Continue with weekly deficit whilst maintaining?

losingArni

hi all!
so, I am not up to maintain weight yet, but I am getting there,
I was wondering if anyone had had success with continuing to eat at a calorie deficit during the week, and the eating whatever on the weekends?
So, like if I continued to eat at around 1 300 during the weekdays, and then on the weekend basically ate whatever I wanted, would I still be able to maintain ? or has any one had successful maintanence with this approach?
thanks!

Donald_Dozier_50

hi all!
so, I am not up to maintain weight yet, but I am getting there,
I was wondering if anyone had had success with continuing to eat at a calorie deficit during the week, and the eating whatever on the weekends?
So, like if I continued to eat at around 1 300 during the weekdays, and then on the weekend basically ate whatever I wanted, would I still be able to maintain ? or has any one had successful maintanence with this approach?
thanks!

It is all in the math........ if you don't burn off the calories you consume, you will gain weight.

astartig

I think that could work in theory but it's risky. you'd be better off still logging if you're doing it that way and setting allowances for the weekend as well that match the amount you saved over the week so the weekly total averages out.

morticia16

I see no harm in taking weekly averages for calorie intake vs burn. Personally that's what I am overseeing and it works. However, do take care to monitor the calories. The math indeed is simple; surplus will gain you weight, so you need to be careful.

TavistockToad

unless you are very small, or planning to eat about 5000 calories on a saturday and sunday, you will probably find you are still in a deficit doing that as 1300 cals isnt very many.

i have been maintaining for a while and i always have higher days at the weekend, which are offset by lower days during the week. as long as you are balanced out at the end of the week you wont gain or lose.

Kadi82

I do this. Unless of course I'm in a challenge that requires "proof" of eating under daily goal. But I have always done this and I have not put on weight. But then I don't eat heaps on my weekends it seems. I logged it for my recent challenge and I'm only just over or on par. I guess you can test yourself and if you find yourself putting on weight then go back to logging.

alpine1994

This works as long as your weekly total doesn't go over maintenance calories. I do this. I worked it out so that if I eat 1,530 cals Monday-Friday, I can eat 2,335 each of Saturday and Sunday. This is with no exercise, and I usually eat back exercise calories so I eat more than that. I have been maintaining since March of this year and have had no problems.

LorinaLynn

That's what I did. I kept a small deficit during the week, and ate whatever I wanted on the weekends. I did it more for the mental break from counting than to eat all the foods.*

And I still lost weight. So I ate a little more during the week, and ate whatever I wanted on the weekends.

And I still lost weight. So I kept adding more and more to the number during the week, until I stopped losing.

My long term goal was/is to not have to log my calories. I think I'm pretty much there now.

* What I'm finding is that "eating what I want" often means I'll eat less than if I prelog everything. If I'm logging my food, I'll measure out an exact portion of potato chips, log it in my diary and eat the whole portion. If I'm not logging, I'll just grab a handful and eat them and be perfectly fine with that, and that handful is smaller than the exact portion I would have measured.

cwolfman13

You're going to really have to pork out on the weekends.....

Just as an example, I maintain right around 2700 - 2800 calories per day. If I were to maintain a 500 calorie deficit from maintenance Mon - Fri, that would be 2,500 calories deficit...so to maintain I'd have to consume nearly 4,000 calories on both Saturday and Sunday....I like to eat and drink, but that would still be a tall order for me.

Add to that, your training improves dramatically when you actually eat to maintenance and fuel all of your activity. I never noticed how suck *kitten* my trainining was until I actually went to maintenance and just started crushing my fitness.

I more or less tend to have some days when I'm over and some when I'm under...but I'm usually in the maintenance calorie neighborhood.

TribeHokie

I've semi-inadvertently been eating that way for the past month or so and I've continued to lose weight, though at about half the speed. Give it a shot and see what happens, but be careful that you don't use weekend maintenance level days as an excuse to just completely binge.

gregpack

Some variation of what you are planning will work. I tend to eat 500-800 below maintenance 1-2 days a week, often Monday and Thursday. Doing it just one day at a time is easy and it makes up for any misbehaving on weekends. Just two days of low cal a week tends to keep my weight fairly steady.

Mcgrawhaha

i maintain with no problem by continuing with my defecit on the weekdays, and having what i want on the weekends. i still exercise...