Carrying calories over

Weight loss is an ongoing process and there isn't a stop and go at midnight. So if week to week and month to month you are in a deficit, you will lose weight. Doesn't matter if you are 500 over one day and 1000 under the next you still have 500 for the two days. Problem is it can be hard to maintain a routine.

Time is a man-made concept. Our bodies don't work by the 24hour day.

As long as you check in every week or so to make sure you're not overdoing it, it should be fine.

Suppose you need to eat 2,000 calories per day to maintain your weight. If you cut down to 1,500 calories a day, you should lose 1 pound per week by creating a 3,500 calorie deficit over the course of the week.

Now, suppose you eat 2,000 calories on Friday. As long as you stick to your goal for the rest of the week, you should still maintain a deficit, and should be able to lose about .8 pounds. However, if you add an extra bit of exercise and burn an additional 250 calories on Saturday and Sunday, you should break even.

That does not, however, mean you will lose 1 pound that week. You could still gain, but it shouldn't be a fat gain. It might just be extra fluid retention from the salty high-calorie meal on Friday, or the extra workout over the weekend. Heck, you can be perfect all week and still gain weight.

I think it's important not to go too overboard though. If you eat an extra 1000 calories, you shouldn't try to cut back on your food and overexercise the next day. However, it is nice to know that if you overeat at a party on Saturday, you probably didn't undo all of your progress- unless you either overate every other day that week and/or you ate around 5,000 calories at that party (based on the scenario given).

Actually our hormones are regulated by a 24 hour cycle and this came as a result of our human development and adaptation to a 24 hour day. Melatonin and Growth Hormone are both really critical to weight management, and they renews every night and so are so many others hormones and they are regulated on a 24 hour period so my advice is...before careful with that mindset, also get your sleep in daily and if you do go over on a regular basis be sure you exercise.

I can go over my target within a few days, but not 7 days..not without feeling bloating and gaining weight.

Food not burned as energy is converted to fat. Period.

The thing is where do you stop? You then over eat on your weekly goal ands carry it over to the month? How about a yearly goal? I think you need to draw the line somewhere. I would chalk it down to experience and move on.

The thing is where do you stop? You then over eat on your weekly goal ands carry it over to the month? How about a yearly goal? I think you need to draw the line somewhere. I would chalk it down to experience and move on.

Agree. Used to hv this rollover concept before and it would do my head in, and drove me to restriction and binges. Now I just focus on day to day and tomorrow is always a new day.

One other point that may of interest is that for most people weight loss should probably be seen as a lifetime activity, not a short duration one. Goals will change over your life, hopefully from weight loss to weight maintenance, but if you tend to gain weight easily you´ll always have to control your calory input/output ratio.
The way I put to my daughter is that we are on a 500 km race, not a 100 m one. If you try to do a diet to win a 100 m race, you´ll quite probably lose your 500 km one... slow and long duration is much more manageable than fast and short.
Of course if your goal is getting back to a certain weight at a certain date for some reason, you may have to try to Usain Bolt your diet, but if you don´t take care later you´ll have a huge chance of losing all your effort.

I used to do a weekly calorie goal and it worked really well for me. I still do it, but I'm not logging calories for the time being. It's just naturally easier for me to eat fewer calories during the week and then indulge a big at the weekends. I logged everything and kept track of my calories for the week on a spreadsheet and found that my weekly average was still around what it would have been had I been eating my exact calorie goal every day of the week. It's a system that works really well for me, and I attribute a huge portion of my success so far to eating that way. I would have given up a long time ago if I had to keep myself to the same goal every day of the week.

that is really the skinny trick... balancing it out and not buying into a daily crazy calorie counting obsession. I used to always eat under during the week and eat more on my weekends.. it worked.

For anyone who has done weight watchers the concept of carying over will 'work'. I always ate my flex points on the weekend and you still lose if you are within your goals for the week (being x amount of calories + bonus calories that are factored in obviously)