the fancy term, just the concept that your body will burn this base amount each day, even if you were lying in a coma.
Then on top of that, you burn calories doing your every-day activities...walking around the house, typing on a computer, watching TV, cooking dinner, doing your job, chasing kids, etc.
Finally, there's a third layer of calories burned, which comes from intentional exercise above and beyond what you just do on a day-to-day basis.
Add all three of those up, and you get your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Assuming a perfect theoretical world, where these amounts were able to be exactly calculated and remained exactly the same each day, if you ate that many calories per day, you would maintain your current weight. Your calorie intake would be exactly equal to your burn.
So to LOSE weight, you need to upset the equation - either burn more or eat less.
The way MFP is set up, is you input your stats (height, gender, weight, etc), which MFP uses to calculate your BMR (first layer of calories). Then you enter your every day activity level, which MFP uses to calculate that second layer of calories burned. And then you choose your preferred rate of weight loss, which MFP subtracts off those first two layers to give you your daily calorie goal. Note that MFP does not include exercise calories in calculating that daily goal.
So when people refer to 'net' calories, it's just a term for the way MFP calculates your goal.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you do no exercise, then you should eat 1500 calories.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you burn 300 calories from exercise (creating that 3rd 'layer' of calories burned), you should actually eat 1800 calories.
In both instances, your "net" calories are 1500, which is your daily goal.
^^^ Read this...0 -
dbl post0
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which formula does MFP use to calculate BMR? Is it Mifflin?ceoverturf wrote: »healthy_juls wrote: »
The way MFP is set up, is you input your stats (height, gender, weight, etc), which MFP uses to calculate your BMR (first layer of calories). Then you enter your every day activity level, which MFP uses to calculate that second layer of calories burned. And then you choose your preferred rate of weight loss, which MFP subtracts off those first two layers to give you your daily calorie goal. Note that MFP does not include exercise calories in calculating that daily goal.
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ceoverturf wrote: »healthy_juls wrote: »
OK so super long-winded explanation...hopefully it will help.
Think of 'calories' as fuel for your engine (body).
Just existing (breathing, heart beating, brain functioning) requires a certain number of calories each day. This is called your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). Don't need to know the fancy term, just the concept that your body will burn this base amount each day, even if you were lying in a coma.
Then on top of that, you burn calories doing your every-day activities...walking around the house, typing on a computer, watching TV, cooking dinner, doing your job, chasing kids, etc.
Finally, there's a third layer of calories burned, which comes from intentional exercise above and beyond what you just do on a day-to-day basis.
Add all three of those up, and you get your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Assuming a perfect theoretical world, where these amounts were able to be exactly calculated and remained exactly the same each day, if you ate that many calories per day, you would maintain your current weight. Your calorie intake would be exactly equal to your burn.
So to LOSE weight, you need to upset the equation - either burn more or eat less.
The way MFP is set up, is you input your stats (height, gender, weight, etc), which MFP uses to calculate your BMR (first layer of calories). Then you enter your every day activity level, which MFP uses to calculate that second layer of calories burned. And then you choose your preferred rate of weight loss, which MFP subtracts off those first two layers to give you your daily calorie goal. Note that MFP does not include exercise calories in calculating that daily goal.
So when people refer to 'net' calories, it's just a term for the way MFP calculates your goal.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you do no exercise, then you should eat 1500 calories.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you burn 300 calories from exercise (creating that 3rd 'layer' of calories burned), you should actually eat 1800 calories.
In both instances, your "net" calories are 1500, which is your daily goal.
Thank you! I get it now, one question--Should I be eating back my exercise calories? It seems like it defeats the purpose. Thanks again for the long winded response.
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healthy_juls wrote: »ceoverturf wrote: »healthy_juls wrote: »
OK so super long-winded explanation...hopefully it will help.
Think of 'calories' as fuel for your engine (body).
Just existing (breathing, heart beating, brain functioning) requires a certain number of calories each day. This is called your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). Don't need to know the fancy term, just the concept that your body will burn this base amount each day, even if you were lying in a coma.
Then on top of that, you burn calories doing your every-day activities...walking around the house, typing on a computer, watching TV, cooking dinner, doing your job, chasing kids, etc.
Finally, there's a third layer of calories burned, which comes from intentional exercise above and beyond what you just do on a day-to-day basis.
Add all three of those up, and you get your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Assuming a perfect theoretical world, where these amounts were able to be exactly calculated and remained exactly the same each day, if you ate that many calories per day, you would maintain your current weight. Your calorie intake would be exactly equal to your burn.
So to LOSE weight, you need to upset the equation - either burn more or eat less.
The way MFP is set up, is you input your stats (height, gender, weight, etc), which MFP uses to calculate your BMR (first layer of calories). Then you enter your every day activity level, which MFP uses to calculate that second layer of calories burned. And then you choose your preferred rate of weight loss, which MFP subtracts off those first two layers to give you your daily calorie goal. Note that MFP does not include exercise calories in calculating that daily goal.
So when people refer to 'net' calories, it's just a term for the way MFP calculates your goal.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you do no exercise, then you should eat 1500 calories.
If your MFP goal is 1500 calories, and you burn 300 calories from exercise (creating that 3rd 'layer' of calories burned), you should actually eat 1800 calories.
In both instances, your "net" calories are 1500, which is your daily goal.
Thank you! I get it now, one question--Should I be eating back my exercise calories? It seems like it defeats the purpose. Thanks again for the long winded response.
In a perfect world yes...if you're using MFP's calorie goal. The goal number is already calculated in such a way that you'll lose weight.
See the examples above. If both people ate ONLY 1500 calories, the first person would hit their goal (and lose weight), the second person would of course lose weight as well, but would likely suffer from a lack of energy for exercise.
The issue with eating them back is that it's difficult (impossible) to accurately calculate calorie burns. Most people find that MFP and gym machines vastly overestimate the amount of calories burned from exercise, so it's often suggested to only eat 50-75% of them back to compensate for errors in calculating.0 -
healthy_juls great questions and ceoverturf great answers. Thank-you both.0
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