Banking exercise calories? - ex WW'ers please read :)

kidznpupz1

I am a veteran of WW and have also had some success with MFP
One of the things that makes WW easy for me is that you can save (or bank) your exercise to use for the weekend or an indulgence like an ice cream cone for example. Is there a way not use your exercise on a given day and save it?
I have lost quite a bit of weight and am now down to the final 10 lol. I'm 60 years old, female and short - so I don't expect it to be easy. Just looking for a way to plan my calories in an effective way. BTW I get 1200 a day. The thing about WW is that they seem to have a plan for every scenario with weekly points and exercise points. My question is how do you plan with MFP to make your calories workable so you don't feel like a failure whenever you have to go above your 1200 calorie limit

loseitforlifetwarner

I think I can help you with this one. In WW, if you don't use your exercise points during that week, you lose them. Treat it the same way here on MFP. If you have earned extra calories in exercise, let's say Monday -Friday and then you have a dinner out where you may go over on Saturday, I think you will be okay. I think it works on the same principal in that respect. That's my two cents anyway.

Momjogger

I look at my calories in a weekly frame instead of daily just like WW does and it works just fine.

WalkingAlong

I look at my calories in a weekly frame instead of daily just like WW does and it works just fine.

Same here. If you go in Reports, you can view charts of your historic calories and other items. Mine just oscillates around my goal line.

If you prefer to not vary your daily intake except for having more from saved-up exercise, I think you might be best off tracking that on paper, maybe? I mean, how much exercise calories you've 'earned'. Bear in mind, in WW you only are eating back a max of half of what you burn, because of the definition of Activity Points. Not that you need to do that here but if you wanted to do it just like that, you'd eat back half.

RUNNING_AMOK_1958

Yes. I routinely go over and under daily depending on how hungry I am. It's called zigzagging. I think it's crazy to eat the same number of calories each day because some days you're hungrier than other days. It's the weekly net that counts. As for feeling like a failure, just stop doing that. I'm 55, 5'1" and reached my goal of 125 the first of June eating 1400 calories, so it's not impossible.

mathandcats

If I know I'm going out for dinner the next day or something, I will eat under my goal that day, say by 200 calories. Then, in my exercise log for the next day, I log 1 minute of some form of exercise, manually set the burn to 200 cal, and record that this is banked calories in the notes section of my food diary. It works fine for me.