Sleep?
 

When you sleep significantly more than the average amount, for whatever reason, should you alter your calorie intake to account for that?

For instance, today I slept for 16 hours because I have a bit of a cold or a flu or some such. I'm not terribly sick, but I definitely needed the sleep, especially since I only slept about 2 hours at a time before waking up coughing. I've had 828 calories today and I know that isn't enough, generally, but I feel fine, and I'm about to go back to bed until the morning, but my various fitness programs are all yelling at me to eat more, but they have no way to account for the fact I slept twice as much as I should have. It just doesn't make sense to me to eat as many calories when I'm awake for 8 hours and I do when I'm awake for 18.

So. How do you deal with this?

Hey! Your basal metabolic rate is the number of calories you burn doing nothing, like just lying in bed. Your resting metabolic rate is that plus typical activities of daily life. In other words, there's a minimum number of calories you burn even if you just sleep.

I wouldn't worry about trying to adjust calories because you sleep too much. I'd be more concerned about eating only 800 cals a day--that's not enough.

Jay

I wound up having a snack and finishing the day around 1000. I'll make sure I eat well today, but I think that was just the right amount, considering I did NOTHING yesterday.

Sometimes your body needs more calories to fight off whatever it is dealing with. So don't go by what you think-re activity level. Generally your body will tell you and you will know to eat more or not.