How much food would you have to eat over time to gain weight?

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Allthingsglitter
Allthingsglitter Posts: 15 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
What if I eat a 1,200 calories a day Monday-Friday, but then eat 3,500 on Saturday and Sunday. Would I still be able to lose weight?

How much food do I eat to actually gain weight?

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  • Ready2Rock206
    Ready2Rock206 Posts: 9,488 Member
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    If you're still in a calorie deficit you can still lose weight. If you're not then you won't. There's no one magic number for everyone - it would depend on your stats.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,867 Member
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    You would have to figure out your maintenance calories.
  • toxikon
    toxikon Posts: 2,384 Member
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    Figure out your TDEE then multiply it by 7. Then you know how much you can eat in a week and divide up your daily calories however you want.
  • bwogilvie
    bwogilvie Posts: 2,130 Member
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    Depends on your height, weight, age, activity level, and behavior patterns (because people who naturally fidget can burn 100-200 calories a day more than those of us who tend to be pretty still when we're sitting or standing). You can use a calorie calculator like this one to estimate your needs:

    http://scoobysworkshop.com/accurate-calorie-calculator/

    Note that regardless of the claims any calculator makes, its numbers are simply estimates; you need to tweak your own based on your actual results. If you think you're eating a 500-calorie daily deficit, but you're losing only 0.5 pounds per week (on average), then your real deficit is 250 calories a day, not 500.
  • need2belean
    need2belean Posts: 356 Member
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    What's your Total daily energy expenditure? Meaning, how many calories are you burning during the day. If you have a TDEE of say 2000, then you would need to eat 500 calories less than that a day to lose 1lb a week. To lose 1 pound you need to lose 3500 calories (500calories a day x 7days = 3500calories). BUT. If you eat 1200 Monday through Friday (and that's if you are truly eating 1200 and weighing and logging everything that goes in your mouth) and then eating 3500 on Saturday and Sunday, you're looking at a daily average of 1857calories and some change per day (1200*5) + (3500*2). 2000TDEE-1857avg =only 143 calorie deficit per day. At this rate, it would take you 24ish days to lose a lb. Therefore, you're pretty much maintaining at this point. However, if your TDEE is higher then the calculations change but you get the point.

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