Eat less on some days to make up for others?

pcon1212

My MFP is set to 1200 calories a day. I wear a FitBit and usually eat back all the calories I get from that. Twice this past week I have not eaten the full 1200 calories per day. I have been 100-200 under. However, two other days this week I was over my calories by about 400 per day (after eating back the exercise calories). I lost weight this week but of course I got the message that I shouldn't eat less than 1200 calories a day. A couple of days here and there, does it really make a difference, particularly if I eat more the next day? My body isn't looking at the clock after all.

Stage14

Generally speaking, going by a weekly average works better for people, rather than a strict day to day calorie goal. However, when your goal is as low as 1200, you want to make sure you're getting proper nutrition. I don't think it will hurt you to zigzag your calories throughout the week, but you should make sure that you're meeting your basic nutrient requirements more or less every day.

MB_Positif

This is fine.

juleszephyr

Has it occurred to you that unless you are completely OCD with weighing and measuring your food that you probably aren't that accurate with your cal count anyway. Even the most careful logger will probably be 10% out for their daily intake so I think you are totally overthinking the whole thing.

Track your cals and exercise and if you are losing weight don't sweat the tiny details. If it's working it's working. Try not to under eat drastically on a regular basis but your body doesn't have the 24hr clock ticking away saying 'its gone midnight - lets go back to 1200 for the day'!!

It sounds like what you are doing is working so keep going.

MityMax96

Generally speaking, going by a weekly average works better for people, rather than a strict day to day calorie goal. However, when your goal is as low as 1200, you want to make sure you're getting proper nutrition. I don't think it will hurt you to zigzag your calories throughout the week, but you should make sure that you're meeting your basic nutrient requirements more or less every day.

I agree your 1200 is prolly to low for you....
But that being said, on a weekly total that is 8400 calories.
So if you are hitting around that mark for the week, then you are prolly gonna do fine...

But damn, that is low.

ninerbuff

Fine as long as you're meeting macro/micronutrient profiles. Still need essentials.

A.C.E. Certified Personal/Group FitnessTrainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition

Deipneus

Has it occurred to you that unless you are completely OCD with weighing and measuring your food that you probably aren't that accurate with your cal count anyway. Even the most careful logger will probably be 10% out for their daily intake so I think you are totally overthinking the whole thing.

Agreed. I used to be ridiculously precise with my logging until I researched how they actually come up with the calorie estimates for the labels. That was eye-opening. I'd be surprised if the +/- accuracy is even 10%. I bet it's much higher, and that's before we take into account the imprecision of our measurements.

Still, I think the premise of the OP and others is correct: We don't need to HIT a daily caloric goal, we need to AVERAGE that over time.

BenjaminMFP88

I've always found it best to look at the average for the whole week. That being said, I do my best to never fluctuate more then 10-20% past my caloric allowance. This is what has worked for me through all fitness seasons.

However, since you are already at very low caloric allowance, boarderline questionable, be really careful to not go to crazy with this approach. If you allow yourself 1200 calories per day, and lets say, eat 1800, don't just eat 600 the following day to make up for this. Spread the deficit over a few days if you feel so inclined. Just don't over do it.

AlongCame_Molly

If you want. it's all about a calorie deficit over an extended period of time, so do that however you feel works best for you.

That said, DO make sure 1200 is enough for you. MFP is quite notorious for setting calories goals FAR too low, regardless of height and weight. For example, it told me to eat 1200, and my BMR (the bare amount of calories I need to LIVE) is 1280. And I am extremely tiny, only 5 feet. So unless you are smaller than me, or wheelchair-bound, it is almost a CERTAINTY that you are eating too little. (This can result in lean muscle loss, chronic fatigue, metabolism damage, and bingeing due to over-restriction.)

got to

http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

and enter your height/weight/activity level.

Subtract 20% from the number it calculates for you, and that is the number of calories you should be eating a day in order to lose weight.

Good luck!

pcon1212

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

WalkingAlong

I agree that averaging is the way to go. I hate to see people advising others to force in spoonfuls of peanut butter to hit some calorie floor for the day. Why not listen to your body instead and eat more on the days you're more hungry and less on the days you're not? Sure, listening to our bodies got us fat but there are different signals and we can learn to differentiate true hunger from boredom eating, etc. When you start treating your body like its signals don't matter (as much as MFP's messages) you're training yourself to ignore its signals.

AlongCame_Molly

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

Make sure you understand how NET calories work. If you are eating 1200 hundred and burning 400 and eating those back, you are not really eating 1600, you are pretty much still only getting 1200 calories of nutrients. If you burn them off, they don't go to nourishing the body, does that make sense? You are still probably undereating. I highly recommend checking out the link I posted. It will really help, trust me.

AlongCame_Molly

I agree that averaging is the way to go. I hate to see people advising others to force in spoonfuls of peanut butter to hit some calorie floor for the day. Why not listen to your body instead and eat more on the days you're more hungry and less on the days you're not? Sure, listening to our bodies got us fat but there are different signals and we can learn to differentiate true hunger from boredom eating, etc. When you start treating your body like its signals don't matter (as much as MFP's messages) you're training yourself to ignore its signals.

I've never heard of anyone "forcing" peanut butter down. :laugh: "Hoovering", maybe.

pcon1212

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

Make sure you understand how NET calories work. If you are eating 1200 hundred and burning 400 and eating those back, you are not really eating 1600, you are pretty much still only getting 1200 calories of nutrients. If you burn them off, they don't go to nourishing the body, does that make sense? You are still probably undereating. I highly recommend checking out the link I posted. It will really help, trust me.

It told me my TDEE is 1706. I subtracted 340 giving me 1365. So this is my base, rather than the 1200 and exercise calories should be eaten on top of that?

Thanks!

Stage14

What are your stats (height/weight/age)? If you're working out daily, that TDEE seems a little low.

pcon1212

What are your stats (height/weight/age)? If you're working out daily, that TDEE seems a little low.

I'm 5'3", 170lbs, and 38. I have a desk job but try to fit in a 2 mile walk at lunch daily.

WalkingAlong

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

Make sure you understand how NET calories work. If you are eating 1200 hundred and burning 400 and eating those back, you are not really eating 1600, you are pretty much still only getting 1200 calories of nutrients. If you burn them off, they don't go to nourishing the body, does that make sense? You are still probably undereating. I highly recommend checking out the link I posted. It will really help, trust me.

I know MFP's weird 'netting' method encourages this type of thinking but I don't understand how it could be interpreted that you are 'not really eating 1600' and are only getting 1200 worth of nutrients. If you burn 2000 calories a day through your RMR doing no 'workout' and eat 1600, do those 1600 calories all 'count' toward your day's nutrients? But if you burn 1600 through RMR and do a 400 calorie workout, 400 of your intake doesn't count toward your nutrients? In both cases there is a 400 calorie deficit. Why would some of my non-deficit calories 'count' in some cases but not in others? The protein, fat and carb grams in that 400 calories of food that doesn't count under the workout scenario are in my body. I understand that maybe the 400 doesn't 'count' to my MFP goal but to my body...?

WalkingAlong

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

Make sure you understand how NET calories work. If you are eating 1200 hundred and burning 400 and eating those back, you are not really eating 1600, you are pretty much still only getting 1200 calories of nutrients. If you burn them off, they don't go to nourishing the body, does that make sense? You are still probably undereating. I highly recommend checking out the link I posted. It will really help, trust me.

It told me my TDEE is 1706. I subtracted 340 giving me 1365. So this is my base, rather than the 1200 and exercise calories should be eaten on top of that?

Thanks!

No, if you used a TDEE calculator exercise calories shouldn't be eaten on top of the 1365 (80% of your TDEE). I agree this is a much more sane way to go than the MFP way. Though those calculators can give a wide range of TDEE estimates, depending on how you characterize your activity. That one gives me values from 1600-2600, depending on how I describe my activity level. At 1706, you probably went pretty conservative with the activity estimate. I don't know what constitutes a 'workout' for them. Is a 2-mile walk a 'workout'? Hard to tell for sure.

ThriceBlessed

I always average my totals for the week. There are weeks when I go out to eat one day and then cut a little from all other days to meet my average... however, I usually average around 1600 calories a day, I may net less than that since I don't always worry about eating back every exercise calorie... I just eat around 1600-1800 and work out and whatever I net is fine, but like I said, I do go by averages, there have been weeks when I ate over 2000 on one day and then kept all other days below 1400 to make my average.

WinoGelato

If you are using a FitBit, you really shouldn't need the calculator to estimate your TDEE, the FitBit is tracking that for you. Your total calories burned in a day is essentially your TDEE. If you look at a weekly, two-week, or monthly average of your total calories burned on the FitBit website then that is your TDEE. Then if you want to take your calorie deficit of 20% from that, then that is your daily goal.

Here is where it gets a little confusing, I think, how to set up MFP and FitBit to work together properly. You want to get your activity levels, calorie goals, and weight loss goals as close to each other as possible on both systems so that you don't have big adjustments on MFP from FitBit. You probably have yourself set as Sedentary on MFP now because of your job (I did too) but when I started looking at how many calories I was burning on average from my FitBit, compared to what MFP estimated for me with Sedentary, they were very far off. I was getting huge adjustments of calories to try to eat back.

I changed my MFP setting to Lightly Active because I also try to walk over lunch breaks, go to the gym a few times a week, and chase after two very active kids. If you change your MFP activity level and then put in that you want to maintain - it will tell you a daily calorie goal. This is what MFP "thinks" your TDEE is. Then you can compare that to your average Calories Burned from your FitBit and see if they are close. If they are, then the activity level is probably right. If they are still pretty far off, you may want to bump up to a higher activity level in MFP again and see what that gives you.

Then, once you kind of have that number in mind of what MFP is telling you is your daily TDEE, then you can take your average TDEE from FitBit and subtract the 20% to see what you should be eating on a daily basis. Then you can manually adjust your calorie goal in MFP to that new setting. Set your FitBit up then to whatever weight loss rate you are looking for (0.5, 1, or 2 lbs per week) and the numbers should start to be closer together in both systems. You may have to play with this over the next few weeks to get them as close as possible.

Anyway, this is what I have worked out over a few months of having my FitBit and now I trust that pretty implicitly, whereas when I was trying to use the MFP exercise estimates and eat everything back I was not confident in the numbers. I've adjusted the goals a couple of times to get it right but I think it is pretty close, at the end of the day now my calories left in MFP are usually within 50 of Fitbit, before they were off by 100 or more.

Good luck!

WalkingAlong

You can also just ignore the MFP calorie goals and use MFP to log your food and use the Fitbit site's goals to direct your calorie levels. Or better yet just look at your long term average burn on Fitbit and if it's say 1900, try to average 1400 in intake, if you want to average one pound a week losses. Both sites can be confusing.

WinoGelato

You can also just ignore the MFP calorie goals and use MFP to log your food and use the Fitbit site's goals to direct your calorie levels. Or better yet just look at your long term average burn on Fitbit and if it's say 1900, try to average 1400 in intake, if you want to average one pound a week losses. Both sites can be confusing.

^this is a much more succinct way of saying what I was trying to say. I have basically stopped using MFP for calorie goals and just go by what FitBit says I have left at the end of the day. I use MFP to track food only.

pcon1212

Wow! Thanks everyone! Very helpful information. I'm going to go check on my FitBit account and see how well it syncs up with MFP and/or just follow the FitBit's calorie goals.

Stage14

With 1-3 hours a week of light exercise, I got your TDEE as 2071 and your calorie goal as 1656. The TDEE method counts your exercise into the average.

As far as the fitbit, realize that it may not be the best estimator of TDEE. You can use it as a starting point, but be prepared to adjust your calories up or down, as the FitBit doesn't track intensity or heart rate and can have false steps added if you ride in a vehicle for a length of time.

c8linmarie

Has it occurred to you that unless you are completely OCD with weighing and measuring your food that you probably aren't that accurate with your cal count anyway. Even the most careful logger will probably be 10% out for their daily intake so I think you are totally overthinking the whole thing.

Agreed. I used to be ridiculously precise with my logging until I researched how they actually come up with the calorie estimates for the labels. That was eye-opening. I'd be surprised if the +/- accuracy is even 10%. I bet it's much higher, and that's before we take into account the imprecision of our measurements.

Still, I think the premise of the OP and others is correct: We don't need to HIT a daily caloric goal, we need to AVERAGE that over time.

I was the same way in regard to how precise my calories were logged. But after coming to the realization that my on-body calorie counting device probably over-estimated my burns and the food label were often wildly inaccurate, I decided to do the opposite and over-estimate calories consumed and under-estimate calories burned. My losses have been more consistent since I started doing this.

That said, I usually look at it on a weekly basis, and not daily. Our bodies don't reset at midnight like my Fitbit does :laugh:

janicelo1971

I agree that averaging is the way to go. I hate to see people advising others to force in spoonfuls of peanut butter to hit some calorie floor for the day. Why not listen to your body instead and eat more on the days you're more hungry and less on the days you're not? Sure, listening to our bodies got us fat but there are different signals and we can learn to differentiate true hunger from boredom eating, etc. When you start treating your body like its signals don't matter (as much as MFP's messages) you're training yourself to ignore its signals.

THIS>>>>> I go by weekly average.....MUCH easier and makes more sense to me

WalkingAlong

With 1-3 hours a week of light exercise, I got your TDEE as 2071 and your calorie goal as 1656. The TDEE method counts your exercise into the average.

As far as the fitbit, realize that it may not be the best estimator of TDEE. You can use it as a starting point, but be prepared to adjust your calories up or down, as the FitBit doesn't track intensity or heart rate and can have false steps added if you ride in a vehicle for a length of time.

I'm kind of similar to the OP in age, desk job and that I walk 2-3 miles a day for exercise. I used a Fitbit for a year once, tracking everything I ate, and my deficits based on the Fitbit TDEE predicted I should lose around 35 lbs., which is what I did lose. So for me it's accurate or else I under/overestimate food in pretty much an equal and opposite level as the Fitbit under/overestimates my TDEE. I never had a problem with driving 'steps' but I know some do.

AlongCame_Molly

Thanks everyone! Just for clarification, I don't normally eat 1200 a day. MFP sets it at that but I gain about 400 calories a day back from my FitBit activity and I normally eat that so most days I am eating about 1600 calories.

Make sure you understand how NET calories work. If you are eating 1200 hundred and burning 400 and eating those back, you are not really eating 1600, you are pretty much still only getting 1200 calories of nutrients. If you burn them off, they don't go to nourishing the body, does that make sense? You are still probably undereating. I highly recommend checking out the link I posted. It will really help, trust me.

It told me my TDEE is 1706. I subtracted 340 giving me 1365. So this is my base, rather than the 1200 and exercise calories should be eaten on top of that?

Thanks!

YES!

SLLRunner

It's the average at the end of the week that counts. You are eating your exercise calories back, which equals around 1600 calories on the workout days, but less on the non-workout days.

Heck yeah, take 100 -200 calories from a few of those days and eat them on your non-workout days.

I work out almost every day, but if I know I won't work out on Saturday or Sunday, I save up some extra calories for that day. It wokrs out fine.

WalkingAlong

TDEE is typically supposed to be your TOTAL daily energy expenditure. So calcing it without 'exercise', subtracting 20% and then adding back your 'exercise' calories is kind of odd. I've never seen anyone else do that here. It's kind of the worst of both worlds.