Calorie savings account; Good idea or hair-brained scheme?
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Pro tip: on the website you can log negative items. If you have a custom food called "calorie savings" and one serving is 100 calories, you can log a -1 serving and take away calories from your total. No need to create an exercise for this.
What a great idea you had!
Brilliant! Thank you.
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I think of it this way, for sure. Calories are like money in the bank. I can spend them on whatever I want; I just can't spend more than I burn.
And even though calories are calories, I need to prioritize rent and heat (protein and nutrients) over vacations and shoes (cookies and cake), not because there are any "good" or "bad" foods, but simply because I need to take care of my needs before I take care of my wants. Then I can spend the leftovers on my wants. It helps keep me balanced.
One word of caution: Don't bank too many calories, 'cause you still want to be eating enough on a daily basis to feel good and fuel your body. It's fine to bank small amounts for special occasions, but putting yourself into too big a deficit can trigger hunger, binging, and health issues. View your calorie goal like a game of blackjack: You want to get as close as possible to the magic number without going over.0 -
I used the Piggybank method this weekend, and it definitely helped ease my mind when I inevitably went over my budget on Sunday by about 400 calories. I just went back the previous 4 days and added my Piggybank for 100 calories and then used WBB55's tip of logging -4 servings of Piggybank on Sunday.
I went to bed full and at peace with myself!0 -
What an awesome idea! I'm going to try to figure out how to put this in my daily log - as someone else mentioned my drawback is I work out at the gym (cardio & weights) 4-5 days a week so I have to make sure I get enough calories that I don't feel the effects of "banking". This is why I read these community postings, such great ideas
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missblondi2u wrote: »So, I've started to think about my calories as a sort of allowance. Like I have 1400 "bucks" I'm allowed to spend on food each day, so I ask myself if I really want to spend half of that on two slices of pizza and a beer, or would I rather spend a quarter of that on a well-balanced meal. Basically it's like my calorie checking account.
I've read where a lot of people bank calories for use later, like on the weekends or for an upcoming event. I like this idea since I tend to munch more on the weekends than during the week. I think of this like a calorie savings account, or "piggy bank" if you will
I came up with an idea of creating a food item called "calorie savings" for like 100 calories and logging that Monday-Friday, and then on Saturday logging an exercise called "calorie spending" so that I don't have to actually see those dreaded red numbers when I go over my allowance. It's like a debit/credit system, which appeals to my accounting and finance background.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this method? Is there some reason not to do something like this that I'm not seeing? I realize that my daily totals won't be completely accurate, but my overall numbers shouldn't be affected. Also, if I don't "spend" the saved calories within a certain amount of time, should I just consider them "expired," and if so, how long? One week? Am I overthinking this??
Thanks in advance for your input!
My accountant brain loves this!
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What an awesome idea! I'm going to try to figure out how to put this in my daily log - as someone else mentioned my drawback is I work out at the gym (cardio & weights) 4-5 days a week so I have to make sure I get enough calories that I don't feel the effects of "banking". This is why I read these community postings, such great ideas
I might be an oddball, but I find that I'm actually less hungry on my exercise days than on my off day. I walk between 2-4 miles at a moderate pace first thing in the morning before breakfast, and I don't really get hungry until a couple hours later, and then I usually want something small like fruit or a breakfast bar. On my off day, I get hungry much sooner and I tend to want a larger breakfast. Perhaps this will change as I edge into more demanding workouts?0 -
missblondi2u wrote: »I used the Piggybank method this weekend, and it definitely helped ease my mind when I inevitably went over my budget on Sunday by about 400 calories. I just went back the previous 4 days and added my Piggybank for 100 calories and then used WBB55's tip of logging -4 servings of Piggybank on Sunday.
I went to bed full and at peace with myself!
I'm glad my tip helped 0 -
Thanks for all the tips. I save calories daily to use on Saturday but unless I exercise enough I'm in the red. I will need to try that negative adjustment. I also didn't know you can view your weekly stats, but if it includes my fit bit numbers it will be off since my fit bit says my weekly net deficit is 7,000 calories and reality is more like a little over 3,500.0
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missblondi2u wrote: »What an awesome idea! I'm going to try to figure out how to put this in my daily log - as someone else mentioned my drawback is I work out at the gym (cardio & weights) 4-5 days a week so I have to make sure I get enough calories that I don't feel the effects of "banking". This is why I read these community postings, such great ideas
I might be an oddball, but I find that I'm actually less hungry on my exercise days than on my off day. I walk between 2-4 miles at a moderate pace first thing in the morning before breakfast, and I don't really get hungry until a couple hours later, and then I usually want something small like fruit or a breakfast bar. On my off day, I get hungry much sooner and I tend to want a larger breakfast. Perhaps this will change as I edge into more demanding workouts?
Not odd at all. I'm like this, too. It might also be partially due to the fact that on the days I run before work that I start work later, too. I eat breakfast later and then end up eating a small lunch later than usual and then dinner at the normal time. I'm not eating under my calorie goal before exercise, I'm just not eating extra.
I almost always end up eating my running calories the day after I run.0 -
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arditarose wrote: »
OK, so I haven't had lunch yet, but my Net Calories Under Weekly Goal right now is 4120. Pass the butter!missblondi2u wrote: »So, I've started to think about my calories as a sort of allowance. Like I have 1400 "bucks" I'm allowed to spend on food each day, so I ask myself if I really want to spend half of that on two slices of pizza and a beer, or would I rather spend a quarter of that on a well-balanced meal. Basically it's like my calorie checking account.
I've read where a lot of people bank calories for use later, like on the weekends or for an upcoming event. I like this idea since I tend to munch more on the weekends than during the week. I think of this like a calorie savings account, or "piggy bank" if you will
I came up with an idea of creating a food item called "calorie savings" for like 100 calories and logging that Monday-Friday, and then on Saturday logging an exercise called "calorie spending" so that I don't have to actually see those dreaded red numbers when I go over my allowance. It's like a debit/credit system, which appeals to my accounting and finance background.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this method? Is there some reason not to do something like this that I'm not seeing? I realize that my daily totals won't be completely accurate, but my overall numbers shouldn't be affected. Also, if I don't "spend" the saved calories within a certain amount of time, should I just consider them "expired," and if so, how long? One week? Am I overthinking this??
Thanks in advance for your input!
I'm all for saving those calories for another day. Look at my diary: some days are over, some days are under, but 99 percent of the time I am within my maintenance calorie goals by the end of the week.
Do you use the MFP app on your phone or tablet? If so, while in the app, you can go to your drop down menu and go to nutrition and choose calories for the week. You can see how many calories you are under or over for the week thus far, net average, and goal. So, today I am under for my week by 298 calories because I ate less on some days. I'm saving those for tomorrow because I'm going to a street festival and will eat lunch there.
Don't forget about tomorrow!
Also, for some others who are looking, I think the default setting is a rolling weekly view. I find that can be a bit confusing. You can go in and manually set it from Monday-Sunday, or whatever you prefer.
I'm maintaining now and this is how I piggy bank. I have my weekly setting starting from Monday through Sunday. I created a filler meal of 1200 calories and add it to every day starting on Monday. This way I can check my weekly target any day. Whatever, I have saved for weekend is how I splurge. So when I log in on Monday or whatever day I delete the filler meal and log my day. Some days I'm over 1200 and that's ok. My calories are 1440 plus workout calories.0 -
You can always save up your exercise and log it on days where you eat too much. Just saying.0
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atypicalsmith wrote: »You can always save up your exercise and log it on days where you eat too much. Just saying.
For some reason I like this idea better. Hmm.
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atypicalsmith wrote: »You can always save up your exercise and log it on days where you eat too much. Just saying.
If you're using the NEAT method, and if you exercise.0 -
atypicalsmith wrote: »You can always save up your exercise and log it on days where you eat too much. Just saying.
There's really no point to gaming the system like that. If you look at your calorie deficit on a weekly instead of daily basis, you can just log the exercise whenever you do it and it will still "count" for the week. You can be over your calories on some days and under on others, but if you still reach your weekly calorie deficit, you'll lose weight.
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PaulaWallaDingDong wrote: »Calorie savings is a great idea. However, sometimes I get into a rut where I'm taking out credit from days ahead. It sort of works the same way, but let me tell you, it's a slippery slope. It hasn't screwed me thus far, but I wouldn't recommend it.
This. I do save my left over weekly calories for the weekend and treats but sometimes I use them up early on in the week, and then have to be really strict for the rest of the week!0 -
I like this idea - if I need a 'free meal' or 'cheat meal' whatever you want to call it then this makes it more simple to budget for without the need for cheating. Thanks for sharing your idea. 0
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I don't have anything to say about the specific plans here, but in general: calorie banking is the single most useful thing I've learned about on MFP in my past almost-year here. And if you're doing intermittent fasting schemes, you pretty much have to use the banking method to track things properly anyways.
Anyways, I've been using banking techniques daily since some genius posted about them last fall and it's worked really well; very happy with how straightforward and logical it all is.
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I think of it this way, for sure. Calories are like money in the bank. I can spend them on whatever I want; I just can't spend more than I burn.
And even though calories are calories, I need to prioritize rent and heat (protein and nutrients) over vacations and shoes (cookies and cake), not because there are any "good" or "bad" foods, but simply because I need to take care of my needs before I take care of my wants. Then I can spend the leftovers on my wants. It helps keep me balanced.
One word of caution: Don't bank too many calories, 'cause you still want to be eating enough on a daily basis to feel good and fuel your body. It's fine to bank small amounts for special occasions, but putting yourself into too big a deficit can trigger hunger, binging, and health issues. View your calorie goal like a game of blackjack: You want to get as close as possible to the magic number without going over.
This is genius! I never thought of that but it makes perfect sense! Thank you segacs!
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I would call it my "slush fund"0
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