Calories to spare, do you eat them the next day?

moonangel12

Had a glitch with my Garmin not transferring over a workout from today (Ultimate Frisbee - so fun!) and I didn’t notice until just now so I have a couple hundred calories left, but at 11:22 PM I am not about to eat a snack (heeelllooo reflux). Normally I go day by day, but I know some people on here keep track more by the week... eating light a couple days prior to a bigger planned meal. It’s a mental hurdle to eat those calories tomorrow when I “earned” them today. Would like to hear thoughts and opinions. That GF donut sure would be good with breakfast tomorrow!

Duck_Puddle

Eat then tomorrow. Or be a rebel and have them Monday or Tuesday even.

I am one who “banks” calories to have a day with bigger intake. Today (Saturday) I am having some of last Monday’s calories. In the form of a donut. It was delicious.

mlsh69

I eat them all throughout the week

tony56pr

If I'm say 500 calories or less below my daily goal I let it slide if I'm feeling full etc... so that I have padding for my week. If by the end of the week I'm again 500 or so calories below goal I dont worry about it.

If on the other hand daily but especially weekly calories are extremely below goal I will try to make it up.

PAV8888

It is just calories. Really and truly.

It is up to you to manage them for nutrition, satiety AND satisfaction, even fun. But always keeping goals in mind.

If it becomes so hard you're no longer willing to put in the effort, then your likelihood of failure increases.

If you just ignore repeat warnings and over (or under) eat excessively, there will be a price extracted... and you may even find yourself in the getting started section down the road! Not based on one or even two days! But repeatedly.

Be a rebel. Embrace the red and the green and the black. On the occasion when *you* want to!

You can manage by the day, by the week, or even by the 10 day.

Much past that I think it becomes part of your broader weight management and the focus there is no longer directly on intake and expenditures but on their results on your scale weight instead.

<And of course there are exceptions to everything, and there's even a forum regular who keeps a spreadsheet with ongoing monthly balances which she has occasionally posted from!>

sgt1372

If your gosl is 2 lose wt and go under your cal goal on a particular day (wk or month), why would you then want to overeat the next day (wk or month)?

Makes no sense 2 me

I treat each day (wk or month) separately and do not "bank" any cals. Some days I am under and some days I am over and I measure my wt everyday to keep track of my progress. Lost 40#in 6 months and maintained/lost additional wt over the following 3.5 yrs doing it that way

If your goal is to lose wt and u r doing it "right", you will eventually lose wt w/o the need to penalize or reward yourself for overeating or undereating, respectively, and if you are not doing it "right", you will gain wt and will then have to adjust your cal limit lower in order 2 eat less.

It's not rocket science. Don't make the process more complicated than need be.

MikePTY

sgt1372 wrote: »

If your gosl is 2 lose wt and go under your cal goal on a particular day (wk or month), why would you then want to overeat the next day (wk or month)?

Makes no sense 2 me

I treat each day (wk or month) separately and do not "bank" any cals. Some days I am under and some days I am over and I measure my wt everyday to keep track of my progress. Lost 40#in 6 months and maintained/lost additional wt over the following 3.5 yrs doing it that way

If your goal is to lose wt and u r doing it "right", you will eventually lose wt w/o the need to penalize or reward yourself for overeating or undereating, respectively, and if you are not doing it "right", you will gain wt and will then have to adjust your cal limit lower in order 2 eat less.

It's not rocket science. Don't make the process more complicated than need be.

Your weight loss is already built into your calorie goal. You don't need to "go under it" to lose weight. Eat at your goal and you will lose around the weight of loss you are targeting (within reason).

As to the OP - it really depends. Sometimes I will, sometimes I won't. Sometimes I'll save it for several days down the line. It really depends on how I am feeling that day and how much energy my body needs.

jennifer_417

You can, but you don't have to. In the long run, a few hundred calories isn't a big deal.

sardelsa

sgt1372 wrote: »

If your gosl is 2 lose wt and go under your cal goal on a particular day (wk or month), why would you then want to overeat the next day (wk or month)?

Makes no sense 2 me

I treat each day (wk or month) separately and do not "bank" any cals. Some days I am under and some days I am over and I measure my wt everyday to keep track of my progress. Lost 40#in 6 months and maintained/lost additional wt over the following 3.5 yrs doing it that way

If your goal is to lose wt and u r doing it "right", you will eventually lose wt w/o the need to penalize or reward yourself for overeating or undereating, respectively, and if you are not doing it "right", you will gain wt and will then have to adjust your cal limit lower in order 2 eat less.

It's not rocket science. Don't make the process more complicated than need be.

There's nothing wrong with having a weekly goal. In the past I would bank 100 calories or so each day to use on the weekends. That helped me with adherence. More recently I calorie cycle, I eat less some days and more other days deliberately to hit a certain calorie goal over a week. I never look at one day in isolation. I found this not only helped with adherence but workout performance as well (since they ended up being higher carb refeeds).

You found what works for you, there are other ways that work for different people.

littlegreenparrot1

I'm running a lot at the moment, training for an ultra.
As the mileage goes up I find it helpful to spread it out over a few days, the runger is real and it helps to keep a bit more on track.

estherpotter1

I used to be allowed to on weight watchers but not this one

BarbaraHelen2013

estherpotter1 wrote: »

I used to be allowed to on weight watchers but not this one

What’s stopping you? I’m not sure MFP has the power to stop you! 👮🏻‍♀️😂

kshama2001

If I'm extremely active one day I'll often move some of that exercise to the next day and eat those calories then.

For example, yesterday was Saturday and I was out in the woods doing trail maintenance, practiced yoga, half of it vigorous, and had a long cook-fest. (I see the first hour of cooking I do in a day as part of my normal activity, but consider everything after that up for logging.)

I left quite a few calories on the table, and will eat some of them today.

MercuryForce

I don't do a strict "I was 300 calories under yesterday, so I'm going to eat 300 extra tomorrow" type thing. But, I if I was low one day I'll be a little less concerned about that doughnut the next day. As long as my weekly average is at or below* my goal and I'm losing weight, I figure I'm doing well.

*I tend to aim for a weekly average of a couple hundred below my goal since I know even with consistent food scale use, I'm probably undestimating my consumption.

moonangel12

sgt1372 wrote: »

If your gosl is 2 lose wt and go under your cal goal on a particular day (wk or month), why would you then want to overeat the next day (wk or month)?

Makes no sense 2 me

I treat each day (wk or month) separately and do not "bank" any cals. Some days I am under and some days I am over and I measure my wt everyday to keep track of my progress. Lost 40#in 6 months and maintained/lost additional wt over the following 3.5 yrs doing it that way

If your goal is to lose wt and u r doing it "right", you will eventually lose wt w/o the need to penalize or reward yourself for overeating or undereating, respectively, and if you are not doing it "right", you will gain wt and will then have to adjust your cal limit lower in order 2 eat less.

It's not rocket science. Don't make the process more complicated than need be.

This definitely isn’t an emotional response to over or under eating for myself, I don’t reward or punish, I was just asking what others do because, other than those rocky first couple of learning weeks, I had kept a pretty good check on the ebbs and flows of daily calories with and without exercise. I get 1470/day so it’s not too often I have the wiggle room for a 300 calorie donut, ya know? I didn’t want to “waste” it Not trying to make the process more complicated, just asking about what others do specifically since I had seen various practices mentioned in the forums.

In response to your first comment on why I would choose to over eat the next day if I was under goal, I know if I don’t properly refuel, it will set me up to be overly hungry on a normal day’s worth of calories... I don’t aim to be drastically under goal each day just to lose more weight, to me that is more of an example of not trusting the MFP process than the benign question I asked. Normally I plan ahead and go day by day with my allotted amounts and goals, just caught it too late last night. So for me, day to day is a winning strategy, just asking about how others make it work.

cmriverside

It sounds like you know what works for you.

I cannot remember a day ever where I ate less than my goal, other than less than 100-200 calories here or there. I'll always eat until...because of exactly what you just posted.

In response to your first comment on why I would choose to over eat the next day if I was under goal, I know if I don’t properly refuel, it will set me up to be overly hungry on a normal day’s worth of calories.

Then I get into a teeter totter situation that's hard to balance out again.

Every day is a new day to me. I don't borrow calories, bank calories, "listen to my body," or whatever else. I've been at this too long and know what works.

annliz23

No I dont keep the calories as cmriverside says tomorrow is another day if anything I try to stay at my calorie limit or slightly under while I'm losing weight the just above when I go into maintaining.

lgfrie

I rarely eat more than 20 cals under my goal, because I usually end the day with as many 43 calorie Dove chocolates as needed to hit my number LOL, but occasionally it does happen. I don't eat them the next day, or eat less the next day if I go over either. I really like having each day be "the first day of the rest of my diet" - clean slate, no baggage, just get up, weigh in, work out, and try to hit my number.

moonangel12

cmriverside wrote: »

It sounds like you know what works for you.

I cannot remember a day ever where I ate less than my goal, other than less than 100-200 calories here or there. I'll always eat until...because of exactly what you just posted.

In response to your first comment on why I would choose to over eat the next day if I was under goal, I know if I don’t properly refuel, it will set me up to be overly hungry on a normal day’s worth of calories.

Then I get into a teeter totter situation that's hard to balance out again.

Every day is a new day to me. I don't borrow calories, bank calories, "listen to my body," or whatever else. I've been at this too long and know what works.

That’s pretty much what I was attempting to convey, I just couldn’t find the words running on fibro fog lately. That’s why I normally do day to day, last night was an anomaly for me and part of me was disappointed I missed out on an extra treat (I skipped the sweets at breakfast because I didn’t know what the day would hold), but also knew it had potential for me to want to over eat today. Just trying to balance the teeter totter in a way outside of my norm...

cmriverside

moonangel12 wrote: »

cmriverside wrote: »

It sounds like you know what works for you.

I cannot remember a day ever where I ate less than my goal, other than less than 100-200 calories here or there. I'll always eat until...because of exactly what you just posted.

In response to your first comment on why I would choose to over eat the next day if I was under goal, I know if I don’t properly refuel, it will set me up to be overly hungry on a normal day’s worth of calories.

Then I get into a teeter totter situation that's hard to balance out again.

Every day is a new day to me. I don't borrow calories, bank calories, "listen to my body," or whatever else. I've been at this too long and know what works.

That’s pretty much what I was attempting to convey, I just couldn’t find the words running on fibro fog lately. That’s why I normally do day to day, last night was an anomaly for me and part of me was disappointed I missed out on an extra treat (I skipped the sweets at breakfast because I didn’t know what the day would hold), but also knew it had potential for me to want to over eat today. Just trying to balance the teeter totter in a way outside of my norm...

I mean, I really don't think it much matters for a day here and there.

It's just if it starts to become a pattern of, "Rob Peter to pay Paul." I've seen enough eating disorders that use this mindset to know it's not a good plan but I don't think a day, two days, a week is enough to really set off any dysfunctional behavior. It happened and now you move on in whatever way you think is right.

nighthawk584

I have only banked calories a couple times for Thanksgiving and Christmas....on all the other days, I eat ALL my calories including ALL exercise calories.