Question about calories!?

KaleiAlanaSmith

Okay! So I'm asking this question purely because I don't know! My goal is to lose some weight so obviously I use this app to track calories. Well, yesterday I did not eat much at all (busy college student), leaving me a couple hundred calories under my limit. Today however, I am about 200 calories OVER my limit. Do these excess calories go towards what I did not eat yesterday? Or does me eating excess calories go to potential weight gain regardless of how little i ate yesterday?

Thanks for clearing this up for me!

Alatariel75

You can zigzag your calories if you want, your body doesn't reset at midnight. I've lost 80lbs by eating low during the week and higher on the weekends, because it suits my life.

Unknown

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courtneyfabulous

It's fine.

The average is still around your goal calories.

Also a 200 calorie overage probably isn't enough to make you gain weight, it just means you'll lose less or no weight that day (depending how big your deficit is).

KaleiAlanaSmith

courtneyfabulous wrote: »

It's fine.

The average is still around your goal calories.

Also a 200 calorie overage probably isn't enough to make you gain weight, it just means you'll lose less or no weight that day (depending how big your deficit is).

Good point!! I am just a worry wart I guess, LOL.

cerise_noir

The calories mfp gives you already has a deficit built in, so to gain weight you'd have to eat up to your maintenance (the amount of calories up to your maintenance or your deficit depends on your weekly rate of weight loss** plus 250-500-750-1000 calories above that every day for a week to gain .5lb-1b-1.5lb-2lb in a week.

**deficit:
to lose .5lbs per week= 250 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 1lb per week= 500 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 1.5lbs per week= 750 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 2lbs per week= 1000 cals daily below daily maintenance

So, since you ate 200 less yesterday, and 200 over today, you've balanced your weekly calories out. Even if you didn't eat 200 less yesterday and ate 200 more today, it wouldn't have made much of a difference to show up on the scale. You may see an increase due to water weight, though, but that is temporary. To make a difference, you'd have to eat 1750-7000 more than your weekly maintenance to gain any weight.

KaleiAlanaSmith

cerise_noir wrote: »

The calories mfp gives you already has a deficit built in, so to gain weight you'd have to eat up to your maintenance (the amount of calories up to your maintenance or your deficit depends on your weekly rate of weight loss** plus 250-500-750-1000 calories above that every day for a week to gain .5lb-1b-1.5lb-2lb in a week.

**deficit:
to lose .5lbs per week= 250 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 1lb per week= 500 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 1.5lbs per week= 750 cals below daily maintenance
to lose 2lbs per week= 1000 cals daily below daily maintenance

So, since you ate 200 less yesterday, and 200 over today, you've balanced your weekly calories out. Even if you didn't eat 200 less yesterday and ate 200 more today, it wouldn't have made much of a difference to show up on the scale. You may see an increase due to water weight, though, but that is temporary. To make a difference, you'd have to eat 1750-7000 more than your weekly maintenance to gain any weight.

Ohh! Thank you so much for the breakdown!

TavistockToad

look at your weekly goal, not daily. if you have hit your weekly goal, you'll lose weight.