Weekly Limit

Hi Some members choose to track daily cals, some chose to track weekly and have a surplus for the weekend. As long as you're still in a deficit you won't gain weight. It's just a different method of doing it

I pay more attention to my weekly deficit. One day of going over your calories is not going to make much of a difference,(( unless you go over by thousands consistently)) just like eating one healthy low fat meal won't make you skinny.

I eat around 1200-1300 on weekdays and then 2000ish on weekends. I've lost 23kg so far doing this and it allows me to keep sane and not feel like I'm compromising too much.

Eg.
Average woman's maintenance is 2000/day.

To lose 1lb/week she needs a deficit of 3500cals.

For 7 days she can eat 1500 cals and lose a lb.

Or

5 days at 1300 cals, 2 eating her maintenance and still have the same potential to lose 1lb because it's still the same deficit as above over the week.

The opposite applies for gaining 1lb/week.

Not forgetting that the loss may not be exact week after week for various reasons that make scales mischievous, secretive and a tool of potential torture for the uninitiated.

pengy7583 wrote: »

I still don't understand.

Science says calories over your maintenance will cause your body to store the extra calories as fat.

So if I save calories Monday and splurge 2000 more cal Saturday, wouldn't those extra calories add to weight gain?

Or instead of daily count, weekly count is what really matters in either gaining or loosing.

See you are right. On days you go over you gain, but on days you cut off extra calories you lose more than you would have had you eaten your allotted average so it all levels off.

Example, look at these fictional numbers:
- You lose 0.14 a day eating at 1800 and average 1 pound loss a week if you eat 1800 every single day.
- You lose 0.28 a day if you eat 1300 (500 calories less than the usual daily calories needed to lose 1 pound a week)
- You gain 0.14 if you eat 2800 calories (1000 calories over your usual daily calories)

If you had all days at a loss of 0.14 it would be like this : -0.14 x 7 = roughly -1 pound a week.

Now suppose you had 2 days at 1300, 1 day at 2800, and the rest at 1800, your total loss would go like this: (2 x -0.28) + (1 x +0.14) + (4 x -0.14) = roughly -1 pounds a week.

If you don't feel like dealing with equations think of it like this: you are borrowing calories from days to use them on others without affecting your overall average for a week, even though you may gain on some of these days. It's basically a micro yoyo diet.

so glad I came across this forum! It seems like it would be so much more reasonable for weekends and other random splurges.

I try to stick to daily counts just because it stops me from the unhealthy behaviour of saying "oh, I'll just borrow some calories from tomorrow". But ultimately I also look to come in at or under my weekly count.

Capt_Apollo wrote: »

it's funny, no one ever says "omg, i went over my calories by a hundred every day this last week, so saturday i have to eat 500 calories less."

I do this.

segacs wrote: »

Capt_Apollo wrote: »

it's funny, no one ever says "omg, i went over my calories by a hundred every day this last week, so saturday i have to eat 500 calories less."

I do this.

Me too

I weigh in Saturday morning so I splurge after and make up for it the rest of the week. It helps me stay sane and I like to plan my week so it is already built in by the time I splurge how I will fix it by the next weigh in. I have lost 12 lbs in 28 days so I guess I am doing something right.