Hitting Your Goal

jennhanson

I have been using MFP for several years, sometimes to maintain and sometimes to lose weight, but always as part of a balanced lifestyle which includes social events and alcohol on occasion. Recently I've been unsuccessful in losing weight and wanted to talk about how you all look at hitting your goal each day.

On a regular day when I have control over all my meals, I usually hit my goal, including exercise (so I "eat back" my exercise calories). However, there are usually a couple days a week where I go way over my goal by several hundred calories, and I wonder if this is derailing my weight loss.

I'm thinking about eating a couple hundred calories under my goal (plus eating back exercise calories) on days when I am eating at home and don't have a big social event, to counteract the days when I am more splurgy. (For reference, my goal is 1350 and I typically burn approximately 250-300 calories 5 days a week from exercise, so I would eat 1400 calories on a "regular" day).

Does anyone else do this? Any thoughts?

callsitlikeiseeit

you would basically be working off a weekly deficit instead of daily, and thats fine.

it all balances out.

LaurenAOK

I do this. Like you, I kept having days where I go over, so I just look at my whole week rather than each day. You can view your week under the nutrition section of the MFP app. It will tell you how far over or under you are for your weekly goal.

The way I see it, I'm set up to lose .5 pounds a week. That's a deficit of 1750 cals. So even if I'm over my weekly goal by a couple hundred cals, I'm still in deficit range and I'm going to lose a little weight.

I'm fine with going over some days and losing more slowly if it means I'm getting to really enjoy my life. I probably have a more lax attitude about it than most though, since I'm almost ready for maintenance at this point.

Talan79

I've been plugging numbers into excel so I can track properly. If I want to go over, I can make up for it.
I've been doing it since last March and find it really helpful.

txkat3

I like calorie cycling. I really feel like it keeps your body from artificially lowering your metabolism to a new set point. I like to do the same thing with workouts, too. My body has really changed the most since I started working out really hard ( like2- 2.5 hours), two days a week, moderately gently, 2 days a week, and resting three days a week. I'm pretty much at my goal weight, but I've gone from a size 6 to a size 2 since November losing only three pounds, which I like, because that means I can EAT more ( mo muscle, mo fun!)

middlehaitch

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

you would basically be working off a weekly deficit instead of daily, and thats fine.

it all balances out.

All of the above. I really found tracking weekly ideal. My mid week was always lower than my Thursday and Friday so I started looking at the whole week and stopped worrying over evening out my daily consumption.
Yeah, for eating back your exercise cals. I do a happy dance every time I read someone realized one needs the extra nutrient.

Cheers, h.