Weekly Calorie Limit...Good or bad?

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Replies

  • teagirlmedium
    teagirlmedium Posts: 679 Member
    For me I usually go by how many calories I can have in a day. If I know there is an event coming up a particular week, like a birthday or a holiday I will switch to a weekly calorie limit. I find this helps me have a little fun while I hit my goals. Also this changes up the diet a bit so that I don't get bored or feel like I am trapped into doing it the same way everyday for the rest of my life.
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,345 Member
    Although I mostly look at daily calories it always heartens me to see when I look at the weekly average that despite usually having 2 days a week where I'm over my TDEE I actually have a total slight deficit which is what I want. Its like looking at the bigger picture and knowing that I'm am maintaining just fine.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
    edited November 2017
    My daily calorie "goal" can range from anywhere to 2300 calories (rest day) to over 5000 calories (running an ultramarathon), so yeah, I do weekly goal. I do somewhat of a hybrid between TDEE and daily goals. My gross calorie intake is usually lower on a rest day, but my net is higher, and vice versa on a long run day. To support my training, I have to eat over my goal on certain days to support the next day's workout. Trying to eat to a daily goal would be difficult and negatively impact my ability to hit the workout goals.

    Weekly goals also let me plan for higher intake days where I'm going to go out for a nice dinner or go to events with lower days in other parts of the week.
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    edited November 2017
    In principle it will result in the same overall result if followed. In principle I imagine it is quite possible that on day 6 of tracking you realize you have accumulated a large debt or a large surplus that it will be difficult to overcome on day 7. Not that that is the end of the world but the concern would be only worrying about the end of the week total can give one a mental excuse to dismiss excesses earlier in the week because you can always just make up for it later. Could result in a pattern of overeating in the beginning of the week then undereating at the end of the week which won't really allow you to build up those healthy eating habits that will allow you to smoothly transition into maintenance. If you focus instead on making sure your intake is fairly regular throughout the week then you'd basically be doing the daily tracking anyways.

    I wouldn't go as far as to say it is "good" or "bad". It is an approach that likely would work better for some and worse for others. If i was to diet again I probably would stick with daily tracking because I know that works for me. But up to you to determine what works for you.
  • ryenday
    ryenday Posts: 1,540 Member
    Aaron_K123 wrote: »
    In principle it will result in the same overall result if followed. In principle I imagine it is quite possible that on day 6 of tracking you realize you have accumulated a large debt or a large surplus that it will be difficult to overcome on day 7. Not that that is the end of the world but the concern would be only worrying about the end of the week total can give one a mental excuse to dismiss excesses earlier in the week because you can always just make up for it later. Could result in a pattern of overeating in the beginning of the week then undereating at the end of the week which won't really allow you to build up those healthy eating habits that will allow you to smoothly transition into maintenance. If you focus instead on making sure your intake is fairly regular throughout the week then you'd basically be doing the daily tracking anyways.

    I wouldn't go as far as to say it is "good" or "bad". It is an approach that likely would work better for some and worse for others. If i was to diet again I probably would stick with daily tracking because I know that works for me. But up to you to determine what works for you.

    Interesting perspective. If I am going to over eat, it is most likely going to be on a Friday or a Saturday. Therefore weekly tracking works so well for me because I generally want to have some extra calories in the bank for Friday and Saturday.
  • lemurcat12
    lemurcat12 Posts: 30,886 Member
    Yeah, weekly works for me, but it's also always been in the context of banking calories for the end of the week.
  • Nikion901
    Nikion901 Posts: 2,467 Member
    Tried both approaches ... looking at each day vs looking at the week ... both work if you stay within your limits, however, for me, if I had a big calorie day it threw off my weight a couple of days later and I always added weight quicker than I was able to take it off again ... so it was a lot of yo-yoing back and forth over the same 2-5 pounds.

    Now I give myself a range of calories a day to strive towards and average the calories throughout the week with a target for that average as my weekly goal. The target average is what I have MFP calories set at.