How do you know the difference between total and net calories ?

Answers

  • Dan__Cote
    Dan__Cote Posts: 47 Member

    Net calories account for the calories that you have burned for the day + the calorie goal you set on the app.

    If, by the end of the day, you have eaten 2000 calories, and burned 500 calories, your Net calories will be 1500.

  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,496 Member

    You don't know how many calories you've burned. You can figure fairly closely how many you've consumed if you are diligent with proper counting and tracking.

    Calories burned are BMR, NEAT and exercise calories so shot in the dark to try to figure.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 36,645 Member

    I'm not sure what question you're asking.

    In MFP, total calories are either the number of calories you've eaten, or the number of calories you have available to eat - which one of those it is depends on where/how you're looking at it.

    In MFP, net calories eaten are the number of calories you've eaten minus the exercise calories you've logged.

    Example: Here are parts of screen grabs from yesterday.

    From the calories display at the top of my diary:

    Screenshot_20250606_194947_MyFitnessPal.jpg

    From the Calories tab in the phone/tablet app's Nutrition page, daily view:

    Screenshot_20250606_194834_MyFitnessPal.jpg

    My base calorie goal is 1850.
    I logged 403 calories of exercise.
    My total calories available to eat were 1850 + 403 = 2253 (this number isn't explicitly shown above).
    My total calories eaten - the foods I logged - were 2239.
    I had 14 calories remaining available to eat.
    My net calories eaten were 2239 - 403 = 1836.

    The net calories eaten let me compare where I am for the day in terms of my base calorie goal. I had a base calorie goal of 1850, and didn't eat 14 of my available calories: Effectively, that's the same as if I'd eaten 1836 calories on a day when I'd done no exercise.

    Obviously, that assumes all the logging and such is exactly accurate, when it's really just workably close in practice. But that example illustrates how MFP is using the total calories and net calories ideas.

    I hope that helps.

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