Trying weekly calorie goal - anybody else?

kikichewie

I have a real hard time with weekends. After a good first few weeks of slow weight loss, I completely stalled out a month ago too. So looking at my logs, it was clear I was eating at maintenance....

So I did a bunch of TDEE calculators this weekend, and averaged their results to select 1700 calories per day for a weight loss goal of .75 pounds a week. I am predicting that will actually result in .5 pounds per week. But to deal with weekends when we tend to eat out or have bigger meals, I'm going to go for 1700 a day averaged for the week. I set new daily goals of 1550 Mon-Wed, 2000 for Fri-Sat and 1700 on Sun.

This helped me splurge this past Saturday at a festival without going out of control. I logged everything carefully instead of just going nuts with a cheat day.

Oh, and I'm no longer eating back any exercise calories. That was just too tricky with some random days with a lot to eat, and no exercise calories on other days like Fridays when I wanted them.

Anybody else doing something like this?

SezxyStef

I don't set my diary for this but yah I look at weekly mainly. Esp on the weekends.

I am often under by 50-100 calories and as long as I am under for the week...it's all good.

MorelloKiss

You don't have to eat the exercise calories on the day you earn them. Just look at week average.

lemurcat12

I've done things like that at various times (not changing, but having mental goals for the weekend that were higher and setting my goal a bit lower to account for that). I think it makes a lot of sense given the issues/history you described. I tend to go out to eat on the weekend, so like to have extra calories for that.

I do TDEE method where exercise calories for the week are counted upfront and averaged over all the days. I prefer it since I don't necessarily want to eat less on off days or way more on a day I do a huge workout.

Sued0nim

I use the weekly tracker on the app

natboosh69

Yeah I also go by weekly average rather than daily, means I eat a bit less on work days and can eat a bit more at weekends. Works for me

PrimroseFlower

That does sound like a good idea. Monday through Friday I'm at work which means, meal prep and bringing my lunch. Weekends are eating out, grilling, and the occasional drink. So obviously more on the weekends.