You need 3500 calories above maintence per week to gain one pound of body fat, so if I eat 1500 calories above my maintance I won't gain fat like that. I dont want to gain weight, but I always had, and have, cheat days on weekends. I lost a lot of weight like that. I always wondered how that worked. I don't gain fat, but eat 1500 more calories combined, across both days. What is the maximum amount of calories that I can go over on both days and not gain weight? I Also heard something about 7000 calories but there are many different opinions on that.
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2 Answers
When tracking calories, if you tend to binge a bit on weekends it's best to track your calories per week. Cheat days are a poor concept and just make calorie tracking harder. If you want to allow for more calories on weekend then you need to reduce your intake slightly on weekdays. E.g. say you require 2000cal a day, that equates to 14,000 cal per week. If you wanted to allow for 3000cal a day on Saturday and Sunday, that leaves 8000 calories for the 5 weekdays or 1600cal a day. Across the 7 days that still totals 14,000 cal for the week. Theoretically, there is no maximum to how many calories you could eat on the weekend, as long as you adjust the rest of the week accordingly. That being said, the more you eat on the weekends, the less you can eat during the week, making your weekday diet harder and more unsustainable. A reasonably sustainable program would be, assuming the 2000cal/day example, something like +500 a day on weekends, so 1800cal on weekdays and 2500cal a day on weekends. Of course, you can increase or decrease the total weekly calories based in your own personal calorie requirements, but keep in mind, the smaller the surplus on weekends, the smaller the reduction on weekdays will meed to be, and the easier the diet will be.
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1Great summary. Your point about cheat days making dieting harder, not easier, is a really important observation.– Thomas Markov ♦Commented Jan 20 at 22:47
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@ThomasMarkov - Thank you. It's useful to know when my answers are not just factually accurate, but thorough and precise.– EthanCommented Jan 21 at 0:52
3500 calories = 1 lb of fat is an exercise myth that has long since been debunked. Each person has a different metabolism, and simple truisms like that rarely work. The only equation that works is that if calories burned - calories consumed = a positive number you will lose weight. And vice versa. If that is not the case, either your exercise is not burning the calories you think it is, or you are consuming more calories than you think.
Also, a "cheat day" doesn't kill you. Same as a one day intense exercise session doesn't last for very long. It's sort of like cramming at the last minute for a test, you retain everything for a little while but after that it all goes back to the way it was.
You want to track trends, rather than short term. Keeping a daily food log is a good idea, and when you are first starting out, knowing your calories and what you are eating on a day by day basis helps focus your attention.
Over the long term, however, it really doesn't matter. As long as the majority of your calories are coming from clean, healthy sources, and your calorie counts accommodate your goals, you will be fine. Weigh yourself at the same time, same conditions each week. If you are slowly trending up in weight, then either you need a little more exercise or a little less fork in mouth.
Sitting there every day "chasing the scale" is just an exercise in frustration.
