Calories on rest days

If I am on a rest day, I stay under my calorie goal. Try to find lower calorie but filling foods. I love making a salad with avocado and hard boiled egg, that is filling to me. Increase water consumption.

And how much are you going over? If its just a bit, I don't see a big deal.

Which method have you use to compute calories - MFP or TDEE. I assume it is MFP. You can try re-calculating your calorie intake using TDEE, which considers your activity level also. This is for entire week or an average for the amount of workout you do across the week. So you have a specific calorie limit if you workout 2-3 days a week or 4-5 days a week.

1270 is quite low is what I feel, but that's my thought. When you use TDEE, you dont eat back your workout calories as they are already accounted in. You can go through the below link and see what is your calorie intake:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/974889-in-place-of-a-road-map-short-n-sweet

Hope this helps!

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I find Scoobys calculator very high. Try this one. It's very accurate. Use the Miffin-St Jeor method. http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/

You're right about that! I just did my calculations on the IIFYM site and it seems more realistic to me. Funny, even though I've selected the Miffin-St Jeor method for both I am getting drastically different numbers. I would stick with the IIFYM calculator.

Thanks for the info; didn't realize there would be such a difference.

I haven't come that far (newbie here!), but my plan is:

I have my calories set to maintenance, on my rest days I plan to eat around 300-500 under maintenance and on training days I plan on eating to maintenance.

I'm doing it like this because right now I don't understand the logging of exercise properly.

Scooby and IIFYM gave me similar numbers, about 20 calories difference. I'm eating right between them.

OP, if you're having trouble sticking to your calories on rest days, that might be a sign your calorie goal is too low. Use the sights other posters have mentioned as a guide and consider adjusting your calories to a number you can stick to that still puts you at a deficit.

Make sure, too, that you don't have your weekly goal set too high on here. Unless you have more than 75 pounds to lose, you shouldn't set it to 2 pounds a week. If you have 10-20 to lose, it should only be .5 pound a week. Choosing the right setting for your weight loss goals should give you a manageable number of calories.

I find days off to be overrated and unnecessary. I’m sure everyone has heard of the caveman diet. While I don’t agree with that diet, I do like the mindset. What do you think would happen to a caveman if he took a rest day? He would likely be eaten. To that end I use strict isolation in my workout plans. I strength train every day and I probably only miss on average of two days a month of cardio. I’ve been doing that for years and haven’t found any downside. If you have access to a pool, swimming laps is a very good way to break up your cardio routine. If not mixing running or elliptical with some other type of aerobic activity will work.
All that said look at the big picture. If you still want your rest day and you go over your calorie limit on those days it’s not the end of the world. Just be sure that you are more than making up for it on the days when you work out. You won’t want to take in so few calories that your metabolism shuts down on you. I’ve dieted too heavily, down to around 800 calories a day and my metabolism shut down to the point where my body hair fell out. You will still lose weight like that but it’s not healthy and may not even be the fastest way to reach you weight loss goal.
Good luck…

My calorie goal is set to 1270, and there's no way I could eat that little so I usually eat back my exercise calories. But on rest days, I don't work out, so I usually go over my calorie goal. I want to make sure I'm sufficiently replenishing my body, but not messing up all the work I did over the week.

What do you guys do about calorie goals on rest days?

If your weight loss goal is 2 pounds per week, try setting it at one. If your activity level is set at sedentary and you do more than just sit around playing video games all day, move it up to the next activity level and try that for 2 or 3 weeks. It is likely you are not truly sedentary as most people are not.

Like alot of people have suggested on here, if you struggle with you calorie goal on rest day you might be better served to use the TDEE method and average you burn across the week giving you the same goal every day.