Moving food around?

wookiepants

Let's say that I ate way too much yesterday and I decided to add some of it to today's food in order to somewhat fix my diary. Has anyone done this? Could it work that way?

beaglady

You don't need to actually move the food from one day to the next. MFP will average your calorie intake for the week, so you don't have to.

cwolfman13

I have eaten more on one day and less on the next, but I never saw any point in adjusting my diary by moving food around...your diary is a valuable tool...you want it to reflect what actually happened.

Alyssa_Is_LosingIt

wookiepants wrote: »

Let's say that I ate way too much yesterday and I decided to add some of it to today's food in order to somewhat fix my diary. Has anyone done this? Could it work that way?

This absolutely works. Though I like to plan ahead my higher days and just eat a little less throughout the week so I have some extra calories on days where I know I'd like to indulge. It's just easier for me that way. But definitely do what works for you, because as @cgreen120288 mentioned, a consistent deficit over time is what matters - not necessarily our day-to-day deficit.

jdhcm2006

I don't think you need to move things around to different days. That's just asking for errors. Plus, it's good IMO to be honest about each day. It will help you start to notice trends. Did stress lead you to overeating? Hormones? An honest diary can help you notice any trends in things like that.

Plus, your average weekly calorie intake is really what matters.

Lounmoun

You could do that. It is the similar to looking at weekly calories rather than just your daily goal (which you can do without moving food).
I would think about why you want to fix your diary. You ate over your goal yesterday. Why do you feel you need to move the extra food to the next day? Are you bothered that your diary doesn't look perfect? Will you be eating a lot less today because of this? Is it a frequent issue of overeating and fixing it by undereating? Will it help you meet you goals in a healthy way or is it just for appearance sake? Something to think about.

I prefer to see my day more accurately represented as how I really ate. Like did I eat more certain days and why... did I get enough protein, etc? If I go over my goal one day I usually just eat normally instead of trying to reduce my calories the next day.

leanjogreen18

I cycle my calories meaning I have several low calorie days, several days the same calories and 1 near maintenance calorie day (daily average is 1250).

So far I've been losing steady 1.5/2 lbs a week - with the exception of this last week when I took a "diet break" on vacay where I ate at maintenance.

ETA - I have mfp premium so I can set custom daily calorie goals.

Ready2Rock206

I wouldn't. You can look at your weekly calories. But moving/deleting food you ate to make your diary look better is just a waste of time. Then you have no way of looking back and seeing the true story. A perfect looking diary won't show you where the issues are if it isn't in any way actually reflective of what you actually ate.

ogtmama

Ready2Rock206 wrote: »

I wouldn't. You can look at your weekly calories. But moving/deleting food you ate to make your diary look better is just a waste of time. Then you have no way of looking back and seeing the true story. A perfect looking diary won't show you where the issues are if it isn't in any way actually reflective of what you actually ate.

I don't know...if you think of it as adding it as a visual to remind yourself why you're eating a little less the next day I think it makes sense...I've thought of doing this with my exercise logging all the exercise for a week on the night of a special occasion.

Susieq_1994

I've done this, not to make the bad day look better, just to "mark" the calories in my food diary for the next few days, because seeing the leftover calories that I'm purposely cutting back on makes me want to eat them anyway! But I wouldn't advise cutting too much. I'll usually cut a small amount, like say I ate six cookies over maintenance and they were about 150 calories each, I'd log one cookie a day for the next few days (Probably not all six of them, at some point I just move on and get back to my regular program). Otherwise, I'd get too hungry and then repeat the bad day!

lynn_glenmont

I suppose if you find it easier to keep track of how much (little) you need to eat the next day to "make up" for the previous day, this could work for you, although if it's a very large amount, more than you reasonably can make up the next day, this might be a bad idea if it starts you down a cycle of deprivation and binging.

If you're only doing it because it makes you uncomfortable to see the red numbers in your diary, you might want to rethink your relationship to eating and to this app.

daniip_la

Instead of doing that, I made a food entry called "extra deficit". I add it to a day in which I need a reminder to eat less, such as after a day that I over ate on. Then I remove it at the end of the day so that my numbers are accurate.