Calorie goal on days off exercise

emilydinah

Hi,
I exercise vigorously six days a week and take one day off. On my day off I have to work hard to stay at or under my calorie goal. I don't want to starve myself, my body needs fuel on my day off to repair the damage I've done over the week. However, I don't want to be careless calorie-wise either. Does anyone else have this issue? If so, how do you deal with it?

phieaglefan

I'm no help, but I too would like to hear opinions on this topic. I too exercise 6 days a week, Thursday is the day I just can't fit it in, so it ends up being my rest day. And I have a similar issue with missing those extra exercise calories.

My gut reaction would be to look at it from the perspective of a whole week. For instance, if you averaged out your exercise calories over 7 days instead of 6, you would plan to take in a few less exercise calories than you earned over the six days so that on the 7th day, you would have those to eat. Not sure if I'm making sense, but this could work IF your exercise routine was fairly set.

H

susannamarie

I think if your exercise routine is the same every week, it would make total sense to just average it.

BlackBeltInTraining

What I do is just plan ahead and have healthy, but filling meals planned for the days that do not have any kind of exercise in them. I feel that through planning ahead I'm able to meet my dieting goals with no complications.

Camille0502

I'm the same as you. I exercise for one hour, six days per week pretty vigorously and take Mondays off. If I go over by 300 calories on Mondays, I don't sweat it. I know I can more than make up for it the rest of the days in the week.

shadow2soul

If your workout routine doesn't really change, look back at a previous week and average out what you ate. Once you know your average, you can eat that amount of calories every day. Example:

Mon: 2300
Tues: 2000
Wed: 2150
Thur: 1999
Fri: 2400
Sat: 2200
Sun: 1500

Avg Daily eaten: 2079 calories per day

You can choose to eat at or right under maintenance on your day off. It won't undo all your hard work, but it will reduce your weekly deficit slightly.

Do the TDEE-20% method.
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/976981-welcome-to-mfp-don-t-worry-there-s-cliff-notes?hl=welcome+to+MFP


You can choose to eat slightly over your daily goal on your day off. Like going over by 100 - 250 calories if your at a 500 calorie deficit.

RoyBeck

One day of going over wont make a difference if the other 6 are under your target.

emilydinah

Thanks for the advice everyone! I will definitely try averaging.

rickloving

Yep, averaging works out for me too, knew that I was going out with friends Friday night for a celebration. I "banked" some extra calories on Tue, Wed, Thu, by eating extra good and had a great time on Friday not worrying about going over my daily goal. I also had a 5K planned for this morning, so I knew I would be burning some serious calories early, after Friday nights enjoyment.