Banking Calories for the Weekends

breefoshee

Anyone have success regularly banking calories for the weekends?

My biggest struggle has always been overeating on the weekends. I do awesome 4 days a week and then blow it 3 days-- which causes me to be in maintenance.

I have a reasonable calorie goal-- 1800 per day. I weigh and measure everything. I'm not overly restrictive, but the weekends just kill me. I want to be more disciplined, but it just isn't happening.

So my thought is, if I can't beat it, why not join it? What if I cut my calories to 1500 per day for 5 days a week, banking 300 per day would give me 1500 extra for the weekend? That way I could eat 2550 calories on Saturday and Sunday and still lose.

Has that worked for people?

janejellyroll

I've banked calories pretty regularly since 2015. I don't do it every weekend, but I do it a lot of the time. I typically don't do as many as 1,500, so I can't speak to that.

The main thing I would be aware of is that you probably will see your weight swing up if you're eating a lot more on the weekends (just because there is more food in your body, as well as probably increased sodium and carbohydrates). This isn't a reason not to do it, but I would recommend focusing on your weight trend rather than individual weigh-ins so you don't get discouraged.

Jruzer

Yes, I do this regularly and it works well for me. Be aware that you'll see bigger swings on the scale using this technique.

sardelsa

Yup I do it most of the time. As long as you aren't feeling so deprived on weekdays that you end up going above and beyond on weekends it can work.

breefoshee

These are helpful, thanks! I started loosely doing this a couple weeks ago, but I haven't made it past the initial scale swings to know I am actually making progress or not--which made me a little nervous.

gallicinvasion

In my weight loss period, I would bank calories by eating less during the weekdays as you mentioned above.

Now in maintenance, I have started doing that again. I eat 100 less than my maintenance level on weekdays and sometimes a weekend day, then I have the final weekend day to go 500-600 calories above maintenance. It's been working really well so far, since I don't reduce the weekdays to any unmanageable level. 100 below maintenance is very comfortable for me.