# Zero net calories PPR

**URL:** <https://forum.beeminder.com/t/zero-net-calories-ppr/12749>\
**Category:** Akrasia\
**Created:** [March 29, 2026, 4:28am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/zero-net-calories-ppr/12749 "2026-03-29T04:28:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![joemjr2](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/joemjr2/32/6319_2.png) [@joemjr2](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/joemjr2)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2026, 4:28am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/zero-net-calories-ppr/12749/1 "2026-03-29T04:28:38Z")

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Sorry if this has been I’ve been asked before. I’ve found somewhat similar questions, but nothing that’s quite the same.

I’ve been using a “do less” goal to track something similar to net calories. Basically, I set a daily calorie target that I know will allow me to lose weight at a rate that I’m comfortable with. Each day, I log in Beeminder my daily “net”, based on this. For example, if my target is 1,700 calories per day and I eat 1,800 calories, then I enter +100. If I eat 1,500 calories, then I enter -200.

Issue 1: I have had my “commitment” for this goal set to 100. Thus, If I don’t track/enter my calories on a day, I get a PPR of 200. I’ve felt that this was not really enough. On a day that I don’t track calories, I most likely went over by WAY more than 200 calories, so it’s not really discouraging enough.

Issue 2: Today, I decided that my commitment of 100 calories over my target was too lenient, so I changed it to 0 (so that I’m not “allowed” to eat more than my target calories). However, I then noticed that this changed my PPR to only 1, and now with the buffer I’ve built up, it says I have a 3-YEAR buffer! That won’t do, of course.

Questions: Is there any way to customize my PPR amount, so that I can make it something that more accurately represents the “badness” of failing to track my calories for the day? If not, what would be a better way to do this?

Before anyone suggests it, I already thought of making my calorie target artificially low, and increasing my commitment number to make up the difference, so that double that is a reasonable PPR. However, I really don’t want to do that, as it makes my calorie tracker look wrong, and it would be giving me incorrect numbers as far as how many calories I have left for the day.

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**Author:** ![philip](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.beeminder.com/philip/32/1505_2.png) [@philip](https://forum.beeminder.com/u/philip)\
**Post date:** [March 29, 2026, 7:33am UTC](https://forum.beeminder.com/t/zero-net-calories-ppr/12749/2 "2026-03-29T07:33:42Z")

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For several of my goals, I ‘manually’ add my own PPR datapoints each morning. Any datapoint with a comment that contains the magic string `#THISWILLSELFDESTRUCT` will, um, self destruct and be deleted when any other data is added for the day.

I’ve got a little script running on my mac to do this (using LaunchControl), but you could equally set something up using [Make.com](http://Make.com).

It won’t change the calculated buffer, but would let you see the effect of a +1000 day (or whatever PPR value you choose).

Among other things, this approach sorts the goal to the top of my gallery, which reminds me to enter data.