How do you log uneaten calories?

nytrifisoul · February 2023

Maybe i am not seeing it, but how do you tell the difference between calories burned and calories not eaten? If i burn 1000 calories over my goal and i also ate 1000 colories less then the allowed calories, where is it logged? Do i have to manually go back to the start of the week and total them up at the end of the week?

AnnPT77 · February 2023

In the phone/tablet version of MFP, click Nutrition (on the More menu). Click Calories near the top of the Nutrition page.

From there, just below the top options, you will see tiny letters that say Day View or Week View - you can use those to see just one day, or the whole week.

On the Day View page, below the pie chart and its legend, you'll see Total Calories, Net Calories, and Goal Calories.

Total Calories is how many you logged that you ate. Net Calories is the number of calories of food you logged minus the number of calories of exercise you logged. That should let you easily figure out your calories not eaten. If you didn't eat back your exercise calories at all, and didn't eat all of your goal, your calories not eaten would be Total Calories minus Goal Calories.

On the week view version, you have an option near the top to select Total or Net. Either one of those shows you Calories Under Weekly Goal, Daily Average Calories, and Goal. When you've selected Net near the top, the Calories Under Weekly Goal and Daily Average Calories are the after-exercise net. When you've selected Total near the top, the Calories Under Weekly Goal and Daily Average Calories are what you logged as eating, and the exercise isn't considered.

I hope that makes sense.

If there's a way to see this clearly in web MFP, I don't know what it is. The closest thing I can think of is the 7-day view in the Reports section, where you can select Net Calories or Calories to report on, and it will show a bar chart with a calorie number for each day, and there's a horizontal line showing where goal is.

As an aside:

If it's literally true that you actually burned 1000 extra calories in exercise, plus also ate 1000 calories less than your goal calories . . . that's not a good thing to do, at least not very often. Not sustainable, not healthy. I hope that was just an example number, not a real thing you did!

nytrifisoul · February 2023

I forgot to mention i use the Web version on my PC. I will take a look at this 7 day view you mention.
BTW, 1000 burn / 1000 negative calories was just an example. I counted all the calories i had remaining at it came out to around 7000 remaining, so that would be 500/500.
One thing im not sure about is i have my goal to lose 2 pounds a week, if i eat all my remaining every day i wont lose any weight correct? Or is the remaining already accounting for the 2 pounds i want to lose?

Lietchi · February 2023

Your goal is to have zero remaining, if you entered your desired weight loss rate in MFP. Your calorie goal includes the deficit required for the selected weight loss rate.

If your have 7000 calories remaining with a set weight loss rate of 2lbs per week, you are undereating in a major way!

AnnPT77 · February 2023

nytrifisoul wrote: »

I forgot to mention i use the Web version on my PC. I will take a look at this 7 day view you mention.
BTW, 1000 burn / 1000 negative calories was just an example. I counted all the calories i had remaining at it came out to around 7000 remaining, so that would be 500/500.
One thing im not sure about is i have my goal to lose 2 pounds a week, if i eat all my remaining every day i wont lose any weight correct? Or is the remaining already accounting for the 2 pounds i want to lose?

Lietchi is correct. If:
* you told MFP you want to lose 2 pounds a week,
* you're using a goal MFP estimated for you, and
* you set your activity level as MFP suggests (based on pre-exercise activity),

. . . then you're supposed to eat back a reasonable estimate of your exercise calories on top of the base calorie goal. That will keep the same loss rate.

Think about it: Let's pretend your calories to maintain your weight (before adding exercise) are 2500 per day. You tell MFP you want to lose 2 pounds a week. It subtracts 1000 calories daily in order to create that weight loss for you. It would give you a 1500 calorie daily goal. If one day you do 500 calories of exercise, that means your calories to maintain weight that day would be 3000 (your basic 2500 + 500 more for the exercise activity). Therefore, you log the exercise, making your goal that day 2000 (3000-1000), which is still 1000 below your calories burned, so you'd still expect to lose 2 pounds a week.

Three caveats:

1. If you don't weight at least 200 pounds, 2 pounds a week is very likely too aggressive a weight loss rate, IMO. Depending on how tall you are and some other stuff, it could be too aggressive even if you do weigh over 200 pounds.
2. If you tell MFP you want to lose more per week than is sensible for you, it may not give you a goal that would actually lead to two pounds a week of loss. MFP won't give a goal that is less than 1500 calories daily for men or 1200 calories daily for women. By doing that, it is trying to protect people's health.
3. All of these things are just estimates. The most reasonable course is to tell MFP you want to lose at some sensibly moderate rate for your current circumstances, then log carefully and follow that recommended calorie level for 4-6 weeks (on average, but ideally fairly close each day). After that, you can use your actual body weight results to adjust your calorie goal if it turns out you're a little different from the average estimate MFP gives you at the start. (Adult women not yet in menopause should compare bodyweight at the same relative point in at least two different menstrual cycles to assess calorie needs, because hormonal water retention can be distorting.)

Best wishes!

nytrifisoul · February 2023

Thanks both of you. I just checked my settings and yes i have it set to two pounds a week with desk job. So i have it set to exercise atleast 60 minutes a day 7 days a week, which is not hard just boring. I guess i lost 4 pounds last week. I fast all day so its pretty easy to eat under 1500 calories, especially since i cut out beer to just once on the weekend. But i should probably take your advice and eat most of the remaining calories back, or just exercise less ( although exercise is my main goal rather then weight loss)

AnnPT77 · February 2023

nytrifisoul wrote: »

Thanks both of you. I just checked my settings and yes i have it set to two pounds a week with desk job. So i have it set to exercise atleast 60 minutes a day 7 days a week, which is not hard just boring. I guess i lost 4 pounds last week. I fast all day so its pretty easy to eat under 1500 calories, especially since i cut out beer to just once on the weekend. But i should probably take your advice and eat most of the remaining calories back, or just exercise less ( although exercise is my main goal rather then weight loss)

Keep in mind that your exercise performance and fitness improvement will be short changed if you lose weight fast. If you continue losing at 4 pounds a week, that is too fast for virtually anyone who is not under close medical supervision.

Fitness improvement relies on good nutrition and adequate calories. If your main goal is exercise, don't exercise less, eat more. If fasting limits your ability to eat enough, consider increasing your eating window.

I've only read a little about impact of fasting on exercise performance, but what I've seen has had mixed outcomes, generally neutral to only slightly negative for performance, with some differences depending on type of exercise, type of fasting, duration of fasting.

However, that's fasting per se. If fasting limits the ability to get minimally adequate calorie intake, and that leads to sub-ideal nutrition, that's a thing that tends to have a negative impact on performance, regardless of timing of eating.

Lietchi · February 2023

nytrifisoul wrote: »

Thanks both of you. I just checked my settings and yes i have it set to two pounds a week with desk job. So i have it set to exercise atleast 60 minutes a day 7 days a week, which is not hard just boring. I guess i lost 4 pounds last week. I fast all day so its pretty easy to eat under 1500 calories, especially since i cut out beer to just once on the weekend. But i should probably take your advice and eat most of the remaining calories back, or just exercise less (although exercise is my main goal rather then weight loss)

Also keep in mind that the exercise goal in your goal setup has zero influence on your calorie goal. You need to log your exercise to your diary when you do it, which will increase your calorie goal (to stay at the selected weight loss rate).

If you were set at sedentary and a 2lb loss per week AND not logging your exercise (7hrs a week at least) AND leaving 7000 calories remaining per week, that's most likely undereating severely, depending on your stats. Losing 0.5-1% of your bodyweight per week is the recommended rate - a 1lb loss per week is a deficit of around 3500 calories per week.

PS: I would suggest that if you find your exercise to be boring, find something you find more fun? There are so many options out there, and new habits are a lot easier to build when you get some enjoyment out of it. I find strength training boring, so do it semi regularly for the benefits, but the majority of my exercise is running which I do enjoy and keeps my stress levels lower.

How do you log uneaten calories?

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