calorie total for the week?

Okay so I have a question. Lets say your daily calorie intake is 1500 a day or (10,500) per week. Not including any exercise you burn or what not in this example. If one day you chosse it eat 1200 can you eat 1800 the next day, I mean isnt it same thing. You would still have the same amount ate at the end of the week.

No, it's not the same thing because your caloric needs are computed daily, not weekly.  I don't know why there is a difference, but there is.  You should compute your caloric needs on a daily basis and find a comfortable place where you are feeling satiated but still are losing weight.  Why are you trying to calculate weekly?  Did you see that somewhere?

To try to balance caloric intake and weight loss, one should typically start consuming aboput 500-1000 calories less than one burns each day.  Your activity level can be calculated using the Burn Meter on CC.  Good luck!

No I dont caculate weekly, I do it daily. The only reason I was asking was if I happen to go over one day can I make up for that be eating less the next day.

If I go over one day, I try to eat a little less the next day.  Just don't have 6 1200 calorie days and then one 3300 calorie day, that's too extreme.  Don't overeat on Monday and then undereat on Friday to try to make up for it, that would be too far apart.

This is called zig-zagging and yes, it's perfectly fine.  Just search zig-zagging in the forums and you'll find many people (including myself) who swear by it.   The reasoning being that is you eat the exact same # of calories every day, your body can become adjusted to it, and your metabolism adjust and slows down. The theory of zig zagging is to keep your metabolism guessing so to speak. 

I have lost 40 lbs in 23 weeks this way without a single plateau (looks around and knocks on wood).   I aim for around a 4000 calories weekly deficit.

Just don't do it to the extremes.  The way you stated is fine.  Just never go under 1200 calories for the day.

The number of calories that you average per day over the long run is more important than the number of calories that you eat on any given day.  So yes you can zig-zag but you don't want to go below your daily minimum.

I agree with the responders who say that is is NOT the same thing. As a Nutrition counselor I tell people it is ok to go over your calorie level a little but just pick up on the activity level to burn off what you eat. At the end of the day our body assess what has been taken in and what needs to be stored. If you ate too many calories it will know it and start storing it as fat for the day. This means that when you wake up you have a little more fat in storage that you need to burn off. Sometimes we store extra carbs( glucose) and this is converted into glycogen, this is saved for when you need a burst of energy adn it gets converted back into glucose, about a 30 min supply, on top of that every thing else gets stored as fat, not protein.

I have noticed that I do the zig zag calorie intake not intentionally but I don't go way over or way below my calorie intake requirements and on the weekend I have a cheat meal which makes my calorie intake for that day  close to 2,000 calories or alil over and I'm still losing weight.I believe  zig zagging your calories works because your body does get use to the same amount of calories daily and will make you stop losing weight due to a slow metabolism so zig zagging helps boost your metabolism.

Original Post by thehealthieryou:

I agree with the responders who say that is is NOT the same thing. As a Nutrition counselor I tell people it is ok to go over your calorie level a little but just pick up on the activity level to burn off what you eat. At the end of the day our body assess what has been taken in and what needs to be stored. If you ate too many calories it will know it and start storing it as fat for the day. This means that when you wake up you have a little more fat in storage that you need to burn off. Sometimes we store extra carbs( glucose) and this is converted into glycogen, this is saved for when you need a burst of energy adn it gets converted back into glucose, about a 30 min supply, on top of that every thing else gets stored as fat, not protein.

Yeah, but even if you did store some energy as fat but had an overall deficit or broke even for the week or month or whatever, wouldn't it not make any difference in the long run?  Cos with that deficit, you're burning stored energy, am I right?

Unless you're 100% perfect on your calorie counting, which no one is, I'm sure you're storing and un-storing energy all the time.  When you look at it like that, isn't the OP correct?