To be in a calorie deficit will one day of cheating ruin my weekly goal?

abiiwardd
abiiwardd Posts: 3 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Basically I have decided to track my calories daily because I am new to calorie counting and don’t want to do the maths or having to add calories back on throughout the week. If my calories go slightly over one day will this affect my weight loss goal?

Answers

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    Cheating who or what? Your goals?

    There's nothing wrong with a periodic refeed break as needed, but a scheduled cheat day, not just a meal or snack but a day, suggests the rest of the week is unsustainable which is a bad sign. It's up to you how you manage a sustainable deficit though.

    Note that if you consume quite a bit before a weekly weigh-in, and depending what that food is, and the sodium content, etc. it may add water weight too. That's one reason a lot of people recommend daily weighs and checking a multi-day average for the trend.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    Your weekly calories are what to look at. Add up 7 days of calories and divide by 7.if this number is at or below your daily calorie target you’re ok.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,197 Member
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Your weekly calories are what to look at. Add up 7 days of calories and divide by 7.if this number is at or below your daily calorie target you’re ok.

    Spot on concept, but even easier method: In the MFP phone/tablet app, go to the Nutrition option in the More menu. Pick the Calories tab, change to Week view near the top. It'll show you your average calories (total or net) and how many calories over or under you are for the week.

    Even if over goal, if you're under maintenance calories, you'd expect to lose weight, just more slowly. Slowly but achievable is better than theoretically faster but unsustainable, I think.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Your weekly calories are what to look at. Add up 7 days of calories and divide by 7.if this number is at or below your daily calorie target you’re ok.

    Spot on concept, but even easier method: In the MFP phone/tablet app, go to the Nutrition option in the More menu. Pick the Calories tab, change to Week view near the top. It'll show you your average calories (total or net) and how many calories over or under you are for the week.

    Even if over goal, if you're under maintenance calories, you'd expect to lose weight, just more slowly. Slowly but achievable is better than theoretically faster but unsustainable, I think.
    most people don’t know about that tab. Lol, I always hate to press it on Monday mornings

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Spot on concept, but even easier method: In the MFP phone/tablet app, go to the Nutrition option in the More menu. Pick the Calories tab, change to Week view near the top. It'll show you your average calories (total or net) and how many calories over or under you are for the week.
    Thanks. I see on the website under Reports there is Weekly Digest, which shows similar data and other things too. There is also My Weekly Report on the app, which says its "new".
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Spot on concept, but even easier method: In the MFP phone/tablet app, go to the Nutrition option in the More menu. Pick the Calories tab, change to Week view near the top. It'll show you your average calories (total or net) and how many calories over or under you are for the week.
    Thanks. I see on the website under Reports there is Weekly Digest, which shows similar data and other things too. There is also My Weekly Report on the app, which says its "new".

    The PC version doesnt have it. Mobil does. I have to use my phone or ipad to see it. It's under the NUTRITION tab.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    The PC version doesnt have it. Mobil does. I have to use my phone or ipad to see it. It's under the NUTRITION tab.
    Sure, but that Weekly Digest does have a lot of similar info. Checking now on my PC on the site, it shows:

    Weekly calorie goal, Weekly calories logged, Calories burned
    Graph of calories per meal for the week
    Graph of each days macros showing if they were above or below each target
    etc.
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    The PC version doesnt have it. Mobil does. I have to use my phone or ipad to see it. It's under the NUTRITION tab.
    Sure, but that Weekly Digest does have a lot of similar info. Checking now on my PC on the site, it shows:

    Weekly calorie goal, Weekly calories logged, Calories burned
    Graph of calories per meal for the week
    Graph of each days macros showing if they were above or below each target
    etc.

    Maybe yours is different. Mine only goes Sunday to Sunday and you can only see the last 2 weeks if weekly amounts.
  • Corina1143
    Corina1143 Posts: 3,624 Member
    abiiwardd wrote: »
    Basically I have decided to track my calories daily because I am new to calorie counting and don’t want to do the maths or having to add calories back on throughout the week. If my calories go slightly over one day will this affect my weight loss goal?

    Sometimes people, especially those new to calorie counting, think they are always supposed to go under their goal calories. Not true. It's just too hard to hit your goal exactly, so you go a few calories under each day, but you need to go over occasionally, too, if you want your average and your goal to be equal. Nothing at all wrong with going a few under 6 days a week and several over one day a week.

    How many? For instance you set your goal to lose 1 pound a week. That means you eat tdee-500 calories per day. 500 calorie deficit x 7 days = 3500 calorie deficit = one pound loss. If you eat 500 calories over your goal one day a week, it will take you 8 days instead of 7 to lose 1 pound, 7 at -500 and one at maintenance.
  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,847 Member
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Maybe yours is different. Mine only goes Sunday to Sunday and you can only see the last 2 weeks if weekly amounts.
    Ah, I didn't notice that. I only weigh myself on Monday morning, so Mon-Sun might be useful to me, but it doesn't even do the current week, it's just the previous week, and the week before that (more with Premium).
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Maybe yours is different. Mine only goes Sunday to Sunday and you can only see the last 2 weeks if weekly amounts.
    Ah, I didn't notice that. I only weigh myself on Monday morning, so Mon-Sun might be useful to me, but it doesn't even do the current week, it's just the previous week, and the week before that (more with Premium).
    Lol, I need to be able to see daily what my average is. Will that extra burrito today screw up my weekly numbers.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,197 Member
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Maybe yours is different. Mine only goes Sunday to Sunday and you can only see the last 2 weeks if weekly amounts.
    Ah, I didn't notice that. I only weigh myself on Monday morning, so Mon-Su, might be useful to me, but it doesn't even do the current week, it's just the previous week, and the week before that (more with Premium).
    Lol, I need to be able to see daily what my average is. Will that extra burrito today screw up my weekly numbers.

    The Nutrition menu in the app does that, as you probably know. The week view always shows a 7-day average that ends with the current day, but you can switch it by switching days (either by switching the day where you're in day view, or with the day view/week view/change date selection on the page).

    Also, I didn't mention it in my PP, but some new folks might not realize: In the app, you can jump straight to Nutrition from your diary, by clicking on the pie chart icon at upper right of the diary page.

    P.S. With premium, the Weekly Report goes waaay back, maybe even before the "Weekly Report" feature got added, I think. Mine - at least in the app - goes back to the week before I joined MFP in mid-2015!
  • tomcustombuilder
    tomcustombuilder Posts: 2,220 Member
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Retroguy2000 wrote: »
    tomcustombuilder wrote: »
    Maybe yours is different. Mine only goes Sunday to Sunday and you can only see the last 2 weeks if weekly amounts.
    Ah, I didn't notice that. I only weigh myself on Monday morning, so Mon-Su, might be useful to me, but it doesn't even do the current week, it's just the previous week, and the week before that (more with Premium).
    Lol, I need to be able to see daily what my average is. Will that extra burrito today screw up my weekly numbers.

    The Nutrition menu in the app does that, as you probably know. The week view always shows a 7-day average that ends with the current day, but you can switch it by switching days (either by switching the day where you're in day view, or with the day view/week view/change date selection on the page).

    Also, I didn't mention it in my PP, but some new folks might not realize: In the app, you can jump straight to Nutrition from your diary, by clicking on the pie chart icon at upper right of the diary page.

    P.S. With premium, the Weekly Report goes waaay back, maybe even before the "Weekly Report" feature got added, I think. Mine - at least in the app - goes back to the week before I joined MFP in mid-2015!
    yes I like to go back to when loss was optimal and see what the calories and macros were saying. No need to pay for premium. I had 20 years of data on another app when they went off line and that sucked.

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