Calories - Daily or Weekly Totals...?

luce3003

Hello all,

Been using the food log for a few weeks now and most days I am just on or slightly under my calories based on my TDEE.

My question is, if I should find that I have an 'off' day and go slightly over, does it matter over the course of a week if some days I am slightly under?

I'm not trying to use this as an excuse to go nuts and stuff myself once a week, as I do try to just eat sensibly and everything in moderation anyway, just wondered if averaging it out over the week is okay or if I have to strictly stick to daily intakes?

Thanks xxx

theJTfitness

All in all, calories kind of do a "rolling average." You won't see any significant difference if you are 200 over for one day, and then 200 under the next. It evens out to an extent.

I like to try to stick to daily calories because it's much easier to correct my course if I veer off path.

J72FIT

Averaging weekly is preferable IMO. It is perfectly fine to eat a little less during the week (provided you are meeting your nutritional requirements) to have some flexibility on the weekends...

margannmks

Im trying to understand the whole weekly totals thing. Is there a magic moment when your body dosent store that xcess just because you ate under two or three days before. Im not trying to be a smartass its kinda confusing to me. In other words what makes the week totals any different than monthly or daily.

nixxthirteen

To lose a pound of fat you have to burn off 3500 more calories than you eat. Cutting a few hundred calories every day is a simple way to only shave off a little here and there but, in the grander scheme, equal out to 3500 (or more or less, depending on your own goals) during the course of a whole week.

I stick to my daily totals as best as I can, but pay attention to the weekly total as well. The weekly lets me see how many extra calories I have "banked" for the week that I can use on pre-scheduled cheat days (holidays, going out for drinks, my sister's grad dinner, etc). If I happen to be 300-ish calories under my goals for a whole week, that's 6x300 extra calories I know I can use toward a whole bottle of wine on a Saturday night without stressing that it'll ruin my good behaviour

MelodyandBarbells

Im trying to understand the whole weekly totals thing. Is there a magic moment when your body dosent store that xcess just because you ate under two or three days before. Im not trying to be a smartass its kinda confusing to me. In other words what makes the week totals any different than monthly or daily.

So a weekly total for example means on Monday I was under by 800 calories, over in Tuesday by 200, over Wednesday by 600 and spot on the remaining days (yeah, right). So theoretically, my body burned more fat on Monday but not as much on Tuesday and maybe even stored a teensy bit on Wednesday. It's obviously not always this simple but the idea is that when you're eating in a surplus, your body stores fat and/or builds muscle, but when you're in a deficit your body burns the fat/muscle stores to meet your days demands

But honestly I don't really think of it on this level. Watching the weekly total is just easier for me to comply with. The app also has a nice histogram (bar graph?) that gives me a running total for the week, as well as how many calories under for the week I am, plus the current average. It makes it easy to plan if I'm gonna take a day off exercise or if I need to attend an extra class. And as for eating, some days I like to eat a ton, and other days I'm busy with any number of things including exercise and don't feel like stuffing my face. It's just easier for me to comply weekly. Heck, at some point I experimented with monthly - over some weeks, under the others, but just the way the daily folks feel about weekly, I decided that time period was a bit too long for me and decided to stick with weekly.