Weekly calorie counters...or what to do with daily deficits?

acarmon55
acarmon55 Posts: 135 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I recently rejoined MFP. I have been doing 1200 calories but changed that to 1330 after decreasing the amount lost per week to 1 pound. I exercise frequently (especially this week since school was out due to snow) on my treadmill. I am consistently in a deficit daily. This week adds up to a little over 1800 calories. What do you all do when you have this much left over? I know exercise calories aren't 100% accurate but I have taken that into account. For example, when I was on the treadmill for 1 hour and 45 minutes yesterday, I actually did almost 9 miles (running and walking together no less that 4 mph and up to 7 at times) the treadmill says over 1300 calories burned and my phone says 811 so i went with the lesser of the two. So what would you do with the excess? Ignore it and continue to do daily like always or eat more or have a splurge night tonight for working so hard all week?

Stats: 5'10.5" weighed last a little over a week ago at 155.8 (I don't have my own scale and weigh at work)

Replies

  • acarmon55
    acarmon55 Posts: 135 Member
    Any opinions?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    Daily deficits are what you eat to loose weight. MFP give you the calories to eat (deficit) and you are too eat back a portion of your exercise calories. I would be careful on eating back all those calories your Phone and the machine gives you, it can be as much as 40 to 50 off. You decide how many exercise calories you eat back..

    If you are asking about banking your deficit calories from MFP, not sure how you loose weight eating these back, this what you are to eat to loose weight, unless I am missing something here.
  • maxit
    maxit Posts: 880 Member
    At that height and weight, I am wondering why you are eating at a deficit at all.
  • kami3006
    kami3006 Posts: 4,979 Member
    gia07 wrote: »
    Daily deficits are what you eat to loose weight. MFP give you the calories to eat (deficit) and you are too eat back a portion of your exercise calories. I would be careful on eating back all those calories your Phone and the machine gives you, it can be as much as 40 to 50 off. You decide how many exercise calories you eat back..

    If you are asking about banking your deficit calories from MFP, not sure how you loose weight eating these back, this what you are to eat to loose weight, unless I am missing something here.

    I think the OP means deficit beyond what is already accounted for by the goal you have mfp. I used a weekly total for losing and now for maintaining. I follow the "net average" listed under the nutrition section of the app. Or just keep a running total of how much I'm under. So, yeah, I've always made a point of eating them. I didn't want to lose faster than my half pound a week goal and I didn't want my workouts to suffer.
  • bspringer544
    bspringer544 Posts: 155 Member
    I would say it depends on your rate of loss and whether or not you're happy with it. If you find you're losing too fast and don't want a reward day then try eating more calories each day. Or just take the reward day to eat what and as much as you want.

    The rule of thumb that anyone will tell you on MFP is to eat 50-75% of your exercise burns back, preferably on the day you burned them.
  • Mavrick_RN
    Mavrick_RN Posts: 439 Member
    gia07 wrote: »
    Daily deficits are what you eat to loose weight. MFP give you the calories to eat (deficit) and you are too eat back a portion of your exercise calories. I would be careful on eating back all those calories your Phone and the machine gives you, it can be as much as 40 to 50 off. You decide how many exercise calories you eat back..

    If you are asking about banking your deficit calories from MFP, not sure how you loose weight eating these back, this what you are to eat to loose weight, unless I am missing something here.

    You have over 3,000 posts and still using loose instead of lose?
  • acarmon55
    acarmon55 Posts: 135 Member
    kami3006 wrote: »
    gia07 wrote: »
    Daily deficits are what you eat to loose weight. MFP give you the calories to eat (deficit) and you are too eat back a portion of your exercise calories. I would be careful on eating back all those calories your Phone and the machine gives you, it can be as much as 40 to 50 off. You decide how many exercise calories you eat back..

    If you are asking about banking your deficit calories from MFP, not sure how you loose weight eating these back, this what you are to eat to loose weight, unless I am missing something here.

    I think the OP means deficit beyond what is already accounted for by the goal you have mfp. I used a weekly total for losing and now for maintaining. I follow the "net average" listed under the nutrition section of the app. Or just keep a running total of how much I'm under. So, yeah, I've always made a point of eating them. I didn't want to lose faster than my half pound a week goal and I didn't want my workouts to suffer.

    I did mean after the exercise calories. I eat what MFP suggests, but have excess because of my excercise and that is after eating some of them back. As I mentioned, I already enter a lower amount of calories for the exercise. Based on a calorie burned calculator I should have burned over 1000 but I only listed 811. This helps me. Thanks.
  • acarmon55
    acarmon55 Posts: 135 Member
    maxit wrote: »
    At that height and weight, I am wondering why you are eating at a deficit at all.

    Everyone has their own opinions about what they would like in themself. I will take thus as a compliment though, thanks.
  • AggieFan2011
    AggieFan2011 Posts: 551 Member
    Personally, I often eat back my workout calories that day so I don't usually have large deficits at the end of the week. That's also because I am just starting back up though so my body isn't used to eating a reduced amount of calories, annnddd I'm kind of a snackaholic. Haha However, when I was getting decent sized deficits the first time I did the MFP thing I would usually just see it as extra weight loss. (Yay!) Sometimes though when I knew I would be out of town that weekend or have plans that would make me want to splurge, I would use that "storage" to account for the extra calories I wanted to eat that weekend and enjoy myself.

    Honestly though I think it's a personal choice of how you want to use them. You're already eating at a deficit on MFP if you set it up to lose weight each week. So you should still lose that weight if you eat back the calories; however, you can lose more weight (from my experience) if you don't, within reason of course. So I say figure out what works for you and makes sense in your head and do that. :smile:

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