What do you consider hitting your daily/weekly goals?

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lissakristinej
lissakristinej Posts: 21 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm just wondering what people here consider hitting their goals vs not hitting their goals.

Suppose your goal is 1,800 calories a day or 12,600 a week.

Obviously, hitting exactly 1,800 calories in a single day or 12,600 in the week is a bit more of a challenge. Most days or weeks, you're going to be a little over or under that number.

So, what do you consider to be your personal goal when it comes to being under/over. Do you consider it to be "on plan" if you're within 10% of your daily and/or weekly goals? Do you have a 50-100 calorie cushion per day (or a few hundred calories in the week)? Is your goal simply to not go over your daily and/or weekly goals?

I know some people focus more on daily goals while others look more at the whole week. Personally, I'm trying to look more at the week as a whole.

Replies

  • Dogmom1978
    Dogmom1978 Posts: 1,580 Member
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    Personally, I don’t really look at either. I mean, I’m happy if I come in under for the week, but my bigger focus is what the scale says. I underestimate exercise calories intentionally so that I won’t get demotivated during weekly weigh ins. I am set to lose 1 lb a week and eat 1500 calories a day. I usually lose 2 lbs a week, even when I go over on calories for the week, because of that.
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
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    It's evolved for me over the 13 months I've been dieting. At first "on plan" meant 100 % compliance every day. If I was one calorie over, I considered that non-compliant. If I had enough calories for .4 of a 10 calorie pickle, I would throw out the other .6 LOL But of course that kind of hardcore mindset gets very hard to maintain over time, although it absolutely did work. These days I'm more of a +/- 20 person - if I'm up to 20 over, I don't sweat it, but I do try really hard to hold the line at 20 and also not to use it too often, so that it doesn't evolve into a new calorie quota that happens to be 20 over the old one. Also, I'm more casual about just taking a maintenance day when I want, which is probably once a week. I used to go 3-4 weeks at a time between 100 % compliant days, but I think that gets very hard as the diet ages.
  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 980 Member
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    My days will vary - up maybe 50 / down maybe 50 but my weekly average is usually pretty close to my plan.

    It possibly also depends on what your deficit is. I'm short and my deficit was only a couple of hundred to start with, so not only was weight loss slow going, but being a couple of hundred over would have meant I was eating at maintenance, hence I tried to get fairly close to goal.
  • Shortgirlrunning
    Shortgirlrunning Posts: 1,020 Member
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    Most days I’m probably within 50-75 calories of my target calorie in-take. But like today I’m 100ish over. But I’m still tracking, I’m still under my maintenance calories so I’m still happy with my choices today.

    I try not to put too much pressure on the process. As long as I’m under maintenance calories each day and my weight is still going down I’m not going to worry or stress over days where I was over my calorie goal.
  • Lietchi
    Lietchi Posts: 6,114 Member
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    Generally speaking, I aim to stay under my calorie goal. I used to aim for that every individual day, but I've gotten more relaxed about it and a weekly average at my calorie goal is fine.
    Truth be told, I don't even mind going over, as long as I'm still under maintenance for the week. Which isn't a huge margin to be fair, since I'm set at 0.25kg weight loss per week (275 calories deficit a day).

    I'm logging, I'm mindful even when going over my goal, I'm active, and I'm still losing weight. I don't need anything more than that.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,955 Member
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    Well, you guys are way more into this whole thing than I ever was. I've never really stayed within calories for a whole week. :blush:

    I've been at this a very long time. I still weigh my foods and log them but I'm not nearly as obsessive about the exact numbers at the bottom on my FOOD page.

    However: I am at Maintenance weight but I have my daily calories intentionally set about 350 calories low. I don't like those red numbers, and I'm in them every day but I've found that it is the best way for me. I don't know why. So, I know that over the past 12 years my weight will stay within five pounds if I eat somewhere between 1900 on rest days and 2300 on exercise days...but my calories are set at 1700. If I set my calories for 1900 I would have a hard time of it at this point, even though I know I'm around 2000-2300 nearly every day. My weight doesn't change unless I am way over for several days. Like 600-1000 over for days at a time. If I just over-eat a day here and there I may get a pound or two bump up but it drops back off in a couple days.

    Really my main goal is just a weight range between 140 and 145. I weigh daily.

    Don't ask me why it works because I don't know, but it does.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    For me as long as the scale is cooperating over time, I'm on track. Let's say I'm trying to lose 0.5lb per week. Some weeks will be 0.25lb per week, some will be right on 0.5lb and some will be 0.75lb. Overall as long as it generally evens out im happy.
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,013 Member
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    I never really thought about it that much lol. I just tried to get close every week, whichever side it was on.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,624 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    However: I am at Maintenance weight but I have my daily calories intentionally set about 350 calories low. I don't like those red numbers, and I'm in them every day but I've found that it is the best way for me. I don't know why. So, I know that over the past 12 years my weight will stay within five pounds if I eat somewhere between 1900 on rest days and 2300 on exercise days...but my calories are set at 1700. If I set my calories for 1900 I would have a hard time of it at this point, even though I know I'm around 2000-2300 nearly every day. My weight doesn't change unless I am way over for several days. Like 600-1000 over for days at a time. If I just over-eat a day here and there I may get a pound or two bump up but it drops back off in a couple days.
    Really my main goal is just a weight range between 140 and 145. I weigh daily.
    Don't ask me why it works because I don't know, but it does.

    Well now that's interesting. So I have MFP set at about -300 to -400 depending on total activity, and the fact that MFP app and web are not in sync, and I haven't bothered to figure out why.

    I am generally maintaining. Unless I am accidentally gaining. And if accidentally gaining and I want to stop that or backtrack, I do that by aiming for a -250 OR LESS deficit.

    Which means that pretty much every single day is in the RED. On purpose. Because dem hamsters got upset at MFP telling us whether we get to eat or not! We're rebels and we decide! So red all the way!

    In general, if at less than 300 in the red... it is a loss day. And if several days in a row are 400 or more... higher weight will follow.

    And that's it. In a nutshell.

    Every day is a new day. If the previous day met targets. Great. If the previous day didn't meet targets... well, try to do so today. As simple as that.

    I try to weight every day (but skip the weigh in and/or recording if I've had coffee before I get on the scale) and I DO monitor my weight trend.

    TBH, these past couple of years, my resting HR from Fitbit is a pretty reliable indicator of whether my weight will trend up or down or stay stable. I think there has been ONE incident/week where this wasn't the case? Maybe?

    I rarely look at multi day or weekly averages and results other than when I am looking through them in order to write a post :blush: Or when I wanted to validate that the new Fitbit, slightly less walking, and slightly looser logging were still working OK together in the expected 300-400 range.
  • Duck_Puddle
    Duck_Puddle Posts: 3,224 Member
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    I aim to net somewhere in the ballpark of my weekly average. Net. I have no goal for actual calories consumed because my exercise varies from week to week (and day to day). I also typically have one day that is far over goal (typically over maintenance as well).

    My deficit is a little less than 400 per day.

    If I come in near-ish to my weekly goal, I’l lose about .75 pounds that week (although it might not reflect on the scale due to fluctuations). If I come in somewhere less than 2800 over goal (for the week)-I’ll lose...something.

    In the grand scheme of my life and having done this for years-that’s close enough. And gasp-some weeks I am even above that! And life goes on.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
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    Personally I am on a 250 deficit but don't mind if I end up a little bigger on the deficit.

    My goals are to log daily, everything I consume, and to hit my 5k step goal daily which puts me at least 1650 to 1700 TDEE. My intake goal is 1400 but if the day works out a little lower or higher, that is fine.
  • SCoil123
    SCoil123 Posts: 2,108 Member
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    My weekly goals include staying within my calorie budget (this budget has a low and high end so it’s a range), 6 days of physical fitness activities a week, and an average of 7hr or more sleep each night.

    I set very attainable goals
  • kristingjertsen
    kristingjertsen Posts: 239 Member
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    My goals are exercise twice per day (early morning and late evening right now because it is hot and muggy where I live), stretch daily, take a multi-vitamin, weigh at least once per week, make sure every meal has a protein, vegetables and/or fruit, measure my portion sizes on my food scale, and keep tracking with MFP (my low budget version of a fitbit), Down 10 pounds since March. Still have 20 to go. Allow myself one portioned out treat per day. And the most important rule to follow is that when you had a "bad" eating day, you don't worry about it. Just start again the next day.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    Meh, never been that great with goals. Rules, neither.

    When losing, I tried to be close to my moderate-deficit calorie goal the overwhelming majority of days, say, +/- 50ish. Over or under by more, if rarely, NBD.

    Now, year 4+ of maintenance, I calorie bank (eat a little under maintenance) most days, indulge occasionally, and pay attention to the scale trend in Libra. As long as I'm at a healthy weight (as personally perceived, loosely guided by official norms), I'm OK. I prefer to be in the vicinity of, or headed toward, what I see as my preferred weight range, but I'm not rabid about it.

    Protein, fat, fiber, veggie/fruit servings minimums are slightly more important: I hit them almost always.

    If I stop being active for too long, I start feeling bad/grumpy/tense, so we can't have that going on long.

    Most days, a positive direction on most fronts: Good enough. YMMV, and a lot of people prefer more structure than I do.
  • Carp614
    Carp614 Posts: 192 Member
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    I'm working hard not to pay too much attention to calorie consumption. That's not to say I haven't gotten more familiar with what's coming in, it's just that I need to stay focused on 1) feeling better 2) getting stronger and 3) eventually looking a bit better.

    So far I have felt better and been getting stronger, so I'm all good!

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