What are "net" calories?
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inglysh731 wrote: »JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »inglysh731 wrote: »JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »inglysh731 wrote: »CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »if mfp set your goal to less than 1500 contact them. its a glitch and should not be less than that,why not just set your goal yourself to something more realistic? set it to 2000 a day since you said you average a little over that and go from there.
The way I am managing it is working for me right now. In the past I would often eat for workouts that never occurred. It was... problematic.
At this point I am averaging 1lb per week in weight loss. Adding back 500 cal will erase any progress.
I still have 20 lbs to go in order to reach my target weight.
I work at home and as a result I am sedentary 22 or so hours a day. As I posted before, I sometimes only get as few as 2k steps per day, so, not a lot of activity.
I use a power meter while riding... again, if I am not hitting target wattages, I know I am at too much of a deficit and adjust accordingly.
Of course its working for you now, you are under eating so of course you will be loosing weight. Whether that is safe and sustainable is another question.
Regardless of your low activity your body still needs calories to function, I'm no expert but I'd certainly say 220kcal isn't sufficient in doing so.
You obviously seem set on doing it this way, so I'm not going to try persuade you otherwise but there is a reason MFP sets a daily low level limit for males of 1500kcal. Seems like a good system you have on the bike, its off the bike that is more concerning.
You seem fixated on a number that has no context. Never actually had a day where I ate 1300 cal.
Said differently... I eat 1500 cal per day but only consume 80% of my exercise calories. How is that different if I end up getting to the same number?
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You seem to have me wrong, I'm not fixated on the number. I'm not trying to argue a point or even say you're wrong, just slightly concerned and sharing an opinion, like others have. You may say it has no context but if you read any other thread on here in regards to this subject you will find a whole host of posts stating the exact same.
I don't know your stats, height, weight etc, but judging from your photo and age and apparent distance cycling, all I'm saying is that it seams extremely low number.
That's not true. You do know my stats because I shared them.
Also, as you put it, "of course it's working for you. You are under eating so of course you'll be losing weight."
Huh? *rolls eyes*
How do you know I'm under eating. You saw one screenshot after one meal. You've jumped to so many conclusions you tripped and fell on the jump to conclusions mat.
I'm not just losing weight, I'm developing my baseline power. You can't make power w/o feeding your body. I am still able to at least hit my peak wattage numbers.
So... what exactly are you concerned about if I'm eating 2k+ calories per day and all I wanted to do with this thread is point out how worthless a "net calories" figure is.
OK. The number you seem to want is the really big number at the top of the screen shot, right under "calories remaining" (1080).
FYI - since "net calories" bothers you so much, you might prefer to use the web version of the food journal, since it only shows gross calories consumed, daily goal calories (included any exercise calories you've logged for the day), and calories remaining from the daily goal calories (or calories over, as a negative number). The web version only shows net calories on the reports tab.0 -
People are making the explanation way more difficult than it is.
Your "net" calories is the calories you have consumed, minus the calories you burned with exercise.
So, basically what it is saying in your example is that, calorie-wise, your exercise cancelled out 1,000 calories that you've eaten today, so you have done the equivalent of if you had just eaten 220 calories today without exercising.
That's it.0 -
Between MFP, Strava, Garmin and my power meter, figures for ONE EXERCISE varied by over 1K calories and you think it's possible to run a deficit for an entire week of 1750 cal?
Even if I knew exactly the number of calories I was consuming per day... IMPOSSIBRU.
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People are making the explanation way more difficult than it is.
Your "net" calories is the calories you have consumed, minus the calories you burned with exercise.
So, basically what it is saying in your example is that, calorie-wise, your exercise cancelled out 1,000 calories that you've eaten today, so you have done the equivalent of if you had just eaten 220 calories today without exercising.
That's it.
OK, that makes sense. Trying to wrap my melon around why that number is even relevant. I don't see how it adds any insight or value.0 -
inglysh731 wrote: »JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »inglysh731 wrote: »JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »inglysh731 wrote: »CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »if mfp set your goal to less than 1500 contact them. its a glitch and should not be less than that,why not just set your goal yourself to something more realistic? set it to 2000 a day since you said you average a little over that and go from there.
The way I am managing it is working for me right now. In the past I would often eat for workouts that never occurred. It was... problematic.
At this point I am averaging 1lb per week in weight loss. Adding back 500 cal will erase any progress.
I still have 20 lbs to go in order to reach my target weight.
I work at home and as a result I am sedentary 22 or so hours a day. As I posted before, I sometimes only get as few as 2k steps per day, so, not a lot of activity.
I use a power meter while riding... again, if I am not hitting target wattages, I know I am at too much of a deficit and adjust accordingly.
Of course its working for you now, you are under eating so of course you will be loosing weight. Whether that is safe and sustainable is another question.
Regardless of your low activity your body still needs calories to function, I'm no expert but I'd certainly say 220kcal isn't sufficient in doing so.
You obviously seem set on doing it this way, so I'm not going to try persuade you otherwise but there is a reason MFP sets a daily low level limit for males of 1500kcal. Seems like a good system you have on the bike, its off the bike that is more concerning.
You seem fixated on a number that has no context. Never actually had a day where I ate 1300 cal.
Said differently... I eat 1500 cal per day but only consume 80% of my exercise calories. How is that different if I end up getting to the same number?
..
You seem to have me wrong, I'm not fixated on the number. I'm not trying to argue a point or even say you're wrong, just slightly concerned and sharing an opinion, like others have. You may say it has no context but if you read any other thread on here in regards to this subject you will find a whole host of posts stating the exact same.
I don't know your stats, height, weight etc, but judging from your photo and age and apparent distance cycling, all I'm saying is that it seams extremely low number.
That's not true. You do know my stats because I shared them.
Also, as you put it, "of course it's working for you. You are under eating so of course you'll be losing weight."
Huh? *rolls eyes*
How do you know I'm under eating. You saw one screenshot after one meal. You've jumped to so many conclusions you tripped and fell on the jump to conclusions mat.
I'm not just losing weight, I'm developing my baseline power. You can't make power w/o feeding your body. I am still able to at least hit my peak wattage numbers.
So... what exactly are you concerned about if I'm eating 2k+ calories per day and all I wanted to do with this thread is point out how worthless a "net calories" figure is.
Look I'm not sure what has rattled your cage, but it seems something has. Actually you didn't share your stats, you said you were 5'6 and once weighed over 200lbs, I'm not sure what is meant to be taken from that.
I'm sorry, jumped to so many conclusions? I made an observation based on the information you put forward, I don't know why this has offended you so much. When you post a screen shot showing you've net 220kcal, it's safe to say many people would also come to a similar type of conclusion. After all your a on a health and well being forum.
But as the above poster mention, if its a gross number you're looking for it can be found on the browser version.
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ugh.
Joshua McAllister quotes:
"Look I'm not sure what has rattled your cage, but it seems something has." - baseless comment
"Of course its working for you now, you are under eating so of course you will be loosing weight." -comment w/o any supporting/factual info.
" by burning 1000 of daily intake is putting yourself at real risk your body needs more than 220kcal to survive over a 24hr period." -because I'm not going to eat another meal the entire day?
"The whole basis of building muscle is to eat excess calories, building muscle is very difficult in a deficit." -never even asked about this, again, no supporting information or evidence.
"Seems like a good system you have on the bike, its off the bike that is more concerning." - how did you arrive at this conclusion? You know how I am fueling by a photo from 3 years ago and a screen shot?
"regards to this subject you will find a whole host of posts stating the exact same" -this post was about "net calories" not whether or not I was fueling properly OR asking for advise as to the same.
"judging from your photo and age and apparent distance cycling, all I'm saying is that it seams extremely low number" -advise: judgement by photos... that have no context... can lead to the wrong conclusions. Up until this point you have no idea of: my weight, my endurance, the distance, what I ate last night, what I ate today, what else I'm going to eat... assumptions and guessing. You've been doing a lot of guessing. To a pretty big audience. Hence my response...
"Look I'm not sure what has rattled your cage, but it seems something has." -you have. don't act surprised. (I put this twice to make a point...)
"Actually you didn't share your stats, you said you were 5'6 and once weighed over 200lbs, I'm not sure what is meant to be taken from that." -So actual numbers don't have as much info as 3 year old photo's. I'm lost.
"I made an observation based on the information you put forward" -you did no such thing. you guessed based on photos that had no context.
"When you post a screen shot showing you've net 220kcal" -I went out for a morning bike ride and a 1220 calorie breakfast. THERE ARE TWO MEALS LEFT IN THE DAY. FFS I wasn't done. I took a screen shot... must mean I've stopped eating.
"if its a gross number you're looking for it can be found on the browser version" -oh, so you read my original post. I suppose I thank you now? I sure hope you're not giving "advise" to many other folks on here. Wonder how many diets you've managed to screw up based on all the things you know.0 -
JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »I'm no expert
Clearly.0 -
inglysh731 wrote: »JoshuaMcAllister wrote: »I'm no expert
Clearly.
I'm not sure what I've done to deserve this personal attack but grow up.1 -
inglysh731 wrote: »Shouldn't it say 1300 Cal + 1000 (exercise) = 2300 (goal) - 1220 (food) = 1080 (togo)
...or something similar.
that's literally exactly what the giant green 1080 says..
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daremightythings wrote: »inglysh731 wrote: »Shouldn't it say 1300 Cal + 1000 (exercise) = 2300 (goal) - 1220 (food) = 1080 (togo)
...or something similar.
that's literally exactly what the giant green 1080 says..
My point is the relevance of the 220... the figure literally means nothing and there is no real reason to even have the number there.
Is there a good reason or are you just literally pointing out anything but the topic of thread?0 -
the part of your post i quoted had nothing to do with the relevance of the net calories. it had to do with the formula that calculates net calories and the way that information is displayed on the homepage/dashboard, which you also asked about.
as to relevance, the idea is that you balance running a deficit with actually taking in enough calories, and therefore macro and ideally micronutrients, to where you are getting proper nutrition for your goals. most people assume those goals include building muscle, hence the 'irrelevant' comments made upthread. regardless, if you eat too little and work out too hard you're not doing yourself any favors in the long term.0
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