Calorie savings account; Good idea or hair-brained scheme?
Options
Replies
-
0
-
Super genius! I do a bit of that in my head, but you're right -- seeing the "over" calories isn't fun!0
-
I've been thinking about doing something similar, but never gone as far as you have with it - logging it as 'savings' and 'spending', that's a great idea! I think I'm going to look over my calorie goals and see what I can do there, though I might only start with 50 calories cut per day and change it if I notice it's not working (or I want more on the weekends and I can handle it during the week!).
0 -
I use the Piggy Bank Method© (
) because, quite simply, I can't deal with being in the red some days but being under my allowance other days. It somehow feels like I'm failing and doesn't sit well with my weight loss ethos. I quite often 'borrow" from the day ahead (maximum of 200-300 calories) or take from any "under spend" the previous day. For me it balances out over the week and I still lose weight. 
0 -
Great idea.
Would be good if MFP had this feature to save calories. I hate seeing that I went over my calorie goal but thats on the days I eat out, when I cook at home I'm usually under so it balances I reckon. Would be nice to have a feature here that does that rather than having to work it out manually.0 -
arditarose this might be up your alley?
lol how did you know I'd stumble in here?
Yes. I do this. I don't think about it as hard as you do. When I'm in maintenance (sometimes deficit too) I add 2500 calories to Saturday because that's what I like, and work the rest of the week around it. In a deficit I prefer to set my goal low and go over on the weekend to equal a weekly average I'm happy with.0 -
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.
0 -
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.
0 -
I agree 100%cwolfman13 wrote: »the biggest possible issue I would have personally is that I'm very active and many of my workouts can be fairly intense either in duration or actual level of work effort or both, and when I cut I can already feel the impact on my performance and recovery...so I probably couldn't do this effectively...but otherwise I wouldn't see any issue with it provided you're getting adequate nutrition on your bigger cut days.
0 -
OK, so I haven't had lunch yet, but my Net Calories Under Weekly Goal right now is 4120. Pass the butter!
4120 over 6 days is 700 per day below your recommended deficit. That's prob too drastic depending on what your actual daily CI is. You need to nourish your body adequately everyday. Something to think about. Read other threads on MFP about eating enough cals.0 -
OK, so I haven't had lunch yet, but my Net Calories Under Weekly Goal right now is 4120. Pass the butter!
4120 over 6 days is 700 per day below your recommended deficit. That's prob too drastic depending on what your actual daily CI is. You need to nourish your body adequately everyday. Something to think about. Read other threads on MFP about eating enough cals.
Calm down, 1800 of that is today's allowance that I hadn't eaten yet. The rest is mostly running, that I don't eat all of it back. Relax.0 -
I'm planning to do this a few days before a vacation later this year.0
-
Someone correct me if I'm wrong but one thing to watch out for here is if you synch a HRM or Fitbit to your MFP and are only eating back a percentage of calories due to possible overestimating. I think my HRM is fairly accurate but I think Fitbit really overestimates so I wouldn't want to completely trust my "net calories under weekly goal" number in MFP. This wouldn't apply if you're using TDEE and manually setting the calorie limits but it would apply with standard MFP usage.0
-
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!0 -
I'advall 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.
[/quote]
I wondered about the weekly totals. Under total calories for the week, it says "calories over" and had a negative number while net calories says "calories under" with a positive number. Why the different labels?0 -
missblondi2u wrote: »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??
Obviously you can do whatever you like, but if you're someone who wants to see a weight loss every week, I would recommend considering them "expired" after a week. Otherwise you'll log a larger weight loss one week, while you're "saving," and then see a weight gain when you step on the scale after you "spend" your savings. And if a few red numbers on MFP bother you, I'm guessing seeing a bigger number on the scale isn't going to make you too happy.
0 -
I was given advice to do this as I was eating under my calorie goal each day, so over 2 days I ate the calories I has 'banked'. This resulted in a weight gain of 2 lbs over the weekend. Thankfully, the weight came off again when I was back to it but it was disappointing when I saw the scales!!!0
-
clairec230787 wrote: »I was given advice to do this as I was eating under my calorie goal each day, so over 2 days I ate the calories I has 'banked'. This resulted in a weight gain of 2 lbs over the weekend. Thankfully, the weight came off again when I was back to it but it was disappointing when I saw the scales!!!
you do understand that you didn't put on two pounds of fat right? do the math.
you put on two pounds because you ate a bit more than you had been and which topped off your glycogen stores (water) and had more inherent waist in your system.
this is always why scale obsession and being overly obsessed with the actual number is just not a good thing.
also, you may want to do a little research on natural body weight fluctuations...or maintenance is going to be a *kitten*.0 -
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!
A negative serving! Genius! That way I won't distort my exercise data.0 -
Ok, I had to figure out how to add images. Maybe we call it the Miss Piggy Bank Method
BTW, I do actually have one of these!
0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 392K Introduce Yourself
- 43.6K Getting Started
- 259.8K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.7K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 402 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.8K Motivation and Support
- 7.9K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.4K MyFitnessPal Information
- 23 News and Announcements
- 998 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.4K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions