Is it O.K. to indulge in extra calories for a weekend?

the bottom line is still the bottom line...

my wife and I have fast food friday...few meals of stuff we crave. By the end were satisfied and ready for the week ahead after that. It helps keep your sanity

I usually behave during the week too,then Friday or Saturday I'll get a pizza and pig out....just gotta sometimes.

If you want to eat something, eat it, just eat a reasonable portion.
If you eat too much, log it, figure out how not to overeat again, & move on.
Be flexible, forgive yourself.
Realize that it takes 3500 calories to gain (or lose) a pound, so unless you've gone really really overboard you haven't thrown yourself all that far off track. And if you're counting from your goal, which is probably a 500 calorie deficit, maybe you're only eating at maintenance for one day. So you're a day behind where you would have been. Big deal.
Even if you do gain a pound, you're not far behind where you would have been.

What works for you, or what works for someone else is going to vary. My rule of thumb is, I can have a few higher calorie meals in a week, but overall I will have to at least maintain and not gain.

For example, I normally eat around 1700 - 2000 calories in a day, which is at deficit. However, I know on a few weekends I have chowed in the 3500 calorie range for a day. No biggy if it is one, or even two days of that because my normal daily deficit is more than enough that at the end of the week it is a wash. I might even throw in a bit of extra exercise just to bring it down.

For me, I have to only splurge here and there though or it gets back out of hand quickly.

Another way I splurge at times is, I will just have a little something around one big ol' meal in a day. Yesterday I had a bagel for breakfast and planned a small dinner knowing I was going out for this bad boy for lunch! All fit within the maintenance calories of the day that way.



So again, that works for me, but you have to find your own limits and rules for enjoying life as well as maintaining a healthy balance and intake.

Absolutely ! I actually changed my weigh in date a long time ago, so I could indulge on the weekend if I wanted to, and still bounce back in time for my Thursday morning weigh in....LOL Planning is everything !

One of the things I like about MFP is that it moves me beyond "I was good today/I was bad today" and gives me the tools to actually analyze my habits and patterns. Recently I took a look at my net calories over the last 90 days, and found it instructive. Of those 90 days, 21 were days I did not make my net calorie goals, and several (Thanksgiving, our Christmas party, a friends Christmas party) were positively blow-outs. But most of my weekly totals were nevertheless under my goal. There were four weeks that my weekly total exceeded my goal (unsurprisingly, they were Thanksgiving week, Christmas week, New Year's week, and the week of our annual holiday party), but even the worst of those was only 314 calories over my goal. Since my goal is a 250 calorie deficit per day -- 1750 calories/week -- going 300+ calories over for the week still left me with around a 1400 weekly calorie deficit -- not within my goal for that week, but a deficit nevertheless and one that should lead to weight loss, albeit more slowly than meeting my goal. And, indeed, I still lost at least 8-10 pounds over that 90-day period, in line with my goals (1/2 pound per week).

So that's my long-winded, data-driven way of saying a once-a-week lapse isn't going to derail you. Good luck!

JazzAmbassador wrote: »

One of the things I like about MFP is that it moves me beyond "I was good today/I was bad today" and gives me the tools to actually analyze my habits and patterns. Recently I took a look at my net calories over the last 90 days, and found it instructive. Of those 90 days, 21 were days I did not make my net calorie goals, and several (Thanksgiving, our Christmas party, a friends Christmas party) were positively blow-outs. But most of my weekly totals were nevertheless under my goal. There were four weeks that my weekly total exceeded my goal (unsurprisingly, they were Thanksgiving week, Christmas week, New Year's week, and the week of our annual holiday party), but even the worst of those was only 314 calories over my goal. Since my goal is a 250 calorie deficit per day -- 1750 calories/week -- going 300+ calories over for the week still left me with around a 1400 weekly calorie deficit -- not within my goal for that week, but a deficit nevertheless and one that should lead to weight loss, albeit more slowly than meeting my goal. And, indeed, I still lost at least 8-10 pounds over that 90-day period, in line with my goals (1/2 pound per week).

So that's my long-winded, data-driven way of saying a once-a-week lapse isn't going to derail you. Good luck!

Love this long-winded, data-driven post! Similar pattern for me. It's SO helpful to be able to see what you're doing over time which is why I always prefer to log and know what's really happening rather than say "oh well,since it's a blowout of a day I won't even bother logging it."

We all overdo it now and then. Just make certain that you make meet your calorie intake on the majority of days, and you'll be fine.

NEVER deprive yourself.