To Eat or Not to Eat? I met my macros but MFP shows I have 300ish calories remaining

BananaBee3

So, I met my macros today pretty spot on (atleast percentage-wise...my grams are a bit off) but MFP is giving me about 320ish cals left to eat.

Should I eat those extra cals and try to divide them among my macros to keep the percentages where I want them? Or just avoid eating since I've already met my protein, fat, and carbs for the day.

Any advice?

My goal is to build muscle btw

ForecasterJason

Have you been tracking your actual intake each day? Unless you've been consistently going over your target for calories, I don't think the extra 300 calories is going to do any harm. Given that you've already hit your target for macros, if I were you, I would probably eat whatever I feel like.

BananaBee3

Thank you very much for the reply!

I've been tracking for about 2 weeks now and have been doing better than I thought I would since I've never tried hitting certain macros before. I've consistently been hitting around my allotted cal intake minus 2-3 days, but it wasn't off by an enormous amount.

I think I will learn a lot from reading many of these "gaining weight" forums...as long as I take most with a grain of salt.

Thank you again for the advice!

aqualeo1

Just because you have the correct percentages doesn't mean you have actually hit your targets. Also since you are trying to build muscle and gain weight I would try to eat your remaining calories and at least hit your protein goal.

FromHereOnOut

I think the way MFP is setup, you can hit your percentages in one small well-balanced meal, but you'd still have to keep eating the rest of the day, to get all your calories.

Now, if you were to have hit your GRAMS but not your calories, I think that'd mean some of the entries had bad data. I've noticed entries in the database that don't add up, when you multiply the grams of carbs & protein by calories/gram and fat grams by calories/gram and it doesn't come to the total calories of the item. Be on the lookout for that.

I say eat all your calories, and if you can do so with a well-balanced snack that keeps your macros in line, all the better.