Not Understanding Net Calories
Options
Replies
-
Your profile is still private...0
-
What are you doing to earn so much exercise calories. Do you have a device connected?
And, your calories seem low. Do you log everything, and use a food scale?0 -
I have a Garmin vivosmart. I am eating about 900 calories daily. I do log everything. No I don't use a food scale. What I am eating usually is pretty cut and dried. I love broccoli and I get Green Giant frozen and it will tell you how many calories in a cup. I am not doing any exercise at all yet. I did walk one day and I cleaned house all day one day.1
-
I work full time in an office. I don't have a lot of time to exercise. I try to walk at work on my breaks. Some at lunch. My Garmin Connect is connected to My Fitness Pal. Whatever calories that my Garmin shows that I have used is what shows up on MFP. Also, intensity minutes, how many steps I walk in a day...I think it counts all of that.0
-
According to my Garmin right now, today was slow. It shows I burnt 2641 calories.I didn't walk today and only got 4398 steps. No intensity minutes.0
-
I have to apologize for my ignorance working with stuff like this. Garmins, my remote control for the TV. No good at none of that stuff, and I am no good with this calorie stuff. I know what it tells me that I can eat a day and I try to stay a little under it to allow for any mistakes in the counting of the calories. Like tonight, I made cupcakes for a friend at work tomorrow, Well you can bet that I licked a spoon or two.2
-
I'm not good with understanding the devices either, but 2641 calories for 4400 steps, and an office job seems really high. Its like its counting the calories you burn just being alive. Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will have better advice.1
-
My BMR is figured by MFP is 1300. Does that sound right? I am 66 and I am 5'3" and right now I weigh 175.
0 -
I've looked over your diary. For what it's worth I have two observations:
- you are undereating. You seem to be under 1,000 calories most days. 1200 is supposed to be the rock-bottom minimum, and in fact that is supposed to be 1200 PLUS all of your intentional exercise. So if you do 300 calories worth of workout, 1500 is the rock bottom minimum to keep yourself healthy. Eating under 1000 calories per day as a regular habit is crash dieting, it ain't gonna end well.
- I notice MFP's recommended calories per day in your diary is ranging from 2500 to 3200 ish. This means you are logging north of 1500 calories per day in exercise calories. I'm not sure how you're getting there. Most people can earn about 400 calories an hour doing cardio. So are you doing 3+ hours per day of hard core cardio? Something is going wrong in how your exercise calories are getting logged. Your daily life activities like cleaning and such should not be getting logged as exercise. Exercise is your "work out" time and for most people isn't more than an hour or maybe 90 mins a day.
I don't know you or your unique circumstances, but my gut take is that you're undereating and counting things as intentional exercise that shouldn't be counted as such. Your first step should be to NEVER eat less than 1200 calories of food plus as least half of whatever intentional exercise (e.g. going to the gym; putting on sweats and going for a brisk walk, etc.) you are doing.
5 -
I've looked over your diary. For what it's worth I have two observations:
- you are undereating. You seem to be under 1,000 calories most days. 1200 is supposed to be the rock-bottom minimum, and in fact that is supposed to be 1200 PLUS all of your intentional exercise. So if you do 300 calories worth of workout, 1500 is the rock bottom minimum to keep yourself healthy. Eating under 1000 calories per day as a regular habit is crash dieting, it ain't gonna end well.
- I notice MFP's recommended calories per day in your diary is ranging from 2500 to 3200 ish. This means you are logging north of 1500 calories per day in exercise calories. I'm not sure how you're getting there. Most people can earn about 400 calories an hour doing cardio. So are you doing 3+ hours per day of hard core cardio? Something is going wrong in how your exercise calories are getting logged. Your daily life activities like cleaning and such should not be getting logged as exercise. Exercise is your "work out" time and for most people isn't more than an hour or maybe 90 mins a day.
I don't know you or your unique circumstances, but my gut take is that you're undereating and counting things as intentional exercise that shouldn't be counted as such. Your first step should be to NEVER eat less than 1200 calories of food plus as least half of whatever intentional exercise (e.g. going to the gym; putting on sweats and going for a brisk walk, etc.) you are doing.
@lgfrie, based on other threads, the exercise calories are coming from a Garmin tracker OP has synched to MFP, so it's an all-day calorie synch by end of day. It isn't clear what's accounting for that high a calorie number (that I can tell).2 -
According to my Garmin right now, today was slow. It shows I burnt 2641 calories.I didn't walk today and only got 4398 steps. No intensity minutes.
You likely have it setup incorrectly.
Go over your physical settings - confirm using metric if entering metric, imperial of using lbs and inches.
3 -
I have a Garmin vivosmart. I am eating about 900 calories daily. I do log everything. No I don't use a food scale. What I am eating usually is pretty cut and dried. I love broccoli and I get Green Giant frozen and it will tell you how many calories in a cup. I am not doing any exercise at all yet. I did walk one day and I cleaned house all day one day.
Sorry but aiming for 900 calories is a dreadful thing to do for your health.
Doesn't the fact that 1200 + exercise calories is the lowest this site will go worry you when you are eating so little?
Make a fresh start including a sensible calorie goal and sort out your Garmin or don't use it as it's clearly not giving you useful data.3 -
While the all day Garmin numbers sound a bit high for sub 5k steps given the op's stats, they would not be impossible for a taller heavier person.
That said, the op is undereating regardless of whether the broccoli would weigh 1.1 or 1.5 times the eyeballed cup measurement.
The goal is not to eat the least amount possible in order to lose as fast as possible and who cares about the consequences
You better goal would be to figure out the best way to both lose weight and keep it off over the next few years and be as happy and healthy as possible while you're at it3 -
I concur it is time for a fresh start for the OP. MINIMUM calories consumed per day should be 1200 PLUS workout calories. Everything else is just a footnote to that and can be sorted out once OP has gotten in better habits as far as not crash dieting. Crash diets do not work and are unhealthy.
By workout calories, I mean calories burned while doing an intentional workout, like lifting weights, riding an exercise bike, or going for a power walk. Not talking about daily life activities. Intentional workouts should be estimated for caloric burn, added to the 1200, and eaten.
I guess I would just disconnect the Garmin sync for now. It sounds like it's causing more confusion than doing anything useful. Get the train on the tracks and focus on eating the correct amount of calories, and then futz with the devices later.8 -
I went to Garmin Connect and studied how they got their figures. This is what I found out:
Total Calories Burned:
Active Calories 722
Resting Calories 1281
Active + Resting Calories = 2003 Total Calories Burned
Adjusted Goal:
Daily Goal 1200
Active Calories 722
Daily Goal + Active Calories = 1922 Adjusted Goal
Calories Remaining:
Adjusted Goal 1922
Consumed 1362
Adjusted Goal - Consumed = 560 remaining calories
I did over eat today. I consumed 1362 calories. (Coworkers birthday cake)
My Garmin calculates my calories burned thoughout the day. The total calories it shows up until the moment is 2033. So they are subtracting the calories used at rest (BMR) and subtracting it from the days' total calculation of calories. 2033 - 1281 - 722. The 722 is considered active calories no matter what you do, exercising, walking or whatever.
Is this miscalculating? If it is, please tell me what I need to do.
1 -
Calories Remaining:
Adjusted Goal 1922
Consumed 1362
Adjusted Goal - Consumed = 560 remaining calories
I did over eat today. I consumed 1362 calories. (Coworkers birthday cake)
How is this overeating? Your calorie goal was 1922 and you ate 1362. The 1200 goal was before exercise. 1200 is below your estimated bmr. You should not eat below bmr.1 -
If you're counting your calories in accurately, and if your calories out are counted accurately, you're severely under-eating.
If you're not counting your calories in accurately, and if your calories out are not counted very accurately, you're PROBABLY severely under-eating.
You will do what you will do and you ARE doing whatever it is you want to do but none of what you're doing has anything to do with what the various metrics you're telling yourself you're trying to use. You're just ignoring the metrics.
You've set yourself a goal to eat ABCD number of calories that includes a reasonable deficit to lose some weight.
You're eating XYZM number of calories that is apparently calibrated to create multiples of the deficit you chose.
Best of luck.
In case you are truly not understanding what you're SUPPOSED to be trying to do: you're supposed to be trying consume calories till your remaining calories are zero. If you were truly doing that, then a discussion as to whether ALL the calories you're told to eat are actually available to be eaten may enter into the equation. But between where you're at and there... there's a large distance.4 -
-
I went to Garmin Connect and studied how they got their figures. This is what I found out:
Total Calories Burned:
Active Calories 722
Resting Calories 1281
Active + Resting Calories = 2003 Total Calories Burned
Adjusted Goal:
Daily Goal 1200
Active Calories 722
Daily Goal + Active Calories = 1922 Adjusted Goal
Calories Remaining:
Adjusted Goal 1922
Consumed 1362
Adjusted Goal - Consumed = 560 remaining calories
I did over eat today. I consumed 1362 calories. (Coworkers birthday cake)
My Garmin calculates my calories burned thoughout the day. The total calories it shows up until the moment is 2033. So they are subtracting the calories used at rest (BMR) and subtracting it from the days' total calculation of calories. 2033 - 1281 - 722. The 722 is considered active calories no matter what you do, exercising, walking or whatever.
Is this miscalculating? If it is, please tell me what I need to do.
Why are you trying to follow 2 roads to the same destination?
Don't you find it confusing, possibly annoying?
I thought you were using MFP for your eating goal?
Garmin did NOT implement correctly what MFP says it is doing with base eating goal, and then extra activity over the MFP selected activity level.
You can NOT follow their eating goal, when they pull figures from MFP.
Garmin does send to MFP what MFP needs to correct your eating goal.
If Garmin is good on that Total Calories Burned figure - that's all that is sent, along with any workouts.
But you said you saw on Garmin less than 5K steps and daily burn approaching 2700 mid-day. That's a red flag for your stats.
I suggested confirming your physical stats are correct so Garmin is estimating the daily burn correctly.
Or is that day with 5K steps and 2700 daily burn something else - can you find that day?
Did it have self-logged workouts, or any workouts for that matter?
IF Garmin was having a decent estimated daily burn, then what is synced to MFP allows your daily eating goal on MFP to be reasonable - if you selected a reasonable rate of loss.1 -
This is all so confusing.
Unplug the Garmin. Put it in a drawer. It is not helping you.
Go to the MFP Goals tool. Enter your age, gender, height, weight, etc. Tell it you want to lose a pound a week.
It'll probably tell you 1200 calories, because your maintenance level (break even) is around 1600 cals/day, so to lose a pound a week you'd have to eat 1100 (a deficit of 500/day = 1 lb per week lost) but 1200 is the lowest it will give you.
Eat that 1200 every day. NEVER less.
If you work out - meaning an intentional 30 or 60 or 90 minutes of weight lifting or cardio - either get a calorie estimate for that or just assume it's 200 calories per 30 minutes, and eat every single one of those calories, in addition to the 1200.
That's all you have to do. The weight loss will follow. That Garmin has you tied up in knots and is not helping you at all. Jmho.13
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.4K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 388 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.2K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 918 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions