MFP CALORIES FOR AGE AND HEIGHT

Lessennan

Being stupid probably but
I’m allowed 1280 calories per day, should I eat them each day
OR
Is it okay to eat short during the week and save for the weekend?

Must I increase food intake if I do exercise exercise (planned walking or exercise bike for example)
Can I count hoovering and window cleaning (just my own windows) as exercise?

Lessennan

I track everything, well usually

springlering62

Lessennan wrote: »

I track everything, well usually

You should track everything. Things you don’t track have a tendency to sneak up on you and sabotage what you did track.

So, did you Hoover and clean windows before you started MFP? Still gained weight? I thought so. Then why would you count that as exercise?

Exercise should be something you do over and above your daily routine. I’m planning to get down on my hands and knees when the painters are gone and scrub my engineered floors by hand. I could count that as exercise since that’s not something I normally do, but I won’t.

You can get so wrapped up in the minutiae of recording this and that as exercise that you’ll have wasted previous time you could have simply gone for a walk.

Lietchi

Lessennan wrote: »

Being stupid probably but
I’m allowed 1280 calories per day, should I eat them each day
OR
Is it okay to eat short during the week and save for the weekend?

You don't need to be exact every day. You can 'bank calories' (eat a bit less) during the week and eat a bit more on the weekend. It's fine as long as your average intake over the week is around your calorie goal.

Lietchi

Lietchi wrote: »

Lessennan wrote: »

Being stupid probably but
I’m allowed 1280 calories per day, should I eat them each day
OR
Is it okay to eat short during the week and save for the weekend?

You don't need to be exact every day. You can 'bank calories' (eat a bit less) during the week and eat a bit more on the weekend. It's fine as long as your average intake over the week is around your calorie goal.

Just to add : your calorie goal is very low already, so probably not a good idea to go a LOT lower during the week or you might end up binging instead of just having a more indulgent weekend.

sijomial

I’m allowed 1280 calories per day.
- You got that number partly because of the rate of loss YOU picked. That rate is a choice but has consequences, pick a fast rate of loss and you get a small eating goal. It's not MyFitnessPal telling you that number is the only number you must use.

Is it okay to eat short during the week and save for the weekend?
- A weekly allowance is generally fine but you are starting from a tiny number that you really doesn't give you much wiggle room.

Must I increase food intake if I do exercise exercise (planned walking or exercise bike for example)?
- Yes you really should. All sensible ways of calorie counting take your exercise into account, they just do it differently but if you are attempting to count calories that should take significant exercise into account. Maybe those exercise calories are the ones you might think of banking for the weekend?

Can I count hoovering and window cleaning (just my own windows) as exercise?
- No that's part of your activity setting. It's not just your job you should take into account (despite the poor descriptions given!), it's what you do in all your waking hours.

A very common mistake on here is for people to pick the most aggressive rate of weight loss, ignore their exercise calorie expenditure and pick the lowest activity setting whether it's justified or not.
Guess what? It's also very, very common for people to make a hard job even harder than it has to be and then fail and give up.
Have a really good think about what is sustainable.