Carrying calories over from prior week
beulah81
Posts: 168 Member
I recently started maintenance. I linked my Charge 3 to MFP with "Negative Calorie Adjustments" enabled. In the last couple of weeks, at the end of the week I've had a few hundred calories leftover. It doesn't happen all the time. Do any of you carry over "below weekly goal calories" to next week? I was thinking maybe to manually add the leftover calories to my Monday goal and switch back to default MFP setting on Tuesday? Somedays I am hungrier than others and would happily enjoy those calories. I am not interested in long term calorie banking or using spreadsheets. I want to make sure I don't undereat and start experiencing long term effects from it (shout out to AnnPT77 for mentioning her experience in several threads!)
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Replies
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In maintenance I don't carry over typically. If I overindulge I try to make the week fall into place so I am not doing an over / under feast/ famine cycling effect. But if I am under I just sort of let it ride. Mostly I try to think in terms of months versus days or weeks.
Since you have just recently started to maintain my suggestion is to keep an eye on your data (weight/CICO etc) and you should be able to make adjustments in a way that works best for YOU.
Good luck and congratulations on reaching your goal. Now the hard work starts.
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Y'know, sometimes I go over. I log it, and don't worry much about it. (I try to be conscious about not doing it too often.) Sometimes I'm under goal. I eat a tiny bit under maintenance calories most days, in fact, to have some extra indulgence calories to spend now and then, but that's just me).
I don't worry about exact balancing, in maintenance. I have a rough idea of how often I've gone over vs. under. (I don't bother to carry calories over, or spreadsheet them, or anything like that.)
I watch the scale. A sudden, big jump is typically water weight. A gradual upward creep is probably actual gain, so I need to cut back a bit for a while. I use my weight-trending app, and the one I use (Libra) lets me set a longer time-period to use for projections, which helps me in maintenance.
I can see that when first starting maintenance, a person might want more precision in all of this . . . but as you get more comfortable with maintenance, it may work to be a little more relaxed.
As always, YMMV. :flowerforyou:5 -
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Y'know, sometimes I go over. I log it, and don't worry much about it. (I try to be conscious about not doing it too often.) Sometimes I'm under goal. I eat a tiny bit under maintenance calories most days, in fact, to have some extra indulgence calories to spend now and then, but that's just me).
I don't worry about exact balancing, in maintenance. I have a rough idea of how often I've gone over vs. under. (I don't bother to carry calories over, or spreadsheet them, or anything like that.)
I watch the scale. A sudden, big jump is typically water weight. A gradual upward creep is probably actual gain, so I need to cut back a bit for a while. I use my weight-trending app, and the one I use (Libra) lets me set a longer time-period to use for projections, which helps me in maintenance.
I can see that when first starting maintenance, a person might want more precision in all of this . . . but as you get more comfortable with maintenance, it may work to be a little more relaxed.
As always, YMMV. :flowerforyou:
Ann, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom! I am fairly new to maintenance and monitoring my CICO with Fitbit. I also want to test how accurate this device is in my case. So, I guess I do want a little more precision... at least for a couple of months. Do you recommend against carrying over the calories in this case?0 -
Mathematically, there's no reason why you can't carry calories over from one week to the next.
Realistically, I don't do it because it seems too easy for me to get confused and wind up overeating. I just go by my weekly calorie goal on MFP. I try to run a small deficit during the week so I can eat a bit more on the weekend, but I see those extra calories as use 'em or lose 'em.
If you want your MFP "week" to start on a different day, you can change that in your settings. I have mine start on Monday.2 -
Y'know, sometimes I go over. I log it, and don't worry much about it. (I try to be conscious about not doing it too often.) Sometimes I'm under goal. I eat a tiny bit under maintenance calories most days, in fact, to have some extra indulgence calories to spend now and then, but that's just me).
I don't worry about exact balancing, in maintenance. I have a rough idea of how often I've gone over vs. under. (I don't bother to carry calories over, or spreadsheet them, or anything like that.)
I watch the scale. A sudden, big jump is typically water weight. A gradual upward creep is probably actual gain, so I need to cut back a bit for a while. I use my weight-trending app, and the one I use (Libra) lets me set a longer time-period to use for projections, which helps me in maintenance.
I can see that when first starting maintenance, a person might want more precision in all of this . . . but as you get more comfortable with maintenance, it may work to be a little more relaxed.
As always, YMMV. :flowerforyou:
Ann, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom! I am fairly new to maintenance and monitoring my CICO with Fitbit. I also want to test how accurate this device is in my case. So, I guess I do want a little more precision... at least for a couple of months. Do you recommend against carrying over the calories in this case?
No, I don't recommend against it. I recommend whatever works well for you, without causing what feels like too much work, provoking anxiety, or suchlike negative consequences. You could carry over calories as a custom exercise, if you want to (add the calories as a custom exercise on a future date), as an alternative to changing your goal.
If it seems useful to you at this point to carry over the extra calories explicitly, I think that's fine. Keep an eye on the scale, and in a few weeks you'll have a handle on whether the strategy is working out numerically for you, and you can adjust your routine accordingly.2 -
Y'know, sometimes I go over. I log it, and don't worry much about it. (I try to be conscious about not doing it too often.) Sometimes I'm under goal. I eat a tiny bit under maintenance calories most days, in fact, to have some extra indulgence calories to spend now and then, but that's just me).
I don't worry about exact balancing, in maintenance. I have a rough idea of how often I've gone over vs. under. (I don't bother to carry calories over, or spreadsheet them, or anything like that.)
I watch the scale. A sudden, big jump is typically water weight. A gradual upward creep is probably actual gain, so I need to cut back a bit for a while. I use my weight-trending app, and the one I use (Libra) lets me set a longer time-period to use for projections, which helps me in maintenance.
I can see that when first starting maintenance, a person might want more precision in all of this . . . but as you get more comfortable with maintenance, it may work to be a little more relaxed.
As always, YMMV. :flowerforyou:
Ann, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom! I am fairly new to maintenance and monitoring my CICO with Fitbit. I also want to test how accurate this device is in my case. So, I guess I do want a little more precision... at least for a couple of months. Do you recommend against carrying over the calories in this case?
No, I don't recommend against it. I recommend whatever works well for you, without causing what feels like too much work, provoking anxiety, or suchlike negative consequences. You could carry over calories as a custom exercise, if you want to (add the calories as a custom exercise on a future date), as an alternative to changing your goal.
If it seems useful to you at this point to carry over the extra calories explicitly, I think that's fine. Keep an eye on the scale, and in a few weeks you'll have a handle on whether the strategy is working out numerically for you, and you can adjust your routine accordingly.
This is a new concept to me. I will play around with it and see how it goes! Thank you!0 -
Mathematically, there's no reason why you can't carry calories over from one week to the next.
Realistically, I don't do it because it seems too easy for me to get confused and wind up overeating. I just go by my weekly calorie goal on MFP. I try to run a small deficit during the week so I can eat a bit more on the weekend, but I see those extra calories as use 'em or lose 'em.
If you want your MFP "week" to start on a different day, you can change that in your settings. I have mine start on Monday.
Thank you for your input apullum! I am honored to get insight from veteran MFPs!0 -
I recently started maintenance. I linked my Charge 3 to MFP with "Negative Calorie Adjustments" enabled. In the last couple of weeks, at the end of the week I've had a few hundred calories leftover. It doesn't happen all the time. Do any of you carry over "below weekly goal calories" to next week? I was thinking maybe to manually add the leftover calories to my Monday goal and switch back to default MFP setting on Tuesday? Somedays I am hungrier than others and would happily enjoy those calories. I am not interested in long term calorie banking or using spreadsheets. I want to make sure I don't undereat and start experiencing long term effects from it (shout out to AnnPT77 for mentioning her experience in several threads!)
"a few hundred" over seven days --- don't worry about it --- counting is not perfect and you will certainly consume more than you think you are consuming from time to time -- be sure you are eating healthy real foods
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
protein portion --- the size of you palm, or a deck of cards
complex carbs portion, -- a hand full, not a heaping hand full
vegetables portion, half your plate, watch the sauce
Examples of whole carbs include vegetables, whole fruit, legumes, potatoes and whole grains. These foods are generally healthy. On the other hand, refined carbs include sugar-sweetened beverages, fruit juices, pastries, white bread, white pasta, white rice and others
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! At several points in my fatloss journey I adhered to the advice similar to yours (Michael Pollan has a similar one I believe) and it always backfired in the end. Now, I eat what I like and what makes me feel good and that includes whole foods as well as refined ones.4 -
SummerSkier wrote: »In maintenance I don't carry over typically. If I overindulge I try to make the week fall into place so I am not doing an over / under feast/ famine cycling effect. But if I am under I just sort of let it ride. Mostly I try to think in terms of months versus days or weeks.
Since you have just recently started to maintain my suggestion is to keep an eye on your data (weight/CICO etc) and you should be able to make adjustments in a way that works best for YOU.
Good luck and congratulations on reaching your goal. Now the hard work starts.
Thank you SummerSkier for your advice! Indeed the work has started! I will be keeping an eye for sure and make adjustments accordingly.0 -
Another bump for SummerSkier. 5 years in maintenance and I still don't carry over. But you will establish your own habits and what works for you as you go along. Right now, maintenance is very very new with you, so best to stick with weight/CICO until you know what works. And use a trending app if you don't already. Very helpful!3
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