Going over daily calories

kheard2017

I'm sure there is a simple answer to this, but when I've used apps to track food in the past, I've had an allotted amount I can eat each day as well as a bonus amount I can use whenever I need it.

Let's say I plan to drink some beers one weekend or have to go out to eat while traveling for work. Those extra points really come in handy. I'm worried that once I go over my calories, I'll just stop tracking because I will feel like i "ruined it" for the week. Is there a way to spread your allotment out over the week and use the extra calories when you need them?

Also, I'm starting IIFYM for the first time and I feel like they gave me a lot of calories... I'm 151 and my TDEE is 1380 with sedentary activity. Does that sound right?

Thanks in advance

4legsRbetterthan2

Unfortunately, the app does not do this in a handy way for you; however, the concept of "banking" calories for the weekend or special occasions is commonly used by alot of folks so they can better enjoy the fun times while staying on track.

The best advice I can give you for that is to manually set you daily calorie goal a little lower (go to goals, edit daily nutrition goals) and just know how much extra you have banked so you can feel ok about going over by that amount on the day of your choosing. ( for example: if you eat 50 fewer calories every day than your goal then you will have an extra 350 calories you can use on saturday and still meet your weakly goal) If it frustrates you to see numbers in red and that you went over in your diary you can always log the banked calories as some form of exercise on the day of you choosing to make the math work out for you.

Hopefully that made sense. If not feel free to ask questions for clarification.

__TMac__

When I exercise, I eat back many of the calories earned. On the day of exercise, I post about 2/3 of the calories. Then I go to Sunday, which is the day I plan to eat more, and post the remaining 1/3 of the calories. This works for me because I like the structure.

Another option is to just eat 100 calories under goal each day, then on the day you'd like to eat more, look at your calories by week (on the app, under Nutrition; on the web, under Reports). It will show you Net Calories Under. That's what you have to play with and still hit your target.

WinoGelato

Wait can you confirm your stats: height, weight, goal weight, age, and activity level?

You said IIFYM gave you a TDEE of 1380? Or that's your target for weight loss?

dubird

As long as you're on track most of the time, going over one day isn't going to hurt your or sabotage you unless you let it. Hell, I can go out on my birthday and have super special awesome cake and ice cream at a high end restaurant and still manage to lose weight. So if you go out to eat with friends or whatever, do your best and if you go over, just make sure you stay on track the rest of the day.

As for eating out, if you can, look at the menu before you go and pick what you want. If you can't, do your best and log it when you can. Over time, you'll learn what things and which restaurants you can have that won't put you over but still let you enjoy your time. Worrying about it makes it worse. That's a hard lesson to learn, but once I did, things got a lot less stressful!

And yes, there are people that 'bank' their calories, either by eating a little less during the week or exercising more on that day. If you're someone that goes out every weekend, that's a good strategy that keeps you from feeling stressed out. After all, if all you're worried about is your calories, you can't enjoy yourself! But if it's just once in a while, don't worry about going over when you didn't plan to. Log it, learn from it, and move on.

kcmsmith0405

pretty sure at 151 your TDEE is not 1380 LOL try this:
https://tdeecalculator.net/