But what if you're up for 20 hours?

  • I'm not sure if I am posting this in the right spot but I was wondering if anyone had any insight on this topic, or knew of a resource that I could look at.

    Here's the deal. I'm currently on a very low cal, low fat, attempting to be high fiber diet. I limit my calorie intake to about 1200 calories a day and work out a lot. I'm using the fitday software which calculates how many calories you burn a day based on the category you choose (ie. sedentary, seated a little movement etc.) So then I monitor my calorie balance by adding the differences between the calories burned and eaten each day.
    I've been losing weight so that's great but I'm just really curious about two of my days.
    Wednesdays and Fridays I am up for a minimum of 20 hours. I get up at about 4:30 am and go to bed at about 1:00 am on Wednesdays and at least that, if not later, on Fridays. Other days I'm up for about 15 hours. Now, my calories burned show the same every day (base calories, minus my workout calories) and I eat the same amount of calories, but obviously there should be more of a discrepancy for the long days right? I mean, it just make sense that if you're awake longer, you're more active. Does anyone know of any articles or resources regarding this issue? I know you have to get enough sleep each night for maximum weight loss, but what about the other way around?

    Thanks so much.

    Hope this made sense!
  • I'm not sure I've read any articles on this before. If you are up for longer periods of time and therefore getting more activity, then you may want to add an extra snack along the way to make sure you have enough energy to support your health on long days.

    I personally wouldn't worry about the details for the sake of logging, since every day will probably be a little different than Fitday says anyway, and it's best as a general reference point. We're all unique in that way. But if your body feels different on the long days, then you may need to eat an extra snack to make up for the difference. I personally make adjustments as I go along, based on any changes in my lifestyle.

    I'm not completely sure that's what you were looking for, but I hope it helps
  • if you use the downloaded fitday you can click the dropdown which allows you to edit the number of hours you slept that day and then add the extra time into another category. you can basically change your metabolism every day if you wanted to.