I DON'T GET IT..HELP PLS..

fogurina
fogurina Posts: 39 Member
edited November 21 in Getting Started
OK,so..1200-1400+1100=800 remaining...
Doesn't that mean I ate more then I burnt?

Replies

  • Nuke_64
    Nuke_64 Posts: 406 Member
    1200 -> Normal goal. Likely too low for you as you goal is to only lose 20 lbs. Need more info (current weight and height) to be sure.

    -1400-> Amount of food you ate (using a scale? you should be)

    +1100-> Calories burn by exercise and or Fit bit. Probably too high, the normal advise here is to just eat back 50-75% of those

    800 the amount of calories you have left to eat assuming the numbers above are 100% correct to meet the goal you set up in MFP.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    1200 is your target without exercise, that's what you're supposed to hit

    If you eat 1400 calories but then burn off 1100 calories in exercise you have to eat another 900 calories to hit your target

    Where are you getting the numbers from?

    But I very much doubt you have burnt 1100 calories...what did you do and how did you measure it?
  • diannethegeek
    diannethegeek Posts: 14,776 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    OK,so..1200-1400+1100=800 remaining...
    Doesn't that mean I ate more then I burnt?

    When you talk about eating more or less than you burn, you have to take into account all of the calories your body burns just existing and doing day-to-day activities. You don't want to work off all of the calories you eat through exercise alone. That's a fast way to burn out or hurt yourself.

  • carolynjohle
    carolynjohle Posts: 4 Member
    Okay, so when you are at your home page, the big numbers in blue are the remaining calories you have to eat. (So for me today, I have 841 calories left to eat). The number above "goal" is how many you should aim to eat depending on your settings and goals. (I am sedentary, so this number is usually very low for my weight; 1540). The next number is "food" or how much food you have eaten. (Mine says 797).

    I think the confusing part here is how exercise calories are subtracted from how many calories you have EATEN rather than how many calories YOU STILL HAVE TO EAT OR THE TOTAL CALORIES OF THE DAY. The 3rd number is "exercise" and is how many calories you have burned from exercise. So mine says "98".

    Here's the tricky part. The 4th number, or "net" is how many calories you have consumed when you subtract exercise from food.

    Here's mine:

    841 calories remaining

    1540 goal

    797 food - 98 exercise = 600 net ***the math doesn't quite add up; I know it's weird.

    So notice how 600 (net) and 841 (calories remaining) still add up to 1540? It's a weird way of showing you how the exercise burns those calories that might put you over your calorie goal. (AKA calories burned are subtracted from what you have already eaten rather than added you have yet to eat.)

    Personally, I think it looks kind of weird. I think if anything, calories should be ADDED to how much you can eat when you work out, rather than this weird business. But I guess it's just the way they want to explain it.

    Hope this helps!
  • maillemaker
    maillemaker Posts: 1,253 Member
    It's very simple: If you get 1400 calories, and you exercise 300, then you get to eat 1700 calories for the day.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    I burn most of it at work.9 hour shift in a factory.lifting.pulling,pushing weights.big stacks of cardboard.walk about five miles there also,per stepper app.I have lost 5 pounds these last 3 weeks,however,last 4 days I've lost nothing.I was eating 1000 a day.today a bit more.
    Thanks guys for your help: -)
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    1200 is your target without exercise, that's what you're supposed to hit

    If you eat 1400 calories but then burn off 1100 calories in exercise you have to eat another 900 calories to hit your target

    Where are you getting the numbers from?

    But I very much doubt you have burnt 1100 calories...what did you do and how did you measure it?



    I work 9 hours in a packi g factory.walk five miles per stepper app here also.lifting things constantly up to 30 pounds,pushing skids,pulling them,bending, lifting above my head...etc etc.I only put in 400 minutes of this activity,to give myself worst case scenario.when it's actually more minutes. And I put food preparation,that's the closest activity MFP has.Lol.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    Nuke_64 wrote: »
    1200 -> Normal goal. Likely too low for you as you goal is to only lose 20 lbs. Need more info (current weight and height) to be sure.

    -1400-> Amount of food you ate (using a scale? you should be)

    +1100-> Calories burn by exercise and or Fit bit. Probably too high, the normal advise here is to just eat back 50-75% of those

    800 the amount of calories you have left to eat assuming the numbers above are 100% correct to meet the goal you set up in MFP.



    I am a female,33 years,180 pounds at 5'7.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    1200 is your target without exercise, that's what you're supposed to hit

    If you eat 1400 calories but then burn off 1100 calories in exercise you have to eat another 900 calories to hit your target

    Where are you getting the numbers from?

    But I very much doubt you have burnt 1100 calories...what did you do and how did you measure it?

    OK,soooo if I we're to lay in bed for 24 hours,and not lift a finger,I should only be hitting the 1200?.and if I did that,would I still have a deficit?ty for your help:-)
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    1200 is your target without exercise, that's what you're supposed to hit

    If you eat 1400 calories but then burn off 1100 calories in exercise you have to eat another 900 calories to hit your target

    Where are you getting the numbers from?

    But I very much doubt you have burnt 1100 calories...what did you do and how did you measure it?

    OK,soooo if I we're to lay in bed for 24 hours,and not lift a finger,I should only be hitting the 1200?.and if I did that,would I still have a deficit?ty for your help:-)



    And if ibwere to do the lay in bed,and it would still create a deficit,where would it come from?my bmr?
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    OK,so..1200-1400+1100=800 remaining...
    Doesn't that mean I ate more then I burnt?

    When you talk about eating more or less than you burn, you have to take into account all of the calories your body burns just existing and doing day-to-day activities. You don't want to work off all of the calories you eat through exercise alone. That's a fast way to burn out or hurt yourself.


    OK,but this way is correct right?I am burning?
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
    What have you set your activity level to?
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    Okay, so when you are at your home page, the big numbers in blue are the remaining calories you have to eat. (So for me today, I have 841 calories left to eat). The number above "goal" is how many you should aim to eat depending on your settings and goals. (I am sedentary, so this number is usually very low for my weight; 1540). The next number is "food" or how much food you have eaten. (Mine says 797).

    I think the confusing part here is how exercise calories are subtracted from how many calories you have EATEN rather than how many calories YOU STILL HAVE TO EAT OR THE TOTAL CALORIES OF THE DAY. The 3rd number is "exercise" and is how many calories you have burned from exercise. So mine says "98".

    Here's the tricky part. The 4th number, or "net" is how many calories you have consumed when you subtract exercise from food.

    Here's mine:

    841 calories remaining

    1540 goal

    797 food - 98 exercise = 600 net ***the math doesn't quite add up; I know it's weird.

    So notice how 600 (net) and 841 (calories remaining) still add up to 1540? It's a weird way of showing you how the exercise burns those calories that might put you over your calorie goal. (AKA calories burned are subtracted from what you have already eaten rather than added you have yet to eat.)

    Personally, I think it looks kind of weird. I think if anything, calories should be ADDED to how much you can eat when you work out, rather than this weird business. But I guess it's just the way they want to explain it.

    Hope this helps!



    Haha okay,so technically,I have only eaten 800 calories today?after excercise?so where is my deficit then?is that where my bmr comes in?
    Ty so much:-)
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,252 Member
    Two big points in tracking - 1. nutritional labeling carries a 20% error rate, so if it's listed at 100, it could be 80 or 120 kcals. If you're trying to keep a deficit and lose, err on the side of caution and set your quantity to 1.2.
    2. Exercise estimations are often grossly overestimated - as much as 60%.

    If you ever hit a stalling point or "plateau", keep these two points in mind.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    What have you set your activity level to?


    Sedentary,again,to give me worst case scenario
  • LeslieB042812
    LeslieB042812 Posts: 1,799 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    rabbitjb wrote: »
    What have you set your activity level to?


    Sedentary,again,to give me worst case scenario

    I would recommend that you select a different option than sedentary (to reflect your actual life) and then don't add in extra calories from working.
  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
    I hate doing the math for this. ><

    I think your calorie goal is too low. I'm 5'7", and at 180lbs, my daily goal was around 1600 to lose 1/2-1 pound a week. Don't set your goal to lose too high or you'll just make it more difficult for yourself.

    From what I understand, your daily calorie goal, without a deficit, would equal what a normal day's calorie expenditure would be without exercise. I count exercise as something that's extra effort vs. daily stuff. Like, if you're a waitress, you'd be doing a LOT of walking around, but that's part of your everyday so I wouldn't count that as exercise. The way the calculation works *and this is what little i know, if i'm wrong please correct me someone!* is it takes what your BMR is (this is the amount of calories your body would burn just in a coma) and adding what your normal daily burn is to create your TDEE (the amount of calories your body burns in your normal life). MFP averages that based on what your activity level is, and then takes away a deficit to give you a daily calorie goal. It's not exact, but it's usually close enough for hand grenades. So the question is, what do you do for a living? Do you have a desk job? Sedentary is probably the best choice for you. If you're in a job where you move around more, then you chose one of the other settings. You need to choose the one that fits closest to what you do.

    Something else to keep in mind: MFP is notorious for over-estimating calories burned for exercise. The calculation is actually more complicated, and includes factoring in not only your weight, height, and age, but also your heart rate. MFP has no way of measuring your heart rate, so it uses an estimate. Therefore, if you rely on MFP to calculate your exercise calories, you'll need to only eat back about half of them, just to be safe. There are some gym machines that can take your HR as well, but they're not always going to be accurate because they don't have the rest of your data. They also use averages, and while it's probably a little closer than MFP, it's still going to be off. The only way to get a true close estimate to what you burn is to monitor your HR and do the calculation yourself. Or, the lazy way is to get an activity tracker with a HR monitor that will do it for you. I took the lazy route, and it's been helpful.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    The calories from work are a fact though.so should I still leave em out or no?
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    dubird wrote: »
    I hate doing the math for this. ><

    I think your calorie goal is too low. I'm 5'7", and at 180lbs, my daily goal was around 1600 to lose 1/2-1 pound a week. Don't set your goal to lose too high or you'll just make it more difficult for yourself.

    From what I understand, your daily calorie goal, without a deficit, would equal what a normal day's calorie expenditure would be without exercise. I count exercise as something that's extra effort vs. daily stuff. Like, if you're a waitress, you'd be doing a LOT of walking around, but that's part of your everyday so I wouldn't count that as exercise. The way the calculation works *and this is what little i know, if i'm wrong please correct me someone!* is it takes what your BMR is (this is the amount of calories your body would burn just in a coma) and adding what your normal daily burn is to create your TDEE (the amount of calories your body burns in your normal life). MFP averages that based on what your activity level is, and then takes away a deficit to give you a daily calorie goal. It's not exact, but it's usually close enough for hand grenades. So the question is, what do you do for a living? Do you have a desk job? Sedentary is probably the best choice for you. If you're in a job where you move around more, then you chose one of the other settings. You need to choose the one that fits closest to what you do.

    Something else to keep in mind: MFP is notorious for over-estimating calories burned for exercise. The calculation is actually more complicated, and includes factoring in not only your weight, height, and age, but also your heart rate. MFP has no way of measuring your heart rate, so it uses an estimate. Therefore, if you rely on MFP to calculate your exercise calories, you'll need to only eat back about half of them, just to be safe. There are some gym machines that can take your HR as well, but they're not always going to be accurate because they don't have the rest of your data. They also use averages, and while it's probably a little closer than MFP, it's still going to be off. The only way to get a true close estimate to what you burn is to monitor your HR and do the calculation yourself. Or, the lazy way is to get an activity tracker with a HR monitor that will do it for you. I took the lazy route, and it's been helpful.[/


    Aw thanks:-). I put sedentary,but I'm actually pretty active.I work nine hours in a factory.lifting,pulling,pushing,bending,stacking etc etc.so I do get a good workout.OK,how about,I put nothing for exercise and just only eat about 1400 calories.would that do the trick?even if I didn't burn anything else,is that how it works?if my goal is 1400,and I eat only 1400 while laying in bed all day,I'd still be having a deficit?
  • truelight_photo_craig
    truelight_photo_craig Posts: 347 Member
    edited July 2015
    Setting your base activity rate higher will take into account the calories burned at work. Then just add in any intentional exercise.
  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    The calories from work are a fact though.so should I still leave em out or no?

    They should be part of your daily TDEE, not entered extra as exercise. What you do every day should be figured into your normal daily burn. Working in a factory, if you're on your feet all day, you can probably use Active or Very Active, depending on what your normal work load is. Then, whenever you do actually do some kind of exercise outside of your normal life, that's what you enter as exercise in MFP.

    You might try something like another calculator and see what it tells you your normal daily burn is. That one seems to be (at least for me) a little more accurate than MFP, and you can set a custom daily calorie limit if you want to.
  • editorgrrl
    editorgrrl Posts: 7,060 Member
    fogurina wrote: »
    The calories from work are a fact though.so should I still leave em out or no?

    Your default MFP calorie goal is activity level minus deficit, so at the end of the day you're supposed to have no more than 100-ish calories left over. Undereating won't get you to goal any more quickly.

    But how did you get those calories from work? If you have an activity tracker (like Fitbit) and if (and only if) you've enabled negative calorie adjustments in your diary settings, then eating back your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.

    If you got 1,100 calories for logging your work as exercise, then you're doing it wrong. Work (including housework, yard work, childcare, and commuting) is part of your activity level, and should never be logged as exercise. Work = activity level. Workouts = exercise.
  • fogurina
    fogurina Posts: 39 Member
    dubird wrote: »
    fogurina wrote: »
    The calories from work are a fact though.so should I still leave em out or no?

    They should be part of your daily TDEE, not entered extra as exercise. What you do every day should be figured into your normal daily burn. Working in a factory, if you're on your feet all day, you can probably use Active or Very Active, depending on what your normal work load is. Then, whenever you do actually do some kind of exercise outside of your normal life, that's what you enter as exercise in MFP.

    You might try something like another calculator and see what it tells you your normal daily burn is. That one seems to be (at least for me) a little more accurate than MFP, and you can set a custom daily calorie limit if you want to.

    Ohh OK.gotcha:-) thanks.so OK,if I don't do anything but lay in bed for 24 hours,and only eat 1400 calories,would I still lose?or my case,at work all day,and no exercise,eating 1400 calories,would that create the deficit?I think it would,because my TDEE IS 2400.AM I right?lol

  • dubird
    dubird Posts: 1,849 Member
    edited July 2015
    fogurina wrote: »
    dubird wrote: »
    fogurina wrote: »
    The calories from work are a fact though.so should I still leave em out or no?

    They should be part of your daily TDEE, not entered extra as exercise. What you do every day should be figured into your normal daily burn. Working in a factory, if you're on your feet all day, you can probably use Active or Very Active, depending on what your normal work load is. Then, whenever you do actually do some kind of exercise outside of your normal life, that's what you enter as exercise in MFP.

    You might try something like another calculator and see what it tells you your normal daily burn is. That one seems to be (at least for me) a little more accurate than MFP, and you can set a custom daily calorie limit if you want to.

    Ohh OK.gotcha:-) thanks.so OK,if I don't do anything but lay in bed for 24 hours,and only eat 1400 calories,would I still lose?or my case,at work all day,and no exercise,eating 1400 calories,would that create the deficit?I think it would,because my TDEE IS 2400.AM I right?lol

    Math R Hard. ><

    Is the 2400 TDEE what the calculator is giving you? If it is, and you've put in for a deficit on it, then that's what your normal daily calorie burn would be to lose weight, as long as you're working the same job. Days off you want to cut back your food, but daily isn't as important as what you average out to for the week. Don't worry about your BMR, that's not what you should work towards. It's only used to calculate your TDEE.

    Honestly, if you want a much more accurate idea of your daily calorie burn without exercise, you're going to need to get a tracker with a heart rate monitor. Wear it every day for a normal week, without exercise, and average it out. That should be the most accurate way to tell. And I feel like an idiot for not thinking of this until right now. *headdesk*

    For food, it might be best to just focus on logging accurately with scale for a couple weeks to get a baseline of where you are starting from. Then, you can start adjusting to match what you calorie goal is.
  • brandiuntz
    brandiuntz Posts: 2,717 Member

    Ohh OK.gotcha:-) thanks.so OK,if I don't do anything but lay in bed for 24 hours,and only eat 1400 calories,would I still lose?or my case,at work all day,and no exercise,eating 1400 calories,would that create the deficit?I think it would,because my TDEE IS 2400.AM I right?lol

    Yes, 1400 has the deficit in it. MFP calculates deficit before any exercise is entered.
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