For those who bank calories, technical question

lightenup2016
lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
edited November 15 in Health and Weight Loss
This week I decided to try banking calories, so I'm setting my calorie goal to 1200 Mon-Wed, 1500 on Thurs, and 1800 on Fri-Sun. But sometimes, like today, when I change my goal to 1800, it changes the goal from the day before as well. So while my goal yesterday WAS set at 1500 all day yesterday, now it's set to 1800, like today's. Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Replies

  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    Also, don't be a slave to the "complete this entry" button in your diary and the ensuing message. Just stay within the calorie goal you wish for each day.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    I'd really rather have my calorie goal set accordingly each day, so I don't have to constantly think "okay, today I need to stay 300 below goal", or "today I need to stay AT goal", etc.

    I don't pay any attention to the message after closing out the day.

    Does anyone actually go in and change their calorie goal a few times a week like I'm trying to do?
  • __TMac__
    __TMac__ Posts: 1,669 Member
    I do it with custom entries. I bank a portion of my exercise cals. On the day of the exercise, I log whatever portion I intend to eat (usually 350 of the 500 I burned). Then I go to Sunday and put in my custom exercise entry, "Banked exercise cals," for the remaining 150.

    I also come in under on my eating some days, so when I get to Sunday and look at the Weekly View, it tells me how many net calories I'm under, and I can eat those too, if I want.
  • CorneliusPhoton
    CorneliusPhoton Posts: 965 Member
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    I'd really rather have my calorie goal set accordingly each day, so I don't have to constantly think "okay, today I need to stay 300 below goal", or "today I need to stay AT goal", etc.

    I don't pay any attention to the message after closing out the day.

    Does anyone actually go in and change their calorie goal a few times a week like I'm trying to do?

    Sorry, I thought you already had it set in your mind to just do 1200, 1500, 1800.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    CorneliusPhoton wrote: »
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    I'd really rather have my calorie goal set accordingly each day, so I don't have to constantly think "okay, today I need to stay 300 below goal", or "today I need to stay AT goal", etc.

    I don't pay any attention to the message after closing out the day.

    Does anyone actually go in and change their calorie goal a few times a week like I'm trying to do?

    Sorry, I thought you already had it set in your mind to just do 1200, 1500, 1800.

    I do have it in my mind to do 1200, 1500, and 1800. I want to average 1500 per day, and I want to set it up this way because I want to be able to eat more on the weekends, and it's easier for me to eat less Mon-Wed. I'm just having technical difficulties setting my calorie goal in the app, because sometimes it will change my goal from the day before.

    Thanks for your replies! :smile: I'm sorry if I'm not being clear on my question.

  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 994 Member
    If you do what you're doing, you will eat what you want to. If you eat what you want to, you will average 1500 calories, and you will lose weight. That is the goal, right?
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    I'm sorry, I'm not being clear--I'm asking a technical question about how to use the MFP app to change my calorie goal without it messing up the previous days' entries. I'm not asking if banking calories will work or not.

    I looked but didn't find a place to ask technical difficulty questions.

    Thank you!
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    I don't understand. If you've completed the previous day's entries/eating, why do you care if the goal changes after the fact?

  • annacole94
    annacole94 Posts: 994 Member
    Previous days entries do not matter. But no, there's not a way to do what you're trying to do. MFP kind of sucks for banking calories or eating differently day to day.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    This week I decided to try banking calories, so I'm setting my calorie goal to 1200 Mon-Wed, 1500 on Thurs, and 1800 on Fri-Sun. But sometimes, like today, when I change my goal to 1800, it changes the goal from the day before as well. So while my goal yesterday WAS set at 1500 all day yesterday, now it's set to 1800, like today's. Any suggestions?

    Thank you!

    The Premium membership allows you to change calorie goals by day.
  • Jules_farmgirl
    Jules_farmgirl Posts: 225 Member
    I don't think you can change it with out it effecting your past days. I started a 1300 and moved up to 1400 recently, and it auto adjusted the past diary entries. If you just don't look back, it wont bother you as much. I know if I pull a report and it shows the I "under ate" those weeks, I already know its because of my calorie goal adjustments.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    I guess this is a psychological thing, you want to see the custom daily goal in black and white instead of just "knowing" today is a 1200 day. Though your green number would tell you how many calories you've banked that day.

    But no, as far as I know, there is no way to do individual goals for each day.
  • not_a_runner
    not_a_runner Posts: 1,343 Member
    Nikion901 wrote: »
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    This week I decided to try banking calories, so I'm setting my calorie goal to 1200 Mon-Wed, 1500 on Thurs, and 1800 on Fri-Sun. But sometimes, like today, when I change my goal to 1800, it changes the goal from the day before as well. So while my goal yesterday WAS set at 1500 all day yesterday, now it's set to 1800, like today's. Any suggestions?

    Thank you!

    The Premium membership allows you to change calorie goals by day.

    This is what I was thinking. I have premium and manually have my different daily goals set up, so every day it shows what I want it to be without having to change my goal every day. I find it handy since my preference is to vary my intake and I have predetermined numbers for my bank most of the time. (Such as 1200/1500/1800)
    If getting premium isn't an option for OP, perhaps set your goal to your highest, so 1800, and just use placeholder calorie entries to make up the difference?
  • Jabbarwocky
    Jabbarwocky Posts: 100 Member
    I don't think there is a way to change the goal from day to day. Every time I've done it, it automatically changes all previous. Weird, but whatever. You may or may not be able to do that if you have the premium service but I don't so couldn't say for sure. I do have to ask though, what's the purpose of "banking" calories? If you eat more on the weekends or want a treat, why not just lower your weekly average a bit? This isn't about your initial question, just see this a lot and am curious about it.
  • RAinWA
    RAinWA Posts: 1,980 Member
    You could get around this using negative calorie entries. So if you know you are going to want 1500 on weekends and only 1200 on weekdays (just an example), set your calories for 1200 and then enter a -300 for weekends which would bring you up to 1500 for the day. Or use the premium version of MFP.
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    I was going to suggest premium as I think that's a feature.

    Alternatively, I would think that adjusting the goal every day, since it ends up applying it retroactively, would actually hinder your ability to look at an accurate weekly view. I bank cals and I just aim to be 100-200 under my goal so that on the weekends I have 500-1000 extra.

    Just saw the negative cal entry suggestion. That's a good one also.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    Ok, thank you all! Yes it's definitely psychological--I'm a numbers person!! Plus, I've been in a funk since the holidays, and trying to get back on track. I finally figured out that I can easily eat less Mon-Wed, so that would give me more for weekends. But also, I've always been a bit lax about staying under my goal, almost never seeing a green number. So far this week I've done really well, I think because of my new plan. And yes, for me it will work best if I can plainly see each particular days' goal, and I also feel better knowing I can look back at days/weeks past knowing that it's all accurate. Like I said, a numbers person!

    Anyway, I will look into premium--are there many other benefits to having premium? (I can search on the topic as well).
  • MonsterToBe
    MonsterToBe Posts: 244 Member
    I used to do something similar, and handled it by creating custom foods. I'd suggest:
    Set your goal to 1800.
    Create custom foods named for the days of the week you'll use them.
    M-W Goal Adjustment would be a 600 calorie food, Thurs Goal Adjustment would be a 300 calorie food. On Monday thru Thursday, just log the appropriate adjustment "food" with one of your meals.

    The nice thing is that whatever your protein/fat/carbohydrate goals are on an 1800 calorie day, it's easy to calculate how many grams of each your custom foods should be. For protein, for example, the protein goal for an 1800 calorie day by 3 and put that in for M-W Goal Adjustment, and divide by 6 to get the Thursday amount, if you want them to all stay at the same ratio every day no matter how many calories total. Personally, I only put carbs and fat in my adjustment foods because although I wanted my calorie goal to fluctuate, I wanted my protein intake constant.

    Hope this helps!
  • sllm1
    sllm1 Posts: 2,130 Member
    I don't change my goal daily. I just keep a spreadsheet of my calorie counts and watch over things that way.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    If you're a numbers person, use MFP for logging, but then dump the numbers into excel so you can really see what you're doing. That's what I do and the information I get from excel is much more meaningful than that from MFP.
  • shinycrazy
    shinycrazy Posts: 1,081 Member
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    Anyway, I will look into premium--are there many other benefits to having premium? (I can search on the topic as well).

    I'm considering going to premium to get rid of the ads and to be able to choose which macro total you see for each meal in the app rather than the total cals. I'm diabetic and for me seeing the total carbs per meal is beneficial. I believe there are a few other perks too. It's $50 a year.

  • rachelr1116
    rachelr1116 Posts: 334 Member
    I've occasionally had "hungry days" and changed my calorie goal from a 1 lb deficit to a .5 lb deficit just for that one day. It's never affected any of my previous days' goals.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    lightenup2016 wrote: »
    I'd really rather have my calorie goal set accordingly each day, so I don't have to constantly think "okay, today I need to stay 300 below goal", or "today I need to stay AT goal", etc.

    I don't pay any attention to the message after closing out the day.

    Does anyone actually go in and change their calorie goal a few times a week like I'm trying to do?

    Pay for premium then
  • tahxirez
    tahxirez Posts: 270 Member
    TmacMMM wrote: »
    I do it with custom entries. I bank a portion of my exercise cals. On the day of the exercise, I log whatever portion I intend to eat (usually 350 of the 500 I burned). Then I go to Sunday and put in my custom exercise entry, "Banked exercise cals," for the remaining 150.

    I also come in under on my eating some days, so when I get to Sunday and look at the Weekly View, it tells me how many net calories I'm under, and I can eat those too, if I want.

    I just look at my weekly average under the nutrition tab but this option is brilliant as well.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    rachelr1116 wrote: »
    I've occasionally had "hungry days" and changed my calorie goal from a 1 lb deficit to a .5 lb deficit just for that one day. It's never affected any of my previous days' goals.

    I've also changed my goals up some--sometimes it works fine and sometimes not. That's why I was wondering if there's a trick I'm missing. Thx!
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    jjpptt2 wrote: »
    If you're a numbers person, use MFP for logging, but then dump the numbers into excel so you can really see what you're doing. That's what I do and the information I get from excel is much more meaningful than that from MFP.

    I'm sure I could delve into that and love it! But I also just want a simple way to set up my day (pre-logging, I'm new to this concept) and keep track throughout the day. I'll look into the excel thing though. I currently do everything on my phone app.
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    MonsterToBe wrote: »
    I used to do something similar, and handled it by creating custom foods. I'd suggest:
    Set your goal to 1800.
    Create custom foods named for the days of the week you'll use them.
    M-W Goal Adjustment would be a 600 calorie food, Thurs Goal Adjustment would be a 300 calorie food. On Monday thru Thursday, just log the appropriate adjustment "food" with one of your meals.

    The nice thing is that whatever your protein/fat/carbohydrate goals are on an 1800 calorie day, it's easy to calculate how many grams of each your custom foods should be. For protein, for example, the protein goal for an 1800 calorie day by 3 and put that in for M-W Goal Adjustment, and divide by 6 to get the Thursday amount, if you want them to all stay at the same ratio every day no matter how many calories total. Personally, I only put carbs and fat in my adjustment foods because although I wanted my calorie goal to fluctuate, I wanted my protein intake constant.

    Hope this helps!

    LOL, I had to read through this a couple of times, but I get it now. I've never entered in custom foods. I think I'll try this, and if it doesn't work well for me I'll probably just end up getting premium. Thank you!
  • lightenup2016
    lightenup2016 Posts: 1,055 Member
    OP here with an update! I figured out the problem, and thought I'd post my solution in case it helps anyone else. Apparently if I try to change my calorie goal in the morning, it will change yesterday's as well. But for whatever reason, if I wait until 1pm or so (US Eastern time) I can change today's goal and it won't change yesterday's. There must be some kind of syncing that goes on between morning and early afternoon.

    I only have to change my calorie goal 3 times per week. So when I'm preIogging, I just add in 300 or 600 calories of extra food or exercise depending on if I need more or fewer calories that day, then change my calorie goal later in the day and delete the extra food/exercise I had added in. It's a bit of a run-around, but it will work for now, since I don't have an extra $50 sitting around for premium. Maybe in the future, though, since I do like the idea of supporting this awesome app!
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