"Net Calories" Question...

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Mvanx009
Mvanx009 Posts: 5
in Health and Weight Loss
My calorie counter is always telling me I'm not eating enough. I feel like I'm eating too much. I have been burning about 850 calories a day with cardio ( so far, because I just got back into going to the gym. I plan to add more to that ) but the NET CALORIES thing still yells at me. I thought that in order to lose weight though, that I need to keep consistent with a 1200-1500 calorie diet. Any thoughts or help with this?

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  • lin7604
    lin7604 Posts: 3,019 Member
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    yes you are not suppose to be under 1200 calories net!
  • laura_fat2fit
    laura_fat2fit Posts: 82 Member
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    Interested in knowing what people say to this cause Im in the same predicament, I asked some people on another forum the other day because I was concerned it was telling me i was eating too few calories. They said that I should only eat 1200 and ignore the extra calories it tells me to eat that I gained from exercise.

    For today the goal is 1200, I've eaten 1119 calories (and thats it for me, nothing else today). Exercise is -385 and I still have more to add. my net is 734 which will probs go down again by another 300.

    Hope someone can clear this up for the both of us :/
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
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    I would really disagree with them.

    600-ish calories net is not enough to run your body on.

    You're also conditioning your body to expect famine -- which means that if you raise your calories at some point in the future, your body is gonna be like 'AHH FOOOD MUST STOOORE NOWWW' and pack it right back on again. Can you live the rest of your life on 600 calories?
  • juleseybaby
    juleseybaby Posts: 712 Member
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    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/23912-links-in-mfp-you-want-to-read-again-and-again
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    How are you calculating calories burned? If you are not using a HRM there is a good chance you are over estimating your burn anyway. That being said you should still be eating most of them back. MFP's initially calorie goals is to lose your goal amount of weight with no exercise, once you exercise your body requires more fuel.
  • lin7604
    lin7604 Posts: 3,019 Member
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    you need to eat min 1200 a day just for your body to function correctly. if you are on a 1200 cal diet then you NEED to eat back all your exercise calories till your net is 1200! if you have more then 1200, you can get away with not always eating all of them back. IMO i would not eat under your bmr eg) mfp set me for a 1 lbs a week loss to 1200 calories. I was loosing maybe .5 lbs a week MAX. my bmr said 1252. so i changed my setting to a .5 lb loss and it gave me 1310 calories a day to eat. so more calories and over my bmr. In the 2 weeks i have done this i already lost 1.5 lbs... more then i have ever lost before in that time frame. i thought people were crazy when they said you need to eat more to loose more but i see it now. i realized what my body just needed to function never mind work harder to loose weight.
  • laura_fat2fit
    laura_fat2fit Posts: 82 Member
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    I would really disagree with them.

    600-ish calories net is not enough to run your body on.

    You're also conditioning your body to expect famine -- which means that if you raise your calories at some point in the future, your body is gonna be like 'AHH FOOOD MUST STOOORE NOWWW' and pack it right back on again. Can you live the rest of your life on 600 calories?

    Thanks for clearing that up, i wont beleive the first person I ask in future. I've been loosing weight over the past year and lost just over 6 stone so far, only just started counting calories to actually see how much i was eating and got majorly confused.

    I have been eating the same thing since i've been loosing weight like the above stats, I haven't changed anything yet.

    Im worried now though, if I up my calories to get to a net of 1200 (which seems like quite a bit more food for me or less exercise) am I going to gain weight back? :S
  • nnapieralski
    nnapieralski Posts: 132 Member
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    If MFP is telling you to eat 1300 calories a day BEFORE exercise, then you really need to eat 1300 PLUS whatever calories you are burning.

    If you work off 250 calories today, then you really need to be eating 1550 calories. If you work off 400 calories, you need to be eating 1900 calories. The base figure that MFP gives you is for you to loose one pound a week (or whatever goal you set) WITHOUT exercise. Eating back your "exercise calories" is important and you don't want to eat less than 1200 calories a day. Eating less than that a day will lead to muscle breakdown and calorie storing.
  • scrstace03
    scrstace03 Posts: 1 Member
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    Great question, seems like it should work that way but it doesn't. In order to lose weight you MUST eat a minimum of 1200 calories per day BEFORE exercise. For example, I am meant to consume 1200 calories per day regardless of exercise. If I exercise, which I do, I need to add the amount burned to my minimum:

    EXAMPLE:
    1200 Calories BEFORE work-out
    I burn 600 calories doing 60 minutes of a P90X workout
    Therefore I am now allowed to eat a MAXIMUM of 1800 calories today

    If I want to LOSE weight, I should eat between 1200-1600 calories that day. Otherwise my body will go into starvation mode and stop losing weight or even begin to hold onto calories and GAIN weight. I tend to consume anywhere between 1200-1400 calories per day when I workout. If I do more than 600 calories in exercise I consume more as based on the additional workout. I hope this makes sense!
  • kitavery
    kitavery Posts: 16 Member
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    I asked a trainer at my gym about this and she said if you are semi active and/or working out consistanly to up your calories to 1300-1400 and DO NOT DO NOT eat your excersise calories. As a matter of fac,t she told me to just watch my calorie intake and not even log my workouts. That way I know I am eating enough by staying at 1300-1400 and not tempted to eat back my excersise. I am going to try this and see how it works. MFP put me at 1200 so i will up it to 1300 and try to not eat back my workouts.

    She told me you only eat back calories if you are trying to maintain...not lose.
  • SunShineBeastess
    SunShineBeastess Posts: 225 Member
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    I read a topic on here yesterday, I was in the same boat as you...net 400-600 calories...well I took the BIG step and ate more yesterday, exercised as normal 785 burned...and guess what...after no pounds lost in 2 months of consistent effort and eating right...I lost 3 pounds...so I will keep it up for a couple of weeks and see what the results are....what is 2 weeks of the rest of life.
  • froeschli
    froeschli Posts: 1,292 Member
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    Are you absolutely certain that you actually burn 850 a day in exercise?
    I read somewhere that people overestimate how much they exercise by up to 50%...
    just saying...
    I'd try to net above 1200, but sometimes I struggle with that. (If I weren't cutting back on sugar it'd be no problem at all)
  • LuckyLeprechaun
    LuckyLeprechaun Posts: 6,296 Member
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    EXAMPLE:
    1200 Calories BEFORE work-out
    I burn 600 calories doing 60 minutes of a P90X workout
    Therefore I am now allowed to eat a MAXIMUM of 1800 calories today

    If I want to LOSE weight, I should eat between 1200-1600 calories that day.

    NO. Eat the 1800 and you will STILL lose weight. There is no need to leave any calories "on the table" so to speak.

    You earned them, eat them.

    Check my ticker for proof.
  • mallory3411
    mallory3411 Posts: 839 Member
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    This site over estimates calories burned. I would enter less time than you've actually done to get a more accurate calories burned amount. Unless you wear a proper heart rate monitor and log those calories.

    Eat your exercise calories back. Make sure you NET your BMR.
  • susannamarie
    susannamarie Posts: 2,148 Member
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    I asked a trainer at my gym about this and she said if you are semi active and/or working out consistanly to up your calories to 1300-1400 and DO NOT DO NOT eat your excersise calories. As a matter of fac,t she told me to just watch my calorie intake and not even log my workouts. That way I know I am eating enough by staying at 1300-1400 and not tempted to eat back my excersise. I am going to try this and see how it works. MFP put me at 1200 so i will up it to 1300 and try to not eat back my workouts.

    She told me you only eat back calories if you are trying to maintain...not lose.

    That's a one-size-fits-all response.

    If your maintenance is, for example, 1800, and you burn 800 calories (I'm going to assume for right now that the calorie burn count is accurate), that means that to maintain you should eat 2600 calories. If you eat 1300 because you're not eating back any exercise calories, you're -1300 for the day. That's a huge deficit, probably too much. I don't like to go more than -1000.

    If you're only burning 300 with exercise, it's not a big deal. If you're seriously burning 800 (and that's quite an effort), it IS a big deal.
  • amoffatt
    amoffatt Posts: 674 Member
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    This site over estimates calories burned. I would enter less time than you've actually done to get a more accurate calories burned amount. Unless you wear a proper heart rate monitor and log those calories.

    Eat your exercise calories back. Make sure you NET your BMR.

    I have learned this one too and this is why I only go off my HRM. I have noticed as well that some exerciese I burn more than what MFP estimates according to my HRM
  • Mvanx009
    Mvanx009 Posts: 5
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    Are you absolutely certain that you actually burn 850 a day in exercise?
    I read somewhere that people overestimate how much they exercise by up to 50%...
    just saying...
    I'd try to net above 1200, but sometimes I struggle with that. (If I weren't cutting back on sugar it'd be no problem at all)



    Yes, I run a lot on the elliptical. I love to do cardio. The tracker on here is consistent with the machine ( give or take 20 calories ). I was focused (this time cause I've been with the site for a few years now) on being healthy. I changed my diet, I no longer eat meat. I have a pescatarian diet - seafood and veggies only. And the diet change alone has made me feel incredible. Meat puts horrible substances in your body that you don't realize and I choose to limit that with my diet. I started taking supplements and vitamins to help my overall health and now I want to see the weight come off. So my primary goal was getting healthy and didn't understand that in order to be healthy I needed to be eating those calories back that I burned up when I got on the treadmill. I fear that my body has already gone into a starvation mode cause I lost 8 lbs and now I'm stuck. (tracker doesn't show that cause I have an old weight logged in there as my start point ) If I increase, with healthy foods of course, my calories will that bring back my metabolism?

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