Calorie goals – daily or weekly?

cncrafton

I'm curious about this – when we're aiming for a calorie deficit, is it judged by day or by week? A little bit of both?

I didn't eat breakfast this morning and I'm getting a bit hungry but I won't be able to eat lunch for another two hours or so. I found a snack in my backpack that I didn't eat yesterday but I put it in my log when I was planning my day and didn't take it off. So…are those calories already accounted for, thus allowing me to eat it without having to log it today? I have plenty of calories to work with today, but now I'm curious and I'd like to know how other people judge their calorie goals.

RainbootsToBikinis

You can do it either way. I find it easier to go day by day, but some just look at their overall weekly trend. If you're hungry you should eat, especially if you didn't eat breakfast!

sh4690

Well I look at my calories daily, but I know to loose say 2lbs a week there has to be a deficit of 6000 calories.
Remember and calculate your BMR which is basically what your body burns naturally functioning, because if you base it solely on intake and exercise out put you will lose it too fast. For example mines is

8400 - (average I try to do, sometimes slightly more) Intake per week
10, 360 - BMR per week
3, 500 - Burned through exercise per week (I try to do this doesn't always happen!)

Take your BMR and exercise calories away from your intake and thats the result you get,

this gives me a deficit of 5, 460 which is just under 2lbs a week weight loss... well that's how I figure it's meant to work! lol