Banking Calories for the Weekends

breefoshee
breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Anyone have success regularly banking calories for the weekends?

My biggest struggle has always been overeating on the weekends. I do awesome 4 days a week and then blow it 3 days-- which causes me to be in maintenance.

I have a reasonable calorie goal-- 1800 per day. I weigh and measure everything. I'm not overly restrictive, but the weekends just kill me. I want to be more disciplined, but it just isn't happening.

So my thought is, if I can't beat it, why not join it? What if I cut my calories to 1500 per day for 5 days a week, banking 300 per day would give me 1500 extra for the weekend? That way I could eat 2550 calories on Saturday and Sunday and still lose.

Has that worked for people?

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
    I've banked calories pretty regularly since 2015. I don't do it every weekend, but I do it a lot of the time. I typically don't do as many as 1,500, so I can't speak to that.

    The main thing I would be aware of is that you probably will see your weight swing up if you're eating a lot more on the weekends (just because there is more food in your body, as well as probably increased sodium and carbohydrates). This isn't a reason not to do it, but I would recommend focusing on your weight trend rather than individual weigh-ins so you don't get discouraged.

  • Jruzer
    Jruzer Posts: 3,501 Member
    Yes, I do this regularly and it works well for me. Be aware that you'll see bigger swings on the scale using this technique.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
    Yup I do it most of the time. As long as you aren't feeling so deprived on weekdays that you end up going above and beyond on weekends it can work.
  • breefoshee
    breefoshee Posts: 398 Member
    These are helpful, thanks! I started loosely doing this a couple weeks ago, but I haven't made it past the initial scale swings to know I am actually making progress or not--which made me a little nervous.
  • gallicinvasion
    gallicinvasion Posts: 1,015 Member
    In my weight loss period, I would bank calories by eating less during the weekdays as you mentioned above.

    Now in maintenance, I have started doing that again. I eat 100 less than my maintenance level on weekdays and sometimes a weekend day, then I have the final weekend day to go 500-600 calories above maintenance. It's been working really well so far, since I don't reduce the weekdays to any unmanageable level. 100 below maintenance is very comfortable for me.

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