Confused About Net Calories etc...

I'm new to the site and I am sooooo confused about the whole net calories thing. I have been pouring over posts in older forums regarding this, but I still can't get it. Anyway, before joining the site I was greatly underestimating my caloric intake. Most days I eat less than 1,000 calories per day, when I thought I was eating well above that. I was hungry all the time, so I was always popping things into my mouth. But when I started logging my food here I saw that while I would have a big salad with nothing but spring leaves and fat free salad dressing for lunch, I would be full but it was only 60 calories! I have been a runner for about three years now, but I am coming off of a hiatus. I am currently training for a 5k, so right now my training schedule ups my mileage the closer it gets to my race (for instance this week I'm only running 15 miles, but the week of the 4th of July I'm scheduled for 19 miles). I also do a spinning class once or twice per week, and a bar class with free weights and barbells, as well as work on some of the machines once or twice per week at the gym. My boyfriend is a former athlete, and he told me that I have kicked my body into athletic mode so I need to consume more calories, and that is why I am not losing weight. I've actually gained weight since I've started working out again. BUT...I burn more calories than I'm taking in so PLEASE someone tell me what the problem is! For example, yesterday it said that my caloric intake was 1217, my caloric output was 2699, and my net calories was -1482. And I received a grade of A for the day, but I'm supposed to be consuming 1700 calories according to this thing. I have NO idea what all this means. HELP PLEASE!

What you're after is a calorie deficit, i.e. you want to eat fewer than you burn.  If you burn 2700 and eat 1200 that's a calorie deficit of 1500 and probably way too large for you.  That's 3lbs per week for a loss rate, and appropriate only for somebody 300lbs or heavier (max loss rate guideline is 1% body weight per week).  With your age, gender, weight and height we can help you figure out what's a good deficit to aim for.

Eating too little will not kick you into "athletic mode", whatever that may be.  What it will do is make your body lower it's metabolism in an attempt to survive longer on less food.  Then when you start eating more it will happily keep the lower metabolism and stashes the extra energy away as fat.

But your boyfriend is right is that you need to eat more calories - how many more will depend on your stats - so that your metabolism recovers.  The sure-fire way is to eat your maintenance calorie level for a while (i.e. eat as many calories as you burn).  But if that's too scary to contemplate then eating at a reasonable deficit as opposed to your currently unreasonable one may do the trick.

Thanks for replying! I am a 25 year old female, my weight fluctuates between 145 and 150, and I am 5'4.25" or just 5'5". And how do I know how many calories my body is burning to find out what my maintenance calorie level is? And what he meant by athletic is that I'm "more active than a sedentary person so my body needs more food to fuel itself." --whatever that means. And on nutrition labels and such it always says, "based on a 2,000 calorie a day diet" WHO eats that much??

Original Post by natalielavelle:

 And how do I know how many calories my body is burning to find out what my maintenance calorie level is?

Use the tools on this site (Burn Meter) or go to www.phord.com/cc, since some people have an easier time understanding those activity levels.

2000 calories is a lot?  I eat around 2500 to 2700 a day, but then I'm very active.  Your boyfriend is absolutely right that a more active person needs more fuel than a less active one, and the more lean muscle mass you have the higher your metabolism will be (fat tissue and organ tissue burns fewer calories than muscle tissue does) and thus the more fuel needed there as well.

To get an estimate of what you burn every day (your maintenance calorie level), plug yourself into a site like phord.  Picking "sedentary" as an activity level as a starting point, it says you as a 25yo female at 145lbs and 5'5" burn around 1690 calories per day.

Now that's if you're sedentary.  You'd need to add your exercise calories burned on top of that.  If you don't know what that number is you can pick one of the activity levels above sedentary, whichever one seems closest to you.

Phord will also tell you the minimum number of calories you can safely eat to say within the various safety guidelines it uses.  If you're sedentary it says to eat no fewer than around 1400, for example, that's so you're not eating below your BMR (number of calories it takes your basic bodily systems to function, even in a coma).  If you tell it you're "moderately active" then I see it bumps your minimum up to 1450 so your calorie deficit doesn't violate the other guideline of trying to lose no more than 1% of your weight per week.

Ok. I went to that website and it told me to eat around 400 calories less than what the burn meter on this site says. But I did give my body fat percentage so I'm assuming that is more accurate. And 2,000 calories is a lot to me b/c like I said before I thought that I was eating WAY more than I actually was until I started logging it on the site. I thought I was eating like 2300 calories a day and I thought that was the reason why I wasn't losing weight, but when I logged it I noticed that there were days where I had only eaten 700 calories, and I ran 5 miles. I realized that I was the opposite. You see all the time on diet sites that say people should pay attention to their calories because often time your probably over eating, meanwhile I have been working out like crazy and not getting enough calories! Now, I have to figure out a way to incorporate more calories into my day. Anyway, on the phord site, what is the difference between burn calories and maximum fat calories expenditure? Also, should I aim at keeping my net calories at 750 (since that's my safety deficit) and eating 1400 calories.

Original Post by natalielavelle:

Ok. I went to that website and it told me to eat around 400 calories less than what the burn meter on this site says.

The burn meter tells you how much you burn, not how much to eat. To lose a pound a week, you have to eat 500 calories less than you burn (so 400 calories less would be just under a pound a week)

Honestly, when it comes to phord's calculator, I think you should keep it simple - don't include your body fat percentage (especially if you got it from a scale) and ignore the "max fat calorie expenditure" and "safety deficit".

If you don't mind sharing your stats, it can help (or you can even link to the page you got when you entered your stats into phord), and people will have a better idea of what you are looking at.

This is what they came up with based off of the information I gave to them http://www.phord.com/cc/?m=US&a=1--1-1-1- 1-&q=f-25-165.1-68.18-1.55-81.28-106.68-2 9. I am quite confused.

Original Post by natalielavelle:

This is what they came up with based off of the information I gave to them http://www.phord.com/cc/?m=US&a=1--1-1-1- 1-&q=f-25-165.1-68.18-1.55-81.28-106.68-2 9. I am quite confused.

It seems pretty straightforward to me.  It says you burn 2119 in a day with your activity level as "moderate", and that you can safely eat as few as 1369 calories, and that doing so you can expect to lose around 1.5lbs per week.

I'd seconds AG's advice to skip the body fat %, few such ways of measuring that are accurate enough to bother with.  That changes your numbers to 2215 and 1465.  What I'd suggest doing is eating 1500 to 1700 and see where that gets you after a few weeks.  If you've been eating too little for a while you need the extra calories to get your metabolism ticking over properly again.

^Seconded.

Thanks SOOOO much guys! That definitely clears things up!

natalie, I just want to mention that I follow some of the forums and often see posts by both amethystgirl and jp.  When I'm confused and there are a lot of replies, I tend to gravitate towards ag's and jp's posts because they always (seriously, always) seem the most rational and logical answers.  I have no idea who these people are, but if you're new to the site and are feeling lost, I think the advice that these 2 give is probably some of the best you'll see here.

Good luck.

Now I'm gonna blush. :)