Net calories?

I think the general idea is that the more you exercise, the more you burn so the more you can eat.

However I see little point in doing all that hard work then stuffing your face!

Listen to your body - you will undoubtedly eat more if you are doing exercise, but if you are not hungry and you have got the nutrition you need, then stick with it.

Your calorie goal is supposed to be your net goal. If you have it set to 1550 then you should be netting 1550.

Think of it this way if your calorie goal is 1550 calories for the day (which is low) and you burn 1000 calories from working out
(1550 - 1000= 550 net) this means your body has only 550 calorie for the day to live off of. Your body is going to say WTF and slow it's metabolism down, store it's fat instead of expell it and energy levels are going to go down. Your not going to see much progress if your starving your body. You need to eat your exercise calories, if you know how much your burning then you need to eat the calories back, especially with your extremely low daily calorie goal.....you really need to raise that. Another important factor is to drink plenty of water, you should be drinking a minimum 8 cups (take your weight and divide by two, that's how many ounces you should drink in a day). The importance of water, besides the fact that it flushes out toxins, is that it speeds your metabolism, speeds your fat loss and feeds your muscles (muscles are 70% water and if they don't get enough they SHRINK). Hope this info. helps, good luck.

Depending on your daily physical activity here is round about what your body is burning on a daily basis.

Example 1: Moderate Exercise 5x a week
For fat loss- need to eat 2387 calories a day
For Extreme fat loss- need to eat 1790 calories a day

Example 2: Exercising moderately everyday
For fat loss- need to eat 2673 a calories a day
For Extreme fat loss- need to eat 2004 calories a day

I know it seems like a lot for you, but your a man......men needs more calories than woman....you need to eat more, just clean options....not cheeseburgers (:

Try going to freedieting.com and using the calculator on there, and as you lose weight these figures will change. Why don't you try this for a month and see what happens, cause right now your eating like a girl (: Your eating the amount of calories that I should be eating and I'm 124lbs.

I know it seems like a lot for you, but your a man......men needs more calories than woman....you need to eat more, just clean options....not cheeseburgers (:

Try going to freedieting.com and using the calculator on there, and as you lose weight these figures will change. Why don't you try this for a month and see what happens, cause right now your eating like a girl (: Your eating the amount of calories that I should be eating and I'm 124lbs.

THIS girl eats like 2400 calories a day on the days she works out, and she STILL loses ~1lb a week. If you pick healthy foods, it is hard to eat enough, but gosh darn it, I LOVE to eat...So I make sure I have lots of healthy choices available for snacking on. On days when I know that I am going to be really active, I will supplement my diet with Atkins or Metrx bars 1-2 times a day ( they are like 200-300 calories each, and low carb)

I think the first comment was right, you should eat when you are hungry and listen to your body. If you struggle to eat enough you can get things like Luna bars which have ~200 cals in them. try eating little and often to keep your metabolism fast

Think of it this way if your calorie goal is 1550 calories for the day (which is low) and you burn 1000 calories from working out
(1550 - 1000= 550 net) this means your body has only 550 calorie for the day to live off of. Your body is going to say WTF and slow it's metabolism down, store it's fat instead of expell it and energy levels are going to go down. Your not going to see much progress if your starving your body. You need to eat your exercise calories, if you know how much your burning then you need to eat the calories back, especially with your extremely low daily calorie goal.....you really need to raise that. Another important factor is to drink plenty of water, you should be drinking a minimum 8 cups (take your weight and divide by two, that's how many ounces you should drink in a day). The importance of water, besides the fact that it flushes out toxins, is that it speeds your metabolism, speeds your fat loss and feeds your muscles (muscles are 70% water and if they don't get enough they SHRINK). Hope this info. helps, good luck.

Thanks! This is perfectly explained!

Think of it this way if your calorie goal is 1550 calories for the day (which is low) and you burn 1000 calories from working out
(1550 - 1000= 550 net) this means your body has only 550 calorie for the day to live off of. Your body is going to say WTF and slow it's metabolism down, store it's fat instead of expell it and energy levels are going to go down. Your not going to see much progress if your starving your body. You need to eat your exercise calories, if you know how much your burning then you need to eat the calories back, especially with your extremely low daily calorie goal.....you really need to raise that. Another important factor is to drink plenty of water, you should be drinking a minimum 8 cups (take your weight and divide by two, that's how many ounces you should drink in a day). The importance of water, besides the fact that it flushes out toxins, is that it speeds your metabolism, speeds your fat loss and feeds your muscles (muscles are 70% water and if they don't get enough they SHRINK). Hope this info. helps, good luck.

Thanks! This is perfectly explained!

hi hope you do not mind me asking but i have done over 1000 cal burn today so going by what your saying i should eat an extra 1000 cals in a day to cover the burn off ! just checking understand you right ,always take on board any advice people pass on ,it just is the opposite to what i have already been told therefore i am now confused !
thanks pedraz

To put it simply, if you let MFP calculate your recommended calorie intake for you then eat your exercise calories back.

A daft question what is a TDEE?

I have lost 19 pounds eating my exercise calories back. This is what works for me. If I worked out as hard as I do and only ate 1200 I would pass out. Thank God this works for me because I get to eat 1600-1800 a day depending on my work out.

Depending on what I'm doing, I eat back some of my calories. Rarely have I ever eaten them all. I would pass out from exhaustion if I only at the minimum calorie amount even on days I worked out hard!

Not to sound bad but supplement with 400-600 bars? If you are vastly over weight how do you burn that much training? Seriously?

I run constantly for 40-50min to burn that and that is at a pace of about 5:47min a km! I mean I might be able to do that in 30m, but I mean if I am going that time I do min 60m and usually do a min of 10-12km per hour....

Not being rude I hope...

Anyway to put it into perspective, I don't care about the net, I mean I DO but not like a free eat a buffet!

I set my goal as 1330 and I rarely in net ever meet it, yet I have lost great... I feel good too... If you asked me to run a marathon tomorrow, I would do it... Just wouldn't be happy at my time as I want to get a 4hr 30m time or under in September....

You know what? Don't worry about your net, the old adage that has worked throughout ALL medical "breakthroughs" ALL diet fads is simple... Eat less than before, train more than before... Doesn't mean eat nothing, and doesn't mean train like a crazy person straight away... A pound a week? I dropped that from yesterday to today... and before you say water weight... How about I dropped I think 6/7 pounds last week too... WITHOUT training... though I admit I was stressed out because of work.... but still... And hey, I continue to lose, where is this magic I WILL pick up because I ate little last week, so now I increase etc I pick up... Nope... still losing strong...

Point is, do it your way, do it how you feel comfortable what might work for one person might not hold true for you.

I can happily run myself into negative calories or cycle into negative calories yet my food intake can be on that day in excess of 3-4k calories.... Should I eat more? Why? I am fine, my body is fine and the proof is my competition stats keep improving, so why change what works?

There is no magic formula... No eat this but eat more if you train formula, I mean first off, your training to lose weight, you are not going to build muscle while in a deficit anyway no matter WHAT people say you need an excess of calories to build, look at bodybuilders for instance, they bulk up in both muscle and fat, then cut down to get rid of excess fat.... If you could build while in a deficit, why wouldn't they stay at their competition weights or close to them all the time then? It would save hassle of cutting down and the inevitable muscle loss, and they would look good all year round... Because they know you can't build while in a deficit unlike what I read from people on HERE.

General consensus in fitness industry... Lose weight first, then tone and build... will be MUCH easier and quicker...

MFP pal Anewlucia started the group EAT MORE TO WEIGH LESS ....I copied and pasted this information below from one of her threads that may helpful.

You can get your bmr and tdee number from here :http://www.scoobyworkshop.com/calculators

What is BMR? Your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is the minimum calorific requirement needed to sustain life in a resting individual. It can be looked at as being the amount of energy (measured in calories) expended by the body to remain in bed all day!

What is TDEE? TDEE is the common abbreviation for Total Daily Energy Expenditure which is a metric to calculate the amount of calories your body needs to function in a day. This is quite similar to BMR; in fact, you need your BMR to calculate your TDEE; but your TDEE accounts for your average daily activity as well to give a figure truer to your specific situation. Basically, the TDEE calculation relies on categorizing your daily activity into one of the metrics' predetermined groupings:

Sedentary - desk job and little to no exercise Lightly Active - light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk Moderately Active - moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk (****SIDE NOTE - even if you have a desk job most people fit right here when you workout 3-5 days a week) Very Active - hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk Extremely Active - hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or training Once you have determined where you fit in on the TDEE activity rate scale, this activity rate is used to weight your BMR giving you a more accurate assessment of how many calories you really need throughout the course of the day.

Here is a link to a site that you plug in your information and it will provide your BMR and TDEE along with your Cut value (again, if you workout 3-5 times a week select "Moderate" and the "Select Your Goal" option you will select is "Lose Fat - 15% caloric reduction.



So now, you should have your BMR, TDEE, and Cut Value (TDEE - 15%)

Here is a video that talks about this in great detail that hopefully will clear up any questions you may have: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYi9xjIRvbY&feature=g-all-u

If TDEE is figured out correctly, then exercise cals don't *have* to be eaten back because, technically, TDEE figures them in. The underlying factor here, is that most people underestimate their activity levels, (for fear of being told to eat "too much") and then proceed to under eat. If a person is burning 1000 cals/day in exercise, then that should be figured into their TDEE, meaning their TDEE should be AT LEAST 1000 cals more than their BMR. If this is not the case then they are undercutting themselves on the cals. So a person w/a BMR of 1300, that puts up 1000 cal burns should have come up w/a TDEE calculation of 2400 or more. So any situation where a person is not getting those calculations, they should be eating back some of those exercise cals.

So if you come up w/BMR=1300, TDEE=1800, you need to either A)eat back some cals, or recalculate your TDEE to include the *actual* burns that you're getting.

So to cut using *true* TDEE figures, you'd just eat a flat TDEE (-15%), as long as TDEE is correct. It should be fine. But if you are using MFP's calculations, or are not getting a TDEE that includes the amount you burn each day *plus* BMR, you need to eat back some exercise cals.

ok well going into my stats ,mfp is telling me that today because of my calorie burn i should eat 3.317 cals today ,& is telling me i am under by 1.900 !! i think its all down to how you feel if your getting tired & feeling bad then a good indicator that you need more ,i feel fine & i am eating good things throughout the day & my levels of energy are good ,i know that it is 100% not possible for me to eat over 3000 cals in a day ,so i guess mfp directs you but at the end of the day you have to go with what you feel like in yourself ,i am a great believer that the body tells us what we need ,its just the art of listening to it .

If are bodies actually told is when things were not working then my uncle would have discover his cancer before stage III. The majority of the time your body doesnt respond until its too late. The questuon comes down to, what are you doing to burn so many calories? Is MFP estinsting calories burnt? If so you should aim to eat 50-75% of them. Or you include exercise in your daily activity. So instead of sedentary, make it moderately active and not worry about exercise calories.


Im sorry to hear about your uncle & understand my words may have confused or upset you .
i mentioned that our bodies tell us what we need ie ,water ,sugar ,carbs etc , i don't think for one min it tells us when there is a medical problem just that we get symptoms of tiredness ,aching ,feeling dizzy etc which can be a pointer to maybe we need to digest some of what it is requesting ,.
I live in the mountains & when i ride or walk its mostly hills i am doing not just flat & when i work out i try to fit in a good amount of time & yes i log it & yes mfp tells me i should eat more ,its my opinion that eating 3000 cals is not good for me per day ,i am marked as mod active not sedentary , i want to lose not maintain & i feel fine with what i am doing so in my opinion ,not speaking for anyone else or from factual studies or to push my opinion on others etc ,i personally choose to go with how my body feels & what i think it needs .