Banking Calories

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  • immortalities
    immortalities Posts: 117 Member
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    honkytonks85 wrote: »
    I save calories and go out for dinner on a Saturday night (for example). I don't feel bad cos I still maintained an overall deficit.

    Oh and I should add, I have set up my diary now so that my goal is set to "maintain" and rather than aim for meeting a target I aim for having green numbers at the end. I felt like it was too hard trying to hit the same target every day because that's not what my life is like.

    This is what I've been trying and it's working so far so fingers crossed that the dinners out don't ruin it! :smile: This seems the best way for me.
  • immortalities
    immortalities Posts: 117 Member
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    jcim1ru wrote: »
    Weight is going to fluctuate some even if your math is perfect because your math is all based on approximations. You approximate your calorie burn, you approximate your calorie intake and your body processes all of it differently every day depending on mood and other factors.

    I don't think of banking anything, or stocking up, having something in advance, etc. If I know that I may splurge on vacation I have two choices - get ahead of it before I go, or overcome it when I return.

    You've successfully lost weight, if you did that through eating practices and exercise you should be able to apply those same principals whenever the scale shows you a number you're not happy with.

    I overheard a conversation at a family gathering that went something like this:

    "I really need to get back on track after the holidays, I've put on nearly 5 pounds."

    "Ha, what's 5 pounds? I've got 40+ I need to lose, I wouldn't worry about just 5 pounds".

    "If I don't worry about the 5 pounds now, it will become 6, then 7, then more. Five pounds is 5 pounds and I need to lose it while its still easy to lose."


    She made a lot of sense. Weight is easy to lose if you catch it before it truly becomes a part of you. I call them 'fluff" pounds. Easy on, easy off.

    So my advice is watch the scale each week, if it goes up, nip it in the bud. If it goes down, don't go hog wild, it'll balance out sooner than you think.

    I understand that it will fluctuate and I have a sort of 5lbs window that I'm happy for my weight to stay between. :smile:
  • immortalities
    immortalities Posts: 117 Member
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    healthy_life2015 wrote: »
    One note on your calculation...you multiplied 1500 by 4, should be multiplied by 5.

    Calories you eat:
    1500 x 5 = 7500
    1600 x 2 = 3200
    Total = 10,700

    Calories you burn:
    500 x 2 = 10,000

    So that only gives you an extra 700 to play with, not 3000

    I would say to try it out and see how it works. While you're on maintenance, you could get lax about tracking so the 1500 is actually 1700. 500 calories an hour burned also seems really high. So if you see the pounds creep back, you just need to know why.

    Ahh, I didn't mean I would have an "extra" 3000 cals, I meant for that day I would have 3000 cals i.e. my 1600 recommended cals plus the 1000 I "earned" through exercise and the 400 cals I didn't use on the four days I ate 1500 but now I've confused myself.

    I understand that these are just approximations even though I'm pretty strict with my logging and that nothing is 100% accurate here but I just wanted yo have a clearer view on the idea of banking calories :)
  • immortalities
    immortalities Posts: 117 Member
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    peter56765 wrote: »
    When I was losing weight, I never tried banking but now that I'm in maintenance, I do it during the week so that I can enjoy the weekends without obsessing over "seeing red". In fact, I don't log my food on weekends anymore but make educated guesses and just do a Quick Add.

    I still weigh myself weekly to keep myself honest and it looks like others are doing the same thing. Now, if only MFP had tools to support banking so we could see weekly calorie totals...

    That's what I'm going to attempt, It will just be one day a week of no logging, just quick adding!

    That's probably the only thing that's better about the MFP iphone app than using a computer, you can see your weekly average calories and macros etc. and it tells you how much you are under/over on your calories for the week :smile:
  • yesimpson
    yesimpson Posts: 1,372 Member
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    Sometimes I 'save up' exercise calories and add them to a day I know I'm going to go over so I don't get the dreaded red numbers... >:)

    I think you have to be realistic when banking calories. I know I personally can't be too aggressive or I end up over-hungry and eat too much, using up all the banked calories before the meal/night out/treat I was saving them for, and usually more on top of that.
  • mamadon
    mamadon Posts: 1,422 Member
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    I've been on maintanance for a year. I look at my weekly calorie goal more than my daily. I tend to go over on the weekends all the time, so during my work week I consistently eat under. So far it's worked fine.
  • laineybz
    laineybz Posts: 704 Member
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    I look at my calories over the month now i'm maintaining. Works for me.
  • mayharmony
    mayharmony Posts: 16 Member
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    I think I'm going to have to start looking at weekly calories too. Somehow I'm always hungrier on the weekends but some weekdays I'll have 200-300 calories left.

    A question for people doing this. How do you log it? Do you just let there be red numbers some days and make sure it evens out with green numbers other days? Or do you log things on the wrong day so they all stay green? (I've done this a few times when I was about to go over, lol. So far my weekly averages have always been under though.)
  • feisty_bucket
    feisty_bucket Posts: 1,047 Member
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    themaybird wrote: »
    How do you log it? Do you just let there be red numbers some days and make sure it evens out with green numbers other days? Or do you log things on the wrong day so they all stay green?

    More the later. I have a separate category in my food log called "Carry-Over/Calorie Banking" where I quick-add the excess balance from a previous day onto the next.

    Somebody on here recommended that technique last fall, and it's been awesome. Wish I could remember who, but uh... thanks!
  • mayharmony
    mayharmony Posts: 16 Member
    edited February 2015
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    feisty_bucket wrote: »
    I have a separate category in my food log called "Carry-Over/Calorie Banking" where I quick-add the excess balance from a previous day onto the next.

    Thanks, that's a great idea!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,868 Member
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    If you stop and think about it, "normal" people aren't eating exactly the same calorie every single day...most people eat a range just naturally.
  • Teamcampo
    Teamcampo Posts: 25 Member
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    I know this is a really old post, but I love this idea of banking calories. Can someone explain to me how they created that separate category to track it?
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited February 2016
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    Teamcampo wrote: »
    I know this is a really old post, but I love this idea of banking calories. Can someone explain to me how they created that separate category to track it?

    There is no separate category and for tracking that... You just eat less during the week so you can have an indulgent on the weekend or what not and stay in your MFP deficit. This is a personal choice and there is no tracking it other than your self.

    This is an old post.. maybe you want to create your own thread and others fr

    om MFP community will respond to the new post. I just stumbled over this and then noticed the dates on it.

    here I did a search in mfp and found these.. a little newer threads..

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10326597/banking-calories

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10325887/banking-calories
  • Dreysander
    Dreysander Posts: 294 Member
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    Right now this is how I'm attempting to live but I'm still trying to tweak it to get it right. I "bank" calories all week in order to have an over day on Friday or Saturday. It works but I'm still losing weight so I need to figure out how to do this AND keep a stable weight range.
  • neldabg
    neldabg Posts: 1,452 Member
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    I'm so happy to read this thread. There are so much great tips to use in teaching myself how to maintain and control my weight until the day I die. ^^
  • BurnWithBarn2015
    BurnWithBarn2015 Posts: 1,026 Member
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    What i did when i banked my calories is making a sepearte exercise and added those calories daily

    So example
    Monday normally i ate should eat 1500 but i ate 1400 so 100 over
    I added excercise 100 calories for Friday ( the day i want to use them)

    Tuesday i ate 1500 no adding
    Wednesday i at 1100 so 400 to Friday again makes Fridays total 500 plus/banked

    etc etc

    I still do this
    I see my weekly total as 14000 calories ( around there somewere)
    I do TDEE so this is including my exercise

    Now that would be 2000 calories a day. But sometimes i eat 1500 other days i eat 2500 as long as i end up aroun d that 14000 total a week. :)

    Hope that helps

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  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,759 Member
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    I think no one has mentioned this on this thread (I skimmed ;) ): The phone app (at least Android) will show you calories by week under "Nutrition". You can tweak when it starts/ends the week by navigating (in "one day" mode) to the day you want to have as the last day of your week, then switch to the weekly display.

    Not a substitute for the daily banking entries in one's diary, but if you just need an occasional spot check, it works.

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