"Stockpiling Calories"??

ZOOpergal

I searched this topic, but couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for. I hear people say that you can take unused calories that you haven't eaten through the week and use them on a single day, for whatever reason (Say Friday happy hour or something). They say this is "legit" and "withing the rules" so to speak. Does this sound right to you? To me it seems contrary to the way your body works, that if you eat it all at once you will store more fat compared to if you had spread the calories out for the week. Whatcha think?

Shuuma

I have issues with this train of thought, as well, but presumably, it's what you eat over the course of a week, rather than any one day that makes the difference in the long run. I'm not doubting that it works, but I doubt my body would be responsive. I also doubt that I'll be able to stop once I start, so I avoid this. I'm positive a LOT of people find it a very successful approach to weight loss.

I'm interested to hear others' views and experiences about this.

jwdieter

Doesn't sound optimal for energy levels or sustainability.

_Zardoz_

You make your own rules but personally if you cant fit a good mixture of foods including the odd bit of chocolate or alcohol in your normal daily calories then you calories are set too low, Stockpiling as you call it is not really teaching you good day to day habits in reality. Your choice though people do do it but in my experience they are the ones who don't keep the weight off long term

AshwinA7

I think this is the basic idea behind cheat days/meals.

Cheat days are basically just about eating back the calories you didn't eat during the week. People still lose weight while having them - I certainly have.

One one hand, it might encourage a "diet mentality" but on the other hand, when you were used to eating "cheat meals" every day as part of your normal diet, eating less (in my mind) is a form of moderation. So it can be very sustainable depending on your mindset and goals.

Also, your body doesn't have some magic counter that empties at midnight. It's constantly breaking down macronutrients for energy. This is part of the reason that I only measure once a week and consider a weekly calorie deficit of 3500 calories, not a strict daily deficit of 500 calories. This, I think, is a far more healthy mindset for weight loss.

AwesomeGuy37

Seems like a binging practice. I don't think it is healthy mentally. I also don't agree with the "treat yourself" or "cheat day" mentality.

YorriaRaine

A lot of people find they are hungry some days and less hungry others, so they have a weekly calorie goal rather than a daily one. I would not look at it like they are eating nothing some days and eating tons of food others. More than likely it is still relatively even, just lower some days, higher others.

If you look at both the NEAT and TDEE method, they are actually working with weekly goals, but break it down into daily ones for you.

Also, I find that if I know I'm going out to eat and just want to enjoy myself on the weekend, during the week I'll eat 100 or so calories less each day then the day of I eat light up until the event. This helps the week all even out in terms of keeping at a deficit.

McKenzieLeigh

I could see how this thinking could be very negative, but I sort of follow it.

Like the other night, my parents took my boys for the night so hubby and I went out for ice cream. It was late and not expected so I had not planned for it, but I refused to not have fun with my hubby so I ate ice cream. It put me way over my calories for they day, but when I pull up my weekly reports I was right at my goal for the week so in my opinion, I still created a deficit and I will still lose weight AND I got to eat a banana split! WIN WIN!!

I think using the "stockpile" per se to save for a special outing or to not be hard on yourself when you overeat is ok if you are still watching your weekly intake I guess. I think you just have to make sure you aren't eating so little during the other days so as to make yourself sick/weak/ or subject to unplanned binges.

hannahbanana0480

weight watchers follows this approach by assigning "flex points". I would say it's safe to do, as long as you're not eating too low the rest of the week or you can throw your metabolism out of the window.

suremeansyes

My husband and I have been doing it for years.

He lost 100 pounds and has maintained that loss for almost 6 years now.

Mr_Knight

Unless it's taken to an extreme (and humans *never* take things to extremes ) it's fine. The human body evolved to handled large swings in daily intake. It is, arguably, what it actually prefers.

MVY_

Seems like a binging practice. I don't think it is healthy mentally. I also don't agree with the "treat yourself" or "cheat day" mentality.

I agree with the comment above.

suremeansyes

And just to add, we don't feel we have a weird anguish about food or whatever. For US, if we fit something into our calorie budget for the day, it is easier to get off track and eat "a bite of something else" just a "piece of something else."

So, yeah, I take in a lot of calories on the weekend, and so does he. There is NO WAY I can "work in" 3 slices of pizza, some wings, and a 22 ounce beer into my regular day unless I stop eating after breakfast.

The cheat day mentality isn't unhealthy to us. We work out, we eat well during the week, and never feel guilty when the weekend is over. We are, however, ready to start Monday with a healthy breakfast. It works for us, I never knock people that can just work junk into their daily routine. That's awesome, it works for them. This works for us.

veganbaum

Many people zig-zag their calories, which is nearly the same concept - they are looking at weekly rather than daily goals.

When I was stuck in a legitimate plateua (as in months and months), I started "spiking," which was a form of zig-zagging in which three days of the week you eat to one goal , three days another goal, and on your rest day you would eat twice your BMR (exercise calories are somewhat accounted for in this method). There was a theory about how a spike day (2xBMR) helped with leptin levels that are lowered when restricting calories. Whether the science is there or not regarding leptin doesn't really matter to me as I wasn't doing it for that reason. It was the same concept as zig zagging, which I've seem a lot of people on MFP do successfully, so I thought I'd give it a shot. Interestingly enough, the number of calories I ate was pretty consistent with MFP's goal for me if I looked at total calories weekly, it was just set up in a different way.

Started losing again immediately and continued with that method for some time. This method worked for me because it helped keep me on track with clean, healthy eating during the week, then on my rest day (Saturday), I would often go out to a restaurant for lunch or dinner, have a breakfast of waffles, have a dessert treat, and the like and it all fit easily into my calories. I've suffered from binge eating, and this actually helped me NOT binge. Most of us who overeat have underlying psychological reasons for it, and we can all handle changes differently. For me, abstaining from certain things during the week actually kept me on track, and still does.

ETA: I never considered it a "cheat day." I kind of hate that phrase, though I know a lot of people like it and it works for them. There's no "cheating" of anything for me. Everything fit into my calories goals, I still had a healthy, balanced diet, so what was I "cheating/cheating on"? Nothing.

SezxyStef

I don't personally subscribe to it.

When I am done with my day it is done...

I do however look at weekly intake and if it's in the green or close to what I want I am happy.

Keeping in mind tho when I do go out....my plan is maintenance...and I don't see an issue with that to be frank.

I am close enough to my goal that an extra week or two wont kill me if I do go over maintenance on the weekends...

I keep track on a spreadsheet..and I just checked my average daily intake since June 17th when I started with MFP...it's 1764 TDEE-20% is 1600, even wtih my sisters bday out, harvest jazz and blues festival, my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and a week in Punta Cana where I gained 4lbs...

MeanderingMammal

I searched this topic, but couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for. I hear people say that you can take unused calories that you haven't eaten through the week and use them on a single day, for whatever reason (Say Friday happy hour or something). They say this is "legit" and "withing the rules" so to speak. Does this sound right to you? To me it seems contrary to the way your body works, that if you eat it all at once you will store more fat compared to if you had spread the calories out for the week. Whatcha think?

Your body processes the energy that you consume over a period of time, storing it in a number of different ways, including glycogen, fat, muscle and organ tissue. It then expends it, with the stored energy of various types depleting at different rates.

If you eat below your calorie goal then you start depleting stored energy, if you eat over then the excess energy gets stored. You don't get to choose how it's stored.

Depending on what you eat you'll note that the effects on you vary, simple sugars can go very quickly from intake to output, you'll note that if you take an energy gel you feel the effect quite quickly but if you have a large plate of pasta you won't notice the same surge, but you'll be better able to do a long CV session the following morning.

The net effect of all of that is that you can quite reasonably eat under goal for a few days, and then make up the balance in a single day.

The important thing is how you deal with that from a behavioural perspective. As noted upthread, some people need the discipline of sticking with the numbers, and the idea of varying day on day is something that they can't deal with. Others call it a cheat day, regardless of the fact that the only person that they can possibly cheat is themselves. It's semantic nonsense.

From a personal perspective, the days I go on a long run or ride there is no way that I can make up the balance later in the day. I end up with 1000 or so calories left over at the end of the day. That means that I'm not too worried if I go over by a hundred or so in the next couple of days.

wamydia

This is actually a pretty standard practice on programs like Weight Watchers. You get your daily goal, but then you have some extra weekly calories that you can spread out or use all in one sitting, your choice. The idea is to allow people to have more flexibility in how they eat since many people struggle more with their eating habits with they feel deprived of being allowed to go out for a good meal, have a nice dessert once in a while, etc. Just keep in mind that the practice is not meant to be used to say, only eat 800 calories a day all week and then eat 5000 calories in one sitting on Saturday. It's meant to be more of a eat a 1400 calories a day all week and then have 700 extra for a nice meal on Saturday. I think this is really a tool for dealing with the physchology of weight loss. It creates a way for people to enjoy special occassions and treats without actually "cheating" on their overall calorie goal for the week.

As far as how it works, I lost over 100lbs on Weight Watchers using this model. If you think about it mathematically, it does make sense. You work on the basis of a weekly calorie deficit to lose each week. If you lose a larger amount for 6 days and then run either no deficit or gain just a tiny bit on the last day, you are still losing at your goal amount each week. But, like all things, it should be done in moderation.

lebbyloses

I think it can be unhealthy, or rather can lead you to be unhealthy and get into a binge/restrict thing. I also think most of us do it to some extent and it works great.

Example:
I like the way I eat. I'm satisfied and feel good physically. It's easy on a daily basis. But there are special events, and there are days when I just want a giant meal for whatever reason. It happens. So if I know it will happen, like when I am looking forward to a special event, I eat a bit less before and after and don't worry about being off my plan for a day. You have to do something you can sustain for life, and one thing about life is that it is not the same every day. What I eat December 25 is not going to be the same as on March 5, so I have to find a way to make sure December 25 doesn't add on the pounds, you know?

jbee27

Seems like a binging practice. I don't think it is healthy mentally. I also don't agree with the "treat yourself" or "cheat day" mentality.

I agree with the comment above.

I disagree. I think it depends upon each person's relationship with food. I was never a binge-eater, but I certainly habitually ate too much. I see people talk about how they binge (or used to binge) on other threads, and it's incomprehensible to me.

I have cheat days. I don't do them weekly, and I don't treat them as an excuse to binge eat. They are simple a day when I choose not to track, knowing that I am far exceeding my calorie allowance. It allows me to enjoy life, and at certain social events to not be that annoying person on a diet.

loubidy

I know Scottish slimmers use this method "saving checks" but you don't want to be under eating at any point.

eyecandyrayce

I eat the total calories that MFP has set for me to drop 1 pound per week.
I work out 3 days a week for a minimum of 40 minutes and burn between 300-500 calories depending on the time I work out/what I do. At the end of the day, I don't eat those calories back.

Saturday comes and I continue to eat healthy except when dinner rolls around I go out on a date with my fiancee every single week and on sunday we eat out before he goes to work. This is something we do together and love doing. I go over my calories but log it and try to plan to eat only what I burned during the week though sometimes I go over that too.

Each week I weigh in and so far I have lost 1 to 1.5 pounds per week (usually 1.5).

This works for me and has helped to keep me from giving up. And as for this being "unhealthy" or "binge" behavior I disagree. I've never been a binge eater and if this works for me who says it isn't healthy? I would think it would be more unhealthy to try to do this lifestyle while denying what I need mentally and give up later just to gain the weight back which is what happened to me the first time I did this.

kgeyser

Seems like a binging practice. I don't think it is healthy mentally. I also don't agree with the "treat yourself" or "cheat day" mentality.

I agree with the comment above.

I disagree. I have a daily calorie deficit that allows me to lose a set amount of weight per week by cutting my daily calories by 500 calories. If I know I have a social event one week where I'm going to be eating a bunch of foods not in my normal routine, how is planning for the additional calories from those foods unhealthy mentally? By eating a little less in the days prior to the event or, gasp, throwing in an extra workout or two, I've created plenty of wiggle room that will allow me to enjoy myself that night and not completely blow my deficit for the week.

People who look at it from the standpoint of a weekly average do not starve themselves or eat very little during the week, then blow it all on a binge one day. If you think that's what it is about, then you don't understand how it works. It's more along the lines of "eating 50-100 calories less each day will net me 300-600 calories, so I could have wine and dessert with my otherwise on-target meal" or "two extra zumba classes this week and not eating those calories back will ensure that I can hit the buffet and just eyeball portion sizes at my sister's wedding, and either see no change in weight or lose a little less."

Doing this is no different then hitting the gym for an extra hard workout the day after going over calories, it's just planning on the front end instead of trying to undo damage after the fact. For some people, going over on calories is a shrug and move on thing; other people like to figure out a way to work those inevitable calorie-heavy days into their lives and still stay on track with their weight loss.

MyFoodGod

Know Thyself.

Age, eating history, metabolism, etc. can all play a role in our weight loss. I don't think there is one right answer.

DrJenO

I do weekly calories - I'm like the poster above that said they can't always eat all of their exercise calories each day.

If you use the phone app, there is a heading called "nutrition" (that you can also get to from the diary - click on the little pie graph @ the bottom right) that will show you weekly calories (there is a daily and a weekly @ the bottom left once you are on nutrition)

This only works if you are BRUTALLY honest w/ your tracking t/o the week.

cwolfman13

I searched this topic, but couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for. I hear people say that you can take unused calories that you haven't eaten through the week and use them on a single day, for whatever reason (Say Friday happy hour or something). They say this is "legit" and "withing the rules" so to speak. Does this sound right to you? To me it seems contrary to the way your body works, that if you eat it all at once you will store more fat compared to if you had spread the calories out for the week. Whatcha think?

If you are in a calorie deficit you cannot store the fat, so it doesn't matter from that standpoint.

My issue with this would be purely from a training standpoint. Dieting and training simultaneously is already pretty hard on your body...further depriving your body of nutrition to stock pile calories for later would pretty much negate your training session...bye bye fitness gains.

eatspopcorn

I think its a personal preference. If you plan for it, the end result will most likely stay in your favor rather than not planning, slipping and going so far over your daily goal that you lose any progress you made before.

I don't personally practice this, but I'm glad the math works out this way. A few days ago I had a really bad day and ate about 800 kcals over my limit. I was able to burn those through exercise but also because looking at it from a week standpoint I was still in a deficit, I still lost 2lbs over that week period.

If I did regularly incorporate a 'cheat day', I would probably consider it the start of my week though. Weighing in officially once a week, I wouldn't want my weigh-in to be the day after heavy calories. I retain water like a beast if I consume too much sodium!

eatspopcorn

If you use the phone app, there is a heading called "nutrition" (that you can also get to from the diary - click on the little pie graph @ the bottom right) that will show you weekly calories (there is a daily and a weekly @ the bottom left once you are on nutrition)

I did not know this existed! Thank you!

AwesomeGuy37

Seems like a binging practice. I don't think it is healthy mentally. I also don't agree with the "treat yourself" or "cheat day" mentality.

I agree with the comment above.

I disagree. I have a daily calorie deficit that allows me to lose a set amount of weight per week by cutting my daily calories by 500 calories. If I know I have a social event one week where I'm going to be eating a bunch of foods not in my normal routine, how is planning for the additional calories from those foods unhealthy mentally? By eating a little less in the days prior to the event or, gasp, throwing in an extra workout or two, I've created plenty of wiggle room that will allow me to enjoy myself that night and not completely blow my deficit for the week.

People who look at it from the standpoint of a weekly average do not starve themselves or eat very little during the week, then blow it all on a binge one day. If you think that's what it is about, then you don't understand how it works. It's more along the lines of "eating 50-100 calories less each day will net me 300-600 calories, so I could have wine and dessert with my otherwise on-target meal" or "two extra zumba classes this week and not eating those calories back will ensure that I can hit the buffet and just eyeball portion sizes at my sister's wedding, and either see no change in weight or lose a little less."

Doing this is no different then hitting the gym for an extra hard workout the day after going over calories, it's just planning on the front end instead of trying to undo damage after the fact. For some people, going over on calories is a shrug and move on thing; other people like to figure out a way to work those inevitable calorie-heavy days into their lives and still stay on track with their weight loss.

The obsession you have with numbers is unhealthy mentally.

bestmeicanbe84

I've noticed that I was doing this unintentionally. I'm just naturally hungrier on the weekends or a little more spontaneous. I usually have some calories left over during the week so I use them on the weekends. So far it has not hindered my weight loss.

eyecandyrayce

The obsession you have with numbers is unhealthy mentally.

Are you a psychiatrist? I really do get sick of seeing people on this site tell other people they are mentally unhealthy. It's almost abusive. You are deciding someone has a flaw and you are pointing it out to them when you have no background on them at all.

We are counting calories. That is the entire purpose of MFP. It is about numbers.

David_AUS

From personal experience - You can generally swing calories over a 48 hour period (if you know you are heading to a "big night" - as long as the ig night is not excessive alcohol as this really knocks fat loss around) you can "save" calories over a short period. The "over a week" fits into the cheat/treat day mentality - early in weight loss my personal preference is once every 10 days (so stretch to two weeks) and you can have a day where calories are twice what you normally would have and still see good weigh loss overall.

This "binge battle" I will call it for want of a better term is more psychological (break) than physiological - The laws of physics still apply that over all weight change is based on the simple formula Energy in = Energy out - as long as on average overall your are in calorie deficit you will lose weight (pending your exercise / activity this will be primarily from a combination of fat and muscle and retained water).