Maintenance and blood product donations

Luke_rabbit

When I searched older posts on blood donation, most responses recommended not counting it because it's just a small amount of extra calories to replace donated blood over 4-6 weeks. I feel like that is probably reasonable advice for people losing weight.

However, for maintenance, I'm trying to keep an accurate record of calories consumed and used, so it seems counterintuitive to just ignore something that's perhaps 450-650 calories, depending on which donation I do. I wouldn't eat a 500 calorie item and not record it, or do a 500 calorie exercise and skip adding it.

In my case, I am donating platelets, which I found online is about 450 - 500 calories over a week to replace, so about 65 - 70 calories per day.

How would you handle something like this, especially the data-driven people who like to keep as accurate as possible records? I could easily just add the full amount as a negative the day of, since I try to balance calories over an entire month, not each day.

Perhaps it's important to know that I am still struggling to stabilize my weight and stop my slow loss of about a third a pound a month, so ignoring a largish calorie expenditure seems like a bad idea for me.

steveko89

Though large when accounted in total the per day amount it likely within the margin of error for most people. For instance, 70 calories out of a hypothetical 2000 cal/day TDEE is only 3.5%. Even if you're on the small side or inactive that same 70 calories is 4.667% of a 1500 cal/day TDEE. Even for the most diligent of data collectors, there variability in the stated nutrition content (even on a per gram basis) that could easily incur that much variability.

Also, consider that most operate within a weight range when in maintenance and adjust accordingly when hitting the low or high end of that range. I would suggest operating on that same principle; pick a strategy for a given time, observe the weight effect and adjust if necessary.