Journal de KimReed, 17 mars 14

No worries. Technically what we call a calories is a kcal. The calories burned are to your benefit. Unless you're buring a pile of calories, like working out for two hours ignore them. Diet like you're not working out. Extra calories burned. 

Hi Kim; it's really not that complicated. The idea is that at the end of the day, the difference between calories burned, and calories consumed, is how much of a calorie deficit is going to go toward your weight loss. Since it takes a 3500 calorie deficit to lose one pound, and you want to lose anywhere from one to one and a half pounds per week, then it is a simple calculation of eating 3500 to 5250 calories per week less than you expend through normal daily activities and exercising. 

Usually, if you selected your correct level of activity when you set up your RDI, then this is taken into account for you, and all you have to do is eat near your Recommended Daily Intake (RDI) to lose one to 1 1/2 pounds per week. We usually have to make some minor adjustements to this as we move through this journey. Have fun with it. It will make sense eventually.  

Thanks for this, I was wondering too but didn't think to ask. 

Yeh, it is kind of confusing. @NM and @DairyKing are exactly right. If you're still not getting it, maybe this will help. Think of it like a mini-economy. Calories (as @NM said: really k-Cals) are just energy, whether you are eating the energy, using it to do stuff, or saving it (fat). You can think of it like dollars, except in our case, saving them is bad (fat). Because we have saved too much, we're trying to spend off a bit, without saving any more. That's the deficit DairyKing mentioned. So, for us spending is heavily encouraged (exercise), and earning less is also encouraged (watching what you eat), so that we can get rid of our savings (fat stores). The higher the deficit, the faster your savings disappears. Of course, for weight loss, you don't want it to be too fast, so we try to keep an eye on that number to make sure we're in the sweet spot: losing at a good clip, but not so fast that we'd do some damage. The NET Kcal is what's left after you've eaten and exercised all day. You're hoping that number is a negative number. Usually, if all your settings are correct, and if FatSecret's own calculations are correct, you'll lose weight. Sometimes the settings need a little tweaking to get them right, but that's what you're aiming for. If they can, most people try and get that Net KCal number somewhere between -1000 and -500, to lose between one and two pounds a week, depending on where they are at on their journey, their comfort level, maybe even the advice of a physician. But you should find the number that works best for you. Or ignore it entirely, and keep doing what you've been doing. Hope that all helps. 

Nice explanation. I have been a bit confused too, and gave up on the netK. Ive only been counting for 2 months now.It seems to work for me to eat a daily average of about 80% ish of the RDI, and I have been still loosing. I was surprised to see that I lost (even after eating 4 scrumptious cupcakes and a torte last week(that was a rare splurge!) I see that it will change your RDI number too when you loose. 

Thank you all very much. I appreciate the time and the explanations very much. It is more clear to me now. YAY - It's so nice to have a community to ask and share advice. I feel blessed!! 

Well said, Rob. 

You are right. It subtracts amount of calories you've eaten from amount of calories you've burned with exercise and daily activities. The net gives you amount of calories you've not burned. Key is to keep it lower (through exercise) than you take in. Anyway, I think that's what it means. I'm like you--couldn't figure it out for the longest time until I took a good look at my calendar. Hope this helps.