Banking calories is a bad idea

Holidays are upon us and even though we are much less likely to be attending events than in years past, we still may encounter dinners or parties out. A common practice within the “diet community” (for lack of a better term) is to bank the day’s calories for an expected overage at night. Rarely do I see this turn out as expected.

The idea is that by throttling intake during the day we can manage our overall caloric intake with an unknown evening. While I think  ther can be some merit in this idea, it requires a pretty advanced stage of estimation and high levels of interoception. Most people who need cognitive oversight to manage weight have not developed these skills fully. They take time and a lot of practice.

The resulting outcome is usually showing up to a party starving from barely eating all day and within 10 minutes you’re elbow deep in a bowl of guac. Snortin pixie sticks and mainlining cheese dip. It gets ugly fast. And those little cocktail wieners? They don’t stand a chance.

A better approach seems to be making sure we are getting sufficient intake throughout the day to avoid that extreme hunger later. In order to assuage the fear of blowing out the day we can just stick to a focus of lean proteins. We know there will be plenty of fat and carb filled items at an evening event so loading up on protein all day is probably going to be beneficial. The mistake some people make here is focusing on the protein as a number and not as food. We want to be sure that we are creating a state of satiety so things like chicken breast and egg whites and pork tenderloin are going to be good choices. Paired with a bunch of vegetables we can easily stay full and go into the evening with knowing that we’ve taken care of getting our protein in for the day.

Enjoy the holidays. Enjoy what limited time with friends and family we can. Be responsible in your choices. And set yourself up to be successful.