calorie in vs calorie out

[ronirae]

Help!  After a month I am still trying to figure out this Calorie In vs. Calorie Out can someone help me in plain first grade level?

I will give you an example and it may be my bad week because I can't find the week before where the weekly update was a negative number.

This week it shows:  Calories burned 17886; Calories eaten 13972; Plan Deficit -5250 and the numbers in Bold black show +1336

Now in previous weeks the the numbers were different but all showed that the numbers burned and eaten were similar (higher then the other) with the plan deficit but the Bold black number showed a - (neg) #.

What does this mean????  Is the Bold Black Number Positive a good sign or bad?  Is the Bold Black Number Negative a good sign or bad??

I have been religiously working out more often, eating the amount of calories as the Fitbit indicates (and if I go over its within 50 calories and yes I have gone under some days too).  I have been losing about a pound a week; and I have been reaching goals but I just can't figure out the Cal In and Cal Out....

HELP.

[Rothrock42 · Accepted solution]

I'm not sure where you are seeing all this, but here is how the math seems to work out.

You want to lose 1 1/2 pounds per week, right? That would be the "You need to eat -5250 calories less than you burn in a week."

In the week you've given you burned more than you've eaten, which is good. But your deficit is -3914 (which isn't shown). No I'm not sure why somethings go negative or positive here, butt 1336 is the different between what your plan was and what you actually accomplished. You missed the goal by 1336 calories. Zero would be you it it and a negative value would mean you exceeded it.

According to this number of -3914 you should probably expect to have lost an actual pound this week.

[gerrymcd · Accepted solution]

According to your numbers you should indeed have lost about a pound, since you burned 3,914 calories more than you consumed (13,972 cals eaten  - 17,886 burned  = -3914 ie a deficit)

Your was aim to loose 1 1/2 lbs, which means the number on the right hand side of the equals sign above should have beens - 5,250.  You missed your goal by 1,336 (5,250 (goal deficit) - 3914 (actual deficit) = 1,336).    To have made the 1 1/2 lb weight loss goal you would have needed to either do an additional 190 calories worth of exercise every day, or eaten 190 calories less, or some combination of the two to add up to 190 cals a day.

Hope that makes sense...... the problem with the calculation is dealing with negative numbers, and knowning when two negatives = a positive.  

That said....... a pound is a pound, and loss is loss.   Don't worry too much about the fine numbers..... you are going in the right direction!!! 

[StefK]

You have burned 17886 calories and you have eaten 13972. You should have eaten 17886 minus your deficit of 5250 which is 12636, but you ate 13972 which is a plus of 1336. In other words you over-ate by 1336 calories. So a plus sign in front of the bold number means you did not as good as you should have.
Stef.

[Naomi94]

I went to your profile, the foods you logged are private. 

Instead of relying on Fitbit to telld you whether you had a calorie surplus or deficit every week, rely upon yourself and keep track of it daily.

This is what I suggest you do. First: make the foods you eat public. I know, it is scary. We want to keep the foods we eat private from other people. If you know others, like myself, can see exactly what you eat you will be more mindful of it as well. That is why my foods are all public. I know people are watching, as such, I am more mindful  of my calories. 

Second, determine your BMR. How many calories must you eat every day to stay exactly the same weight you are? Mind is 1365 calories every day. There are many online tools for determining your BMR.

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

If you need help, just look at my profile and the foods I eat. Try the same diet for yourself. 1/3 fat, 1/3 carbs, 1/3 protein. Eat at least 5 times a day, and consume at least 2 cups of water with your meals and snacks.

Regarding your calories, just focus on your daily calorie in v. calorie out. Be honest when logging your foods. 

Good Luck

[Onoiam50]

As I Haven't been losing weight as much as I had hoped I decide to look much closer at the food intake. I found that the calorie tracker is a pain for me as in Australia everything is kilojoules. I quickly got fed up of converting kj to calories . I did find that my fruit smoothies had a lot more calories in them than I thought. Today I have downloaded my fitness pal which has kilojoules and lot of foods available locally. This will be much easier for me to use.

[lorilouliz]

I found this explanation to be VERY UNclear. please re-state

[ddr_74]

I'll try this thread... maybe I won't get chewed out for screwing up my body. 🙂

Hi!

I've been religious in getting my steps in daily, and sometimes, largely exceed 10K. I find it easy in my line of work, and every other day I do a workout involving climbing a set of 270 stairs, with a short, 5 minute walk in between sets. I'm up to doing this four times a session. I also do some resistance, crunches, push-ups, etc.

I am always under my calories eaten, always burning more than I eat. I dropped 7 lbs in two weeks, and now my body won't let go of the remaining 6, at that point, I just want to maintain it.

I get that burning more than you eat is the key (and that some calories are good and some are bad, depending on the foods you are eating.) I adjusted my goal from losing 2 lbs a week to losing 1 lb a week so that my deficit is now at -500. I understand that my body may need to adjust to this new goal. I'd like to shed these last few lbs by the beginning of July.

At my current weight, my BMR is 1309. I understand that this is the number of calories I need to consume to maintain my current weight. I log EVERYTHING on MFP.

However, my body is now being stubborn, and has adjusted to the new amount of calories, in addition with the extra exercise, and may need to readjust to this new goal (I was advised to adjust it to a lower goal on another thread, which I thought might be smart since I've lost the first 7 lbs pretty quickly).

What I want to know is what I need to do to convince my body to shed the last of it. And for the record, with the nicer weather in my area, I'm pretty consistent with exercising. 🙂 Please help a girl out? What am I missing or doing wrong?

Thanks!

[Heybales]

BMR is what your body would like to burn if you slept all day for all the low level life-sustaining functions it needs to do.

You are fed that to maintain weight in a coma.

If you wake up, you are burning more than BMR.

Might review your numbers and their meaning.

[ddr_74]

Maybe someone ELSE has some advice.

Something useful.

[Heybales]

Oh, that wasn't advice, that was fact about what the term means.

You just had the definition wrong, that's all.

Not uncommon at all, many people do that, they've never heard of BMR or TDEE or TEF or EAT, they look up one calculator and someone said what it means and that person was passing on wrong info.

But if you have a concept wrong (eat BMR to maintain weight), then any conclusions based on that premise are wrong too. That's just logic and fact also.

[ddr_74]

Heybale, you are more than welcome to your opinions, but I'm asking for help, and so far, you have offered me none. I'm not sure why you followed me to this post, you obviously don't think I'm intelligent enough to be here. So don't reply.

I know I've done something wrong, but telling me how much I have screwed up without offering any real insight as to how to fix it (and let's face it, you have offfered none) really isn't helpful, in fact, it's a sure way to make someone quit trying. I'm sure you're a pro at this, and you have the body of a Greek god (whatever!), but I want to lose a mere 6 lbs and I want to do it right. If you aren't going to offer me anything I can use, then please don't waste your time, or mine, by replying to me, just leave me alone.

On a side note, do I need to delete my entire account in order to remove myself from the forums? It doesn't look like I will be getting any help here.

[kgc]

Sometimes my weight loss plateaued for two weeks or more, then I would lose 5 or so pounds really quickly. Dunno how long it's been for you, but maybe just be patient for awhile. It could be a plateau. And eat more than your BMR count - it truly is just the amount your body needs to do it's basic functioning without activity added in. It sounds like you are pretty active and you'll need more than that!

[Heybales]

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@ddr_74 wrote:

Heybale, you are more than welcome to your opinions, but I'm asking for help, and so far, you have offered me none. I'm not sure why you followed me to this post, you obviously don't think I'm intelligent enough to be here. So don't reply.

I know I've done something wrong, but telling me how much I have screwed up without offering any real insight as to how to fix it (and let's face it, you have offfered none) really isn't helpful, in fact, it's a sure way to make someone quit trying. I'm sure you're a pro at this, and you have the body of a Greek god (whatever!), but I want to lose a mere 6 lbs and I want to do it right. If you aren't going to offer me anything I can use, then please don't waste your time, or mine, by replying to me, just leave me alone.

On a side note, do I need to delete my entire account in order to remove myself from the forums? It doesn't look like I will be getting any help here.

---

I'm sorry about the misunderstanding. For sure trying to help. And already have, but you may have missed it.

You were given very simple direct suggestion in the other thread, along with explanation of WHY it was a good suggestion (you know, feed a man a fish compared to teaching him to fish), that's why when I saw you pop up here asking for advice again, as if you didn't like what you'd already heard (not unusual), I was only going to point out mistake in what BMR was thought to be, but not give more advice I assumed you didn't like.

In case you missed my reply in that other thread where I was indeed giving a suggestion to help, here it was. And if you missed this, you may have missed more - might go back and read the whole post in case you missed some more very useful detail. Take emotion out of it, stress won't help do anything but retain water.

"If you want to succeeed without stressing your body having to fight it, and likely lose (not weight though) - set your goal to 250 cal deficit at this point - that's reasonable.

That will encourage just fat loss, unless you feel like less muscle would be useful for some reason.

Then log food eaten accurately - weigh it.

Meet your daily goal."

That was the suggestion.

If you want to heal up a screwed up metabolism, eat at maintenance (where you are right now obviously because you are maintaining weight), and sustain your weight for many weeks, and then start adding calories to your daily level, about 100 extra daily for a week at a time.

[Nerino]

I just got my fitbit charge today.  I went to the calculator for my BMR that you recommended and then did the Harris formula and came up with 2367.68 Calories/day to maintain my current weight.  I want to lose but my fitbit recommends so few calories and I exercise pretty hard 5 of 7 days/week.  I think something is wrong as it doesn't look like it considers my BMR but just calculates a deficit of calories in vs. out.  Is the BMR considered too? 

Thanks

[Heybales]

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@Nerino wrote:

I just got my fitbit charge today.  I went to the calculator for my BMR that you recommended and then did the Harris formula and came up with 2367.68 Calories/day to maintain my current weight.  I want to lose but my fitbit recommends so few calories and I exercise pretty hard 5 of 7 days/week.  I think something is wrong as it doesn't look like it considers my BMR but just calculates a deficit of calories in vs. out.  Is the BMR considered too? 

Thanks

---

Yes, total burn is included almost, including BMR. And yes it's just subtracting a deficit from what you burn.

What's left out is the calorie burn from digesting/processing food (about 10% of calories eaten).

Also left out is the fact that non-moving awake time burns more than sleeping, but it's given the same burn rate, as is standing with no steps.

If you did the Harris BMR formula - that is calories burned if you slept all day, estimated of course.

Or did you do the Harris TDEE table with 5 levels?

Then your probably picked the wrong level if Fitbit is different.

Then again, is that the goal in the morning, and it increases throughout the day?

And are the stats correct, and the readings correct for getting steps when you really do have steps, ect?

[msjeep]

I have been following this discussion group on My Fitness Pal.  http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/3817-eat-more-2-weigh-less.  Heybales has offered much help to people over there.  The group deals a lot with suppressed metablolism due to eating too few calories.  Take a look.  Good info.

[noreenk]

I do not understand may-be a little slower for me. I might stop looking at it. I need help understanding cal in vs out I do not have a handle on it. Even the simple explanation confused me. Help

[Heybales]

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@noreenk wrote:

I do not understand may-be a little slower for me. I might stop looking at it. I need help understanding cal in vs out I do not have a handle on it. Even the simple explanation confused me. Help

---

It is a comparison at the time you are looking at it of calories burned vs eaten, with your desired deficit for weight loss in there.

You look at 1 pm after eating and logging lunch

you have burned 1000 calories up to that point in time

you have eaten say 700 calories up to that point in time

you have a 500 cal daily deficit selected (or 250 at half-day)

1000 - 250 = 750

700 eaten vs 750 for that point in time. You have 50 more you could eat.

And that's why the comments above about ignoring it, removing the tile, not really useful for vast majority.

Because not until the end of day for most is that useful - rarely during the day are you going to match up, and it doesn't need to either.

[noreenk]

thank you this is real elementary but it works I understand now, so easy once I see it. Thanks again. -- Noreen