Carry forward calories?

doraemon28
doraemon28 Posts: 2 Member
edited November 14 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi. If I have calories left over in a day (not eating them all or gaining extra from a workout), can I collect them and save them to use on another day? Or do I have to use all my calories up in one day or lose them? I'm just thinking if I were to eat out I could save calories and have extra when I'm out.
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Replies

  • missteena88
    missteena88 Posts: 153 Member
    Sure, you could. But why not just forget about them so you lose faster?
  • H_Ock12
    H_Ock12 Posts: 1,152 Member
    Yep! I regularly "collect" calories from days I'm not as hungry or days I exercise and use them when I go out to eat or want a nice Marble Slab Ice Cream treat.
  • missmagnoliablossom
    missmagnoliablossom Posts: 240 Member
    Absolutely, you can. The weight-loss clock doesn't start over at midnight every night. :)
  • Tacklewasher
    Tacklewasher Posts: 7,122 Member
    I guess it depends what you are asking.

    MFP will not let you take a deficit from one day and apply it to the next. So you can't "move" 500 calories that you didn't use Monday and have them as part of your allowance Tuesday. Kinda too bad.

    But if you look at your calories on a weekly basis, and focus less on the daily reports, this works very well. I go under and over on the day view but try to look at where I am for the week.
  • guacamole17
    guacamole17 Posts: 109 Member
    I have an excel spreadsheet that I keep with my weekly deficient for just that purpose. "Banking" them for days where I know I'll be going out to eat or getting drinks or whatever...
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    Tacklewasher wrote: »
    I guess it depends what you are asking.

    MFP will not let you take a deficit from one day and apply it to the next. So you can't "move" 500 calories that you didn't use Monday and have them as part of your allowance Tuesday. Kinda too bad.

    But if you look at your calories on a weekly basis, and focus less on the daily reports, this works very well. I go under and over on the day view but try to look at where I am for the week.

    Well you can, kind of. If I know, for instance, that on Saturday I'm going to have a special event and I stay 100 calories under my goal Monday-Friday, I enter a -500 calories on Saturday just for tracking purposes (to remind me that I have those extra calories). When I'm finished logging for Saturday I delete the negative calories so my weekly total doesn't get screwed up. I just find it helpful from a visual standpoint as I'm logging to see that I'm having an extra 500 calories but still within my goal. If that made any sense.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    Yep, I try to save 100-200 cals Monday to Thursday so I have more to eat at the weekend!
  • Reaverie
    Reaverie Posts: 405 Member
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    It really does work that way though. The way MFP is set up you are supposed to eat back your exercise calories - the goal MFP generates is based on your everyday activities and not purposeful exercise.

    For instance - MFP thinks that if I am sedentary I should eat around 1440 calories a day (I'm old and short) to maintain my weight. In actuality I would lose weight because with exercise my TDEE goes up to about 1700 to 1800 a day (when I can exercise and am not nursing a bum knee).

  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,261 Member
    I look for a weekly average. The app makes this really easy. You can look at Nutrition and then change your view from daily to weekly. The only days included are days with things logged. As long as you log your whole day (not just a meal here or there) you can get an idea of how you are doing for the week.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Your body doesn't reset at midnight...energy intake and expenditure happens on a continuum.
  • doraemon28
    doraemon28 Posts: 2 Member
    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    When you put your exercise into the tracker, it automatically adds the calories onto your daily amount. I haven't made it up. I'm just following the app!!
  • RunningMom1038
    RunningMom1038 Posts: 144 Member
    doraemon28 wrote: »
    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    When you put your exercise into the tracker, it automatically adds the calories onto your daily amount. I haven't made it up. I'm just following the app!!

    And you are doing exactly what you are supposed to do. This is the way MFP was designed to work. The only thing to be careful about is to make sure not to overestimate the calories you burn through exercise. This is one reason why some are unsuccessful with weight-loss.

    If you undereat one day by several hundred calories, then it isn't only okay to add them to the next day, but it would be beneficial.
  • Reaverie
    Reaverie Posts: 405 Member
    BiomedDent wrote: »
    Yeah I used to do that when I did weight watchers-saving points etc. Definitely works well for weekends!

    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    I get the sense you don't understand MFP/Diets/Deficits much. Be careful you're not eating too little based on what you just said above.

    Yeah, I just read through the replies to my confusion and still dont understand it. But then, I am a bit tired atm and I cant focus well when tired. Im sure I wont. Im just beginning this journey so Im not doing much in the way of exercise except walking a mile or two a day. I will be adding pilates in soon.
  • BiomedDent
    BiomedDent Posts: 107 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    I was wondering how someone above did that! Thanks
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them today as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    Yeah, I left out the step of what to call it! I call it "banked calories".
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  • CafeRacer808
    CafeRacer808 Posts: 2,396 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them today as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    Best diary-related tip I've read in these forums in a really long time. Thanks for the info! :)
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    Sorry @RAinWA I missed seeing that you had already posted this tweak.

    Yeah but you did a better explanation so you get the gold star! :)
  • Reaverie
    Reaverie Posts: 405 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them today as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    Wait.. so... Like.. you have an allotment of 1400.. you eat 1200.. and the next day you add 200 for a 1600 count? OK.. something just doesnt sound right about that. Im sure there has to be a limit to how far you can roll over. What if all week the person is BLAH about food. Then Saturday they want to binge. Wouldnt that HARM the body?
  • BiomedDent
    BiomedDent Posts: 107 Member
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    Sorry @RAinWA I missed seeing that you had already posted this tweak.

    Does it only work on the full site? Just tried to "make a food" in the app but can't put minus calories :(
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    BiomedDent wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    I was wondering how someone above did that! Thanks

    That is crazy genius. I don't necessarily use rollover calories, but that is an excellent way to account for them if I end up with a crazy food weekend on my hands. I am generally under calories by just a hair (because I am paranoid). I would like to eat them, it just doesn't always work out that way. This is a great way to make sure they get eaten!
  • BiomedDent
    BiomedDent Posts: 107 Member
    Reaverie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them today as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    Wait.. so... Like.. you have an allotment of 1400.. you eat 1200.. and the next day you add 200 for a 1600 count? OK.. something just doesnt sound right about that. Im sure there has to be a limit to how far you can roll over. What if all week the person is BLAH about food. Then Saturday they want to binge. Wouldnt that HARM the body?

    Temporarily yes, the scale would go up when you weigh on a Sunday, but over time no. You'd still lose weight. It's calorie input vs output over time, not just every single day
  • BiomedDent
    BiomedDent Posts: 107 Member
    BiomedDent wrote: »
    Reaverie wrote: »
    Noel_57 wrote: »
    You can actually create a custom food for your diary, and call it "rollover from yesterday" or whatever. Give the food a caloric value of -1. Then, if you have 125 unused calories from yesterday, enter them today as 125 servings and your diary will add them to your daily calorie allotment for today. Hope this helps.

    Wait.. so... Like.. you have an allotment of 1400.. you eat 1200.. and the next day you add 200 for a 1600 count? OK.. something just doesnt sound right about that. Im sure there has to be a limit to how far you can roll over. What if all week the person is BLAH about food. Then Saturday they want to binge. Wouldnt that HARM the body?

    Temporarily yes, the scale would go up when you weigh on a Sunday, but over time no. You'd still lose weight. It's calorie input vs output over time, not just every single day

    Obviously it's not good mentally to ever binge nor is it good to restrict food to enable binging. So the harm it would do is more mental than physical.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    Reaverie wrote: »
    BiomedDent wrote: »
    Yeah I used to do that when I did weight watchers-saving points etc. Definitely works well for weekends!

    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    I get the sense you don't understand MFP/Diets/Deficits much. Be careful you're not eating too little based on what you just said above.

    Yeah, I just read through the replies to my confusion and still dont understand it. But then, I am a bit tired atm and I cant focus well when tired. Im sure I wont. Im just beginning this journey so Im not doing much in the way of exercise except walking a mile or two a day. I will be adding pilates in soon.

    Because MFP gives you a calorie target based on zero exercise...it is uncounted for activity. If you're already have a pretty low calorie intake and then do a bunch of exercise on top of it, one can create a deficit that too large from a health standpoint.

    My MFP calorie target to lose 1 Lb per week (with no exercise) is 1900 calories. During cycling season I can regularly burn around 1,000 - 1,500 calories during a training ride...that would leave me with a whopping 400 - 900 calories worth of energy to support my mere existence (which requires about 1800 calories) and general activity. Common sense would dictate that if my activity level doesn't account for exercise, it should be accounted for somewhere...with MFP that somewhere is on the back end of the equation...TDEE calculators include it in your activity level.
  • CynCyn523
    CynCyn523 Posts: 4 Member
    Reaverie wrote: »
    LOL! Roll over dieting.. I Love it! Dont think it works that way though. I just ignore them. I have never heard of it before. I always heard '1200 calorie diet' or '1600 calorie diet' etc etc and then if you worked out or not, there was no "bonus" calories added. 1200 was 1200..1600 was 1600. Not 1200 plus you just earned 100 calories from your walk! nonsense. So I consume the calories I say I am going to and "ignore" the calories I "earned".. How do I lose weight if I re-eat my calories! That makes NO sense at all!

    You can actually...if you look more at the calories you should be consuming on a weekly basis according to a 1200 or 1600 calorie a day plan, you don't necessarily have to be strictly eating that amount of calories every day. You can "borrow" or "rollover" calories to another day, ESP if you plan to eat out for a special occasion or what-have-you then you can save calories for that. As long as you're staying within the calorie restriction you set for yourself for the week it's all the same...you end up consuming the same amount. There are actually diet plans based on this concept, I think it's called calorie cycling where you have one low calorie day (say 1000-1200 calories) followed by a higher calorie day (say 2500-1800). It's meant to keep things sustainable and not so mundane with the same restriction every day.
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