Negative Net Calories

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user20012001
user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I’m 110 pounds right now and usually have a negative net calorie intake, or about a 200 net calorie weekly average. This is just the difference between my exercise and food intake not including metabolism or anything. Is having the average net calories be negative good? Will it speed weight loss?
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  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    It's not clear to me that you're using these terms in a standard way, so I actually don't really understand what you are saying and I expect that might be the case for other posters. You do need what's called a caloric deficit to lose weight, but you can't just ignore your body's regular calorie needs when you calculate that. MFP has a guided setup you can use to figure out how many calories you should be eating per day.

    https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided

    Unless you are very short, 110 lbs isn't going to be overweight. How tall are you and how much weight do you want to lose? If it is appropriate for you to lose a little bit of weight, it's probably not going to be realistic to expect it to happen quickly.
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    Im about 5'5, I just use MFP net calories calculations an its usually negative or about 200 calories, sorry if it wasn't clear
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    user20012001 wrote: »
    Im about 5'5, I just use MFP net calories calculations an its usually negative or about 200 calories, sorry if it wasn't clear

    In that case, your BMI is 18.3 and that suggests that you might actually be underweight already (the normal range is 18.5-24.9). I doubt you really need to be losing weight. Is there a particular reason you think you need to?

    Remember you need a certain number of calories to live everyday, just to keep your organs functional, cells replacing themselves, etc. I know how this looks varies a little bit based on whether you use the mobile app or a web browser, but I don't think there are any circumstances where you should you end up at a negative or very low total every single day - it would mean you're starving yourself.

    Can you post screenshots or open your diary to public? We might be able to better assist if you do that - right now your diary settings are set to friends only.
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    Mostly just to be more lean
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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  • martaindale
    martaindale Posts: 2,076 Member
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    penguinmama87 wrote: »
    user20012001 wrote: »
    Mostly just to be more lean

    So, this suggests to me that what you might actually want is recomp, which is not weight loss: https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat

    You need to be eating enough to fuel your body.

    Yes, recomp seems to be what you are looking for.
    On the screenshots you submitted, the top graph is net calories, so it is subtracting out some sort of activity. You should still be meeting your goal calories on this graph as the MFP goal accounts for a deficit already if you are trying to lose weight and should be set to your TDEE if you are maintaining. The lower graph is just your calorie intake. For this example week you averaged less than 800 calories per day. Without knowing your age, I cannot give a set number but your TDEE (the base number of calories you need to perform normal daily body functions) for your current weight and height is likely somewhere in the 1300-1500 range. Again, that is assuming you maintain your current weight, which as @penguinmama87 noted above, actually falls into the underweight range.

    Bottom line, you need to eat more just to support the things your body needs to do every day to keep you alive. If the information you submitted above is accurate, your eating is disordered and you will develop health issues related to it if you don't make some healthy adjustments.
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    On and off since about may! I took about a month break from tracking during the middle of summer
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    Net calories below 1200 since May but some days I’ll have upwards of 3,000 calories as a cheat day
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    Yes, you need to eat more if your tracking reflects how much you are actually eating. Your body will begin shutting down to conserve energy and you could cause very serious harm to yourself. Undereating is counterproductive because it will likely make you so fatigued that you don't feel like exercising or you can't exercise well when you do - if you're interested in recomp, you will need to have sufficient energy to exercise, and consume enough protein to be able to build muscle. That's going to mean more calories.

    If you feel like you're full and that you *can't* eat more, choose things that are dense but not high volume - full fat dairy, nuts and nut butters, increasing the amount of oil you use in cooking, etc. to increase calories. My husband has flirted off and on with being underweight for much of his adult life - he feels satiated very easily and the way he ate growing up was super low fat, so the way he was accustomed to eating just didn't give him enough calories. But you can adjust these things and still eat a very healthy, nutritious diet. Fat is essential.
  • penguinmama87
    penguinmama87 Posts: 1,158 Member
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    user20012001 wrote: »
    Net calories below 1200 since May but some days I’ll have upwards of 3,000 calories as a cheat day

    I don't generally like the term cheat day, but are these days planned or unplanned? If you find that they're unplanned or you just have days where you feel like you have to eat anything and everything as soon as possible, that's another sign that the calorie intake you've selected is too low and your body is working hard to try and convince you to eat when food is available.
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    Usually unplanned it starts good and then I’ll have a big meal and forget it for the rest of the day
  • martaindale
    martaindale Posts: 2,076 Member
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    penguinmama87 wrote: »
    user20012001 wrote: »
    Net calories below 1200 since May but some days I’ll have upwards of 3,000 calories as a cheat day

    I don't generally like the term cheat day, but are these days planned or unplanned? If you find that they're unplanned or you just have days where you feel like you have to eat anything and everything as soon as possible, that's another sign that the calorie intake you've selected is too low and your body is working hard to try and convince you to eat when food is available.

    This is a very important distinction. I also don't really like the term cheat day but I use it sometimes because it's something others seem to understand.
    A planned day where you don't track or go out to eat or fill the craving you have been having the last few days is fine. And can help you maintain a healthier eating pattern the rest of the days. This is the pattern I have followed while losing 50 lbs and then maintaining over the past several years. Everyone has cravings. It is a normal thing to want something specific or miss a comfort food that maybe you don't eat regularly. Establishing a healthy relationship with food means figuring out how to eat in a healthy way AND not have things be off limits.
    If it is an unplanned day where things go off the rails and you end up at 3000 cals after several days like those you showed above, honey that's a binge. You are in a binge-starvation cycle and that is dangerous. Your body is doing everything it can to let you know you are undereating.
  • user20012001
    user20012001 Posts: 22 Member
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    Thank you all, my calories tracked should be accurate as I weigh almost all my food down the closest gram or eat pre portioned things, I do definitely have binges some days. I’d like to get more lean and slim down slightly more but haven’t been able to drop weight even in this deficit which is why I posted and wondered if I was misunderstanding the net calories

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