Help with Net Calories Please...

I feel like a total idiot even asking this question, but, what is the deal with the net calories. When I log exercise, the green calorie allowance gets larger... I'm not supposed to eat those extra calories added to that, right? Also, second question: Is it good to end your day with green allowance calories? 

You have calories consumed which is what you ate..

you have calories burned.. Part of which is your "burn meter" which is how much your body burns on a typical day based on your weight, height, sex, and activity level you entered..  The other part of calories burned is any activity you logged seperately.. For instance, on the average day for my current weight my burn meter is 2100 calories... But I also jogged today, which was 293 calories.. so I burned 2393...

I ate like 1500 calories..

NET calories is amount you ate minus the amount your burned...  For me today, it is 1500 minues 2393.. So my net calories is -893.  Good thing.

If you ate 3300 calories, but burned 2300, your net calories would be +1000...meaning you ate 1000 more than your burned.. bad thing.

So, when I click on "Net Calories and it is negative, say 1200, that is a good thing. But really the only question I need answered now is what does it mean when I have green calories left over at the end of my day that amount to over 1300 my recommended amount to consume per day...?

No, 1200 cal deficit isn't a good thing (maybe if you are obese but even then 1000 is more recommended). Also, when you did your target calculator did you have sedentary or light? or an aggressive target date? Cause that may be why you have such a small deficit. Most people should not have above 1000 deficit and better is 500-800 (less is fine too just is usually for the last few lbs or long term target date).

If I use the cal (leave date blank but recommends by Jul 6, 2012) I get 

Sedentary 1,229 (no exercise) 

Light 1482

Moderate 1734

Very Active 1986

On exercise days you can use the recommendation instead of the little to no activity recommendations. Let's say I eat 1482 4 days a week but on my workout days (3 times a week) eating 1734, this should keep my deficit in a good range and give me enough daily calories.

By green cals left over do you mean 'calories remaining'? or 'net calories' (cal deficit)? Cause it is just 2 different ways of using cc.

Original Post by Igor:

Let me take you through an example that will prove that the new method will not lead to a different weight loss rate than the old method - assuming your calorie target is set correctly.

Sample user: You ate 1800 calories, your daily burn rate (ie: activity level = sedentary, gender = male, weight = 180lbs, height = 6'0") is 2000 calories, and you also logged an additional 300 calories for your early morning run. Your calorie target is set to 1500 calories.

Old system: (2000+300) - 1800 = 500 net calories.
New system: (1800-300) - 1500 = 0 remaining calories.

So is 500 net calories equal to 0 remaining calories? It is. The way we calculated your calorie target when you first set up your account is by assuming that you want to lose one pound per week. This would require you to burn 3500 calories per week, which is the equivalent of a 500 net calories daily deficit.

There are many other issues that have been brought up and I will address them all, but we have to start somewhere so let's first focus on the dashboard page. Once we (hopefully) agree that the new dashboard page will be guiding you to lose weight at the same rate as the old page, we can then move on to the next issue (ie: the analysis page). So please, let's just focus on the numbers above for now - thanks!

Hope this helps/is what you are looking for :)

Don't stress. If you're trying to lose weight, you are doing fine as long as the net calories are negative. I try to keep a 500 - 800 calorie deficit every day, which means that, yes, I do eat more on days when I do a lot of exercise. Some days I only have a deficit of 100 or 200. 

Again, depending how you have your dashboard set up, it might show "allowance" calories rather than negative net calories. But don't eat all your calories if you're trying to lose weight. Eat less than you burn and you're all good.

What I mean by green calories is calories remaining. Sometimes I end my day with more calories remaining then when I started. My allowance is 1300 and sometimes I end the day with lots of calories left over...for example 1380... even though I logged 1200 calories in food. Its misleading. 

You should be eating some of those back at least (that does seem very high), especially if it means you 1000+ cal deficit too. I have cals remaining (275 today and with net cal -456), but I never look or care about cals remaining  ;cause I am deficit/cal intake focused.

So if you have the healthy cal range intake, I mentioned above, remaining cals shouldn't matter really, unless you set up your account for remaining cals to zero out, as Igor explains how remaining cals work (IMO I prefer my way and to ignore cals remaining but some people like it).

I will just ignore the calories remaining then. I seem to make it through my day with roughly 1300 calories food allowance anyway. So, I will always have calories remaining...unless I totally fall off the wagon or something...:)