Maintainers Weekly Check In - March 2019

2456

Replies

  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.
  • missperfectpitch
    missperfectpitch Posts: 576 Member
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.

    So I use TDEE, which already factors in exercise/activity calories, instead of MFP's base calories+exercise calories method, as my exercise and daily activity are pretty consistent every week. My TDEE works out to about 1875 (total of 13,125 per week), and I'll typically do 1500 calories one day, 2150 Friday and Saturday, and then somewhere in between for the remaining days. If I'm going to eat out at a restaurant with several courses/desserts etc., I might budget 2600 for that day, have one 2000 day, two low days, and the others low-medium days. I'll also make adjustments afterwards, so if I ended up eating only about ~2300 instead of 2600, I'll shift the remainder to another day or spread it out among a couple of days. I will usually only sync my Fitbit with MFP and add the calorie adjustment if I'm on vacation as I tend to walk 15k-20k+ steps per day, which is above my normal activity. For example, I've budgeted 2550 calories each for next Friday and Saturday when I'm on vacation, but I expect to walk a lot, so I'll eat back extra calories based on MFP's calorie adjustment (so I'll probably end up at around 2650-2750 calories those days).

    If you use MFP's base calories + exercise calories method, you could do the deficit from net calories (which would end up being your TDEE), or you could do something like bank most or all of the exercise calories.

    I use an outside app (Google Keep Notes) to keep track of things as I don't think that MFP (at least, the free version) has the functionality to keep track of calorie cycling. I just have a simple list in Google Keep of Sunday-Saturday that I update for each upcoming week. I allot a daily calorie goal for each day based on what/where I expect to eat and ensure that it totals 13,125. Then I just update my calorie goal in MFP every day. I'm still doing this with banking calories across weeks, but slightly modified. So, I had a line that said "Week of March 10 +720" and one "Week of March 17 +254", which were the extra calories I banked from the previous weeks. For the week of March 10, I still allotted calories like I usually do, except that instead of the usual 13,125 total, I used 13,845 (usual +720) as the total. It is a bit of effort to do this, but it really only takes a few minutes to do so too.
  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member
    edited March 2019
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.

    So I use TDEE, which already factors in exercise/activity calories, instead of MFP's base calories+exercise calories method, as my exercise and daily activity are pretty consistent every week. My TDEE works out to about 1875 (total of 13,125 per week), and I'll typically do 1500 calories one day, 2150 Friday and Saturday, and then somewhere in between for the remaining days. If I'm going to eat out at a restaurant with several courses/desserts etc., I might budget 2600 for that day, have one 2000 day, two low days, and the others low-medium days. I'll also make adjustments afterwards, so if I ended up eating only about ~2300 instead of 2600, I'll shift the remainder to another day or spread it out among a couple of days. I will usually only sync my Fitbit with MFP and add the calorie adjustment if I'm on vacation as I tend to walk 15k-20k+ steps per day, which is above my normal activity. For example, I've budgeted 2550 calories each for next Friday and Saturday when I'm on vacation, but I expect to walk a lot, so I'll eat back extra calories based on MFP's calorie adjustment (so I'll probably end up at around 2650-2750 calories those days).

    If you use MFP's base calories + exercise calories method, you could do the deficit from net calories (which would end up being your TDEE), or you could do something like bank most or all of the exercise calories.

    I use an outside app (Google Keep Notes) to keep track of things as I don't think that MFP (at least, the free version) has the functionality to keep track of calorie cycling. I just have a simple list in Google Keep of Sunday-Saturday that I update for each upcoming week. I allot a daily calorie goal for each day based on what/where I expect to eat and ensure that it totals 13,125. Then I just update my calorie goal in MFP every day. I'm still doing this with banking calories across weeks, but slightly modified. So, I had a line that said "Week of March 10 +720" and one "Week of March 17 +254", which were the extra calories I banked from the previous weeks. For the week of March 10, I still allotted calories like I usually do, except that instead of the usual 13,125 total, I used 13,845 (usual +720) as the total. It is a bit of effort to do this, but it really only takes a few minutes to do so too.

    Wow! Thank you for such a thorough response! I am still a novice @ maintaining fat loss using this app. I don't have a consistent data on my TDEE. This past week I synched my Fitbit with MFP, I will keep an eye on the trend.
    I think for now I will do calorie cycling with MFP's Net calories and will look into Google Keep Notes for extended calorie banking. Again, thank you!!
  • missperfectpitch
    missperfectpitch Posts: 576 Member
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.

    So I use TDEE, which already factors in exercise/activity calories, instead of MFP's base calories+exercise calories method, as my exercise and daily activity are pretty consistent every week. My TDEE works out to about 1875 (total of 13,125 per week), and I'll typically do 1500 calories one day, 2150 Friday and Saturday, and then somewhere in between for the remaining days. If I'm going to eat out at a restaurant with several courses/desserts etc., I might budget 2600 for that day, have one 2000 day, two low days, and the others low-medium days. I'll also make adjustments afterwards, so if I ended up eating only about ~2300 instead of 2600, I'll shift the remainder to another day or spread it out among a couple of days. I will usually only sync my Fitbit with MFP and add the calorie adjustment if I'm on vacation as I tend to walk 15k-20k+ steps per day, which is above my normal activity. For example, I've budgeted 2550 calories each for next Friday and Saturday when I'm on vacation, but I expect to walk a lot, so I'll eat back extra calories based on MFP's calorie adjustment (so I'll probably end up at around 2650-2750 calories those days).

    If you use MFP's base calories + exercise calories method, you could do the deficit from net calories (which would end up being your TDEE), or you could do something like bank most or all of the exercise calories.

    I use an outside app (Google Keep Notes) to keep track of things as I don't think that MFP (at least, the free version) has the functionality to keep track of calorie cycling. I just have a simple list in Google Keep of Sunday-Saturday that I update for each upcoming week. I allot a daily calorie goal for each day based on what/where I expect to eat and ensure that it totals 13,125. Then I just update my calorie goal in MFP every day. I'm still doing this with banking calories across weeks, but slightly modified. So, I had a line that said "Week of March 10 +720" and one "Week of March 17 +254", which were the extra calories I banked from the previous weeks. For the week of March 10, I still allotted calories like I usually do, except that instead of the usual 13,125 total, I used 13,845 (usual +720) as the total. It is a bit of effort to do this, but it really only takes a few minutes to do so too.

    Wow! Thank you for such a thorough response! I am still a novice @ maintaining fat loss using this app. I don't have a consistent data on my TDEE. This past week I synched my Fitbit with MFP, I will keep an eye on the trend.
    I think for now I will do calorie cycling with MFP's Net calories and will look into Google Keep Notes for extended calorie banking. Again, thank you!!

    You're welcome! It just occurred to me that something like Google Sheets would probably be easier for doing the actual calculations (I just use the calculator on my phone) - I just use Google Keep Notes for several other lists, so that's what I'm used to.
  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member
    edited March 2019
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.

    So I use TDEE, which already factors in exercise/activity calories, instead of MFP's base calories+exercise calories method, as my exercise and daily activity are pretty consistent every week. My TDEE works out to about 1875 (total of 13,125 per week), and I'll typically do 1500 calories one day, 2150 Friday and Saturday, and then somewhere in between for the remaining days. If I'm going to eat out at a restaurant with several courses/desserts etc., I might budget 2600 for that day, have one 2000 day, two low days, and the others low-medium days. I'll also make adjustments afterwards, so if I ended up eating only about ~2300 instead of 2600, I'll shift the remainder to another day or spread it out among a couple of days. I will usually only sync my Fitbit with MFP and add the calorie adjustment if I'm on vacation as I tend to walk 15k-20k+ steps per day, which is above my normal activity. For example, I've budgeted 2550 calories each for next Friday and Saturday when I'm on vacation, but I expect to walk a lot, so I'll eat back extra calories based on MFP's calorie adjustment (so I'll probably end up at around 2650-2750 calories those days).

    If you use MFP's base calories + exercise calories method, you could do the deficit from net calories (which would end up being your TDEE), or you could do something like bank most or all of the exercise calories.

    I use an outside app (Google Keep Notes) to keep track of things as I don't think that MFP (at least, the free version) has the functionality to keep track of calorie cycling. I just have a simple list in Google Keep of Sunday-Saturday that I update for each upcoming week. I allot a daily calorie goal for each day based on what/where I expect to eat and ensure that it totals 13,125. Then I just update my calorie goal in MFP every day. I'm still doing this with banking calories across weeks, but slightly modified. So, I had a line that said "Week of March 10 +720" and one "Week of March 17 +254", which were the extra calories I banked from the previous weeks. For the week of March 10, I still allotted calories like I usually do, except that instead of the usual 13,125 total, I used 13,845 (usual +720) as the total. It is a bit of effort to do this, but it really only takes a few minutes to do so too.

    Wow! Thank you for such a thorough response! I am still a novice @ maintaining fat loss using this app. I don't have a consistent data on my TDEE. This past week I synched my Fitbit with MFP, I will keep an eye on the trend.
    I think for now I will do calorie cycling with MFP's Net calories and will look into Google Keep Notes for extended calorie banking. Again, thank you!!

    You're welcome! It just occurred to me that something like Google Sheets would probably be easier for doing the actual calculations (I just use the calculator on my phone) - I just use Google Keep Notes for several other lists, so that's what I'm used to.

    That's a great idea! May I ask you one more question. Do you find it's easier just to use TDEE rather than MFP's base calories+exercise calories? The reason why I'm asking is because my steps vary anywhere from 10,000 to 15000 a day. I mostly do walking for exercise with occasional resistance exercises here and there, nothing major. Fitbit tells me I burn 1850-2000/day. I've been calorie cycling averaging 1900 a day. I have a weekly calorie goal of 13300. This past week I synced MFP with Fitbit. I have to say in the last couple of days I've been trying to get more steps in so I can eat back a few more exercise calories. Not sure if this would work long term.🤔 I might consider your method of syncing the Fitbit on the days when I know I will be walking a lot more than on my normal days. This might be what I will end up doing.
  • missperfectpitch
    missperfectpitch Posts: 576 Member
    Name: missperfectpitch

    My new approach is going to be viewing calories by a couple of weeks at a time, or maybe even on a monthly basis, particularly if I've got a vacation coming up for which I want to eat anything and everything. Since there are some weeks where I don't eat out at all, I can eat at a slight deficit those weeks (without really even noticing) and then bank those calories for an upcoming vacation week to start out with a surplus of base calories to work with.

    I am pretty new to calorie cycling. A couple of questions for you. When you cycle your calories, do you run a deficit from Net calories? Will you use a spreadsheet for a bi-weekly/monthly calorie "bank" or MFP offers this option and I'm not seeing it.

    So I use TDEE, which already factors in exercise/activity calories, instead of MFP's base calories+exercise calories method, as my exercise and daily activity are pretty consistent every week. My TDEE works out to about 1875 (total of 13,125 per week), and I'll typically do 1500 calories one day, 2150 Friday and Saturday, and then somewhere in between for the remaining days. If I'm going to eat out at a restaurant with several courses/desserts etc., I might budget 2600 for that day, have one 2000 day, two low days, and the others low-medium days. I'll also make adjustments afterwards, so if I ended up eating only about ~2300 instead of 2600, I'll shift the remainder to another day or spread it out among a couple of days. I will usually only sync my Fitbit with MFP and add the calorie adjustment if I'm on vacation as I tend to walk 15k-20k+ steps per day, which is above my normal activity. For example, I've budgeted 2550 calories each for next Friday and Saturday when I'm on vacation, but I expect to walk a lot, so I'll eat back extra calories based on MFP's calorie adjustment (so I'll probably end up at around 2650-2750 calories those days).

    If you use MFP's base calories + exercise calories method, you could do the deficit from net calories (which would end up being your TDEE), or you could do something like bank most or all of the exercise calories.

    I use an outside app (Google Keep Notes) to keep track of things as I don't think that MFP (at least, the free version) has the functionality to keep track of calorie cycling. I just have a simple list in Google Keep of Sunday-Saturday that I update for each upcoming week. I allot a daily calorie goal for each day based on what/where I expect to eat and ensure that it totals 13,125. Then I just update my calorie goal in MFP every day. I'm still doing this with banking calories across weeks, but slightly modified. So, I had a line that said "Week of March 10 +720" and one "Week of March 17 +254", which were the extra calories I banked from the previous weeks. For the week of March 10, I still allotted calories like I usually do, except that instead of the usual 13,125 total, I used 13,845 (usual +720) as the total. It is a bit of effort to do this, but it really only takes a few minutes to do so too.

    Wow! Thank you for such a thorough response! I am still a novice @ maintaining fat loss using this app. I don't have a consistent data on my TDEE. This past week I synched my Fitbit with MFP, I will keep an eye on the trend.
    I think for now I will do calorie cycling with MFP's Net calories and will look into Google Keep Notes for extended calorie banking. Again, thank you!!

    You're welcome! It just occurred to me that something like Google Sheets would probably be easier for doing the actual calculations (I just use the calculator on my phone) - I just use Google Keep Notes for several other lists, so that's what I'm used to.

    That's a great idea! May I ask you one more question. Do you find it's easier just to use TDEE rather than MFP's base calories+exercise calories? The reason why I'm asking is because my steps vary anywhere from 10,000 to 15000 a day. I mostly do walking for exercise with occasional resistance exercises here and there, nothing major. Fitbit tells me I burn 1850-2000/day. I've been calorie cycling averaging 1900 a day. I have a weekly calorie goal of 13300. This past week I synced MFP with Fitbit. I have to say in the last couple of days I've been trying to get more steps in so I can eat back a few more exercise calories. Not sure if this would work long term.🤔 I might consider your method of syncing the Fitbit on the days when I know I will be walking a lot more than on my normal days. This might be what I will end up doing.

    Yeah, for me, it's easier to use TDEE instead of MFP's method as I can easily budget out a week in advance, and it's less of a headache for me. Though, of course, my activity is pretty consistent - about 10k steps every day, with one day 13-15k steps, and my workouts are pretty consistent too. If your activity varies quite a bit, is it the same variation each week? (Have your past several weeks all had a weekly calorie goal around 13,300?). If so, then you could just use that as your TDEE and sync with your Fitbit on dates with higher activity. Alternatively, you could just test out that weekly calorie goal for a couple weeks and adjust if you gain or lose weight.
  • Tolstolobik
    Tolstolobik Posts: 78 Member

    Yeah, for me, it's easier to use TDEE instead of MFP's method as I can easily budget out a week in advance, and it's less of a headache for me.

    This. The reason why I had a weekly goal is because I liked that I could plan my week out in advance as well. I think your advice to sync the Fitbit on higher days would be a perfect solution! Brilliant! I will test this out and see how it goes.