Can i borrow some calories?

JK1542020

If i go over my calories by say 50 today, can i just have 50 less tomorrow?

bpetrosky

Yes. You can also 'save' calories throughout the week and have more on the weekend, so long as your overall calories meet your weekly target.

For example, suppose your daily calorie target is 1600. If you have 1500 Monday through Saturday, you can have 2200 (1600 + 600) on Sunday.

quiksylver296

At 50 calories, I wouldn't even worry about it.

If you chose to lose 2 pounds per week, your daily deficit is 1000 calories per day, which means the extra 50 calories just changes your deficit to 950 calories for today.

AnnPT77

Fifty isn't a big deal either way. With that small a number, it's no big deal if you ignore it: Likely you'll be a little over some days, a little over on others.

If you have MFP set up to lose 0.25 pounds a week (which would be the slowest normal rate), it's given you a 250 calorie deficit. If set up for faster loss, it's a bigger deficit than that. An extra 50 calories eaten leaves most of that deficit still happening . . . and besides, 50 calories is in the realm of probable errors in our other estimates (scales are imprecise by a tiny bit, one apple sweeter than the next, etc.).

That isn't an excuse to start going over goal every single day, but it's a way to recognize that close is good enough, the majority of the time, and it's not necessary to stress about it. I'm betting you're under by a few calories some days, too.

Personally, while losing weight, I found that "borrowing" calories from the future (in meaningful numbers, i.e., > 50) was not a great idea. It was fine for me to "bank" a few calories ahead of time to eat a bit extra on a future special occasion (like eating maybe 100 calories less than goal for a week to "save up" extra for a dinner out on the weekend, as long as my overall weight loss wasn't extremely fast.

In contrast, "making up for it" after the fact was more likely to lead to hunger and maybe unplanned over-eating at some future point, potentially getting me into a cycle of undereating to "make up", then overeating out of relative deprivation. Not useful, for me. I was much better, if I had an unpredicted over-goal day, just to let it go, and get back on my normal track afterward right away. This may not be true for everyone, but it was what worked best for me.

If one does the math, the calorie overage (above maintenance calories) usually amounts to a few hours delay in reaching goal weight, usually at most a couple of days. As long as it isn't frequent, that really just doesn't matter.

I think it's good to be disciplined (and not sloppy) about calorie goals. But, psychologically speaking, I think it's also important to keep things in perspective, not stress over relatively minor/rare things, etc. It's possible for this process to become obsessive or anxiety producing - some of us are more vulnerable to that than others - so I think it's helpful to be a bit chill about stuff that's a drop in the ocean, in terms of big picture.

What we do on the majority of days determines the majority of our progress.

Best wishes!

PAV8888

Or.... you can just keep going and ignore it.

You don't have to be PERFECT EVERY DAY to succeed.

You just have to move the ballpark in the general direction of where you want to head towards.

To lose weight you need "A" deficit, an energy imbalance over a long enough time period so that you end up making use of as much of your already stored energy as you would like to "lose".

Whether that happens at 1lb a week, or 1.11lb a week or 0.77 lbs a week matters less than the whole process being sustainable and setting you up for future maintenance and success.

amusedmonkey

You can, but it could be a slippery slope for some people triggering anxiety or some unhealthy dieting behaviors. being a little over or a little under is fine. As long as you more or less eat within the range of your chosen deficit most days you'll lose weight at a close enough pace. You don't have to hit calories perfectly every day, and it's okay to have days around maintenance calories every now and then (or even over maintenance sometimes if it doesn't happen often.)

The harder you make things for yourself the harder it will be to stay the course.

cwolfman13

50 calories is well within human error for tracking calories...I wouldn't worry about it at all personally and just go about business as usual. This isn't a perfect science...don't let perfect be the enemy of good or good enough. Just move on about your business.

KrissFlavored

I would really urge against this.. correction is a slippery slope to disordered eating.. especially when the numbers over can sometimes be bigger..

If you go over the best thing you can do is wake up tomorrow and carry on.

AnnPT77

Just to add another way of looking at what I said in my PP (and what others have said) about 50 calories being no big deal:

There are roughly 3500 calories in a pound of body fat.

So, in terms of body fat, 50 calories is:

1.4% of a pound
0.4 ounces (yup, four tenths)
6.48 grams

That's something in the range of the physical weight of 2 US pennies. Your bodyweight scale can't even see it.

Do you want to worry about that?

I guess I've given you my 2 cents on the topic! (Even li'l ol' ladies come up with dad jokes. )

JK1542020

Thanks everyone I guess I'll just forget about it then, i guess its not a big deal. I like the idea of saving some cals for the weekend. That might ultimately be better then using a big chunk of my saturday calories so i can have a drink.

Thanks as always for excellent advice 👍👍

lgfrie

I am firmly in the "just get up tomorrow morning and carry on" camp.

An extra 50 or 100 calories means nothing in the grand scheme of things - literally 1/70th or 1/35th of a pound, nothing you could ever see or feel on your body. But what could mean something is: getting tied up in a cycle of trying to make up for yesterday's imperfect dieting behavior by eating too little food to feel satisfied. That kind of thing could lead to binging.

If you've got a good caloric target, it already represents the amount of calories you're comfortable with. It's a bad idea to go under if you don't have to.

Others feel differently about this.

ja20102004

quiksylver296 wrote: »

At 50 calories, I wouldn't even worry about it.

If you chose to lose 2 pounds per week, your daily deficit is 1000 calories per day, which means the extra 50 calories just changes your deficit to 950 calories for today.

I agree. If l am more than 100 over then l worry. But 50 isn't a huge deal.

deannalfisher

IMHO going over calories one day and then reducing them the next is more likely to set you up into a binge/purge cycle. Your MFP calorie goal already has a deficit built in (if you are aiming for 2lbs a week that is a 1000cal deficit)

i say just move on if you go over and start fresh the next day - so maybe you lose 1.5lbs this week instead of 2 - you still lost weight