Caloric Intake: Can you average?

[Llamabean]

Here I am - yet another person with a question about that magic caloric intake number.

My question is if I can average out my daily calories. Generally I eat 1200-1300 on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, then about 2000 on Wednesday and Saturday.

I've read enough of Steve's posts to know that 1200 is really too low for me, but with my higher Wednesday and Saturday my daily average for the week is closer to 1500. Does that count as eating about 1500 daily?

I just know that I'll eat more on Wed and Sat so I try to plan the rest of the week around it so that I'll average out where I want to be.

 

[KissMyHuman]

If you average it out across the week to a proper level, then yes you can stager your caloric intake. In fact many of the articles I've read suggested staggering calories to keep your body in metabolic chaos, thus avoiding adaptation and weightloss plateaus.

You may have to tailor it to your personal caloric needs and figure out which days work best for your caloric spike in your lifestyle, but in practice there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with this method of doing things, that I've seen anyways.

 

[Qjay]

Just remember to hit your minimums and it should be okay; you want to avoid "starvation mode" because it sets up changes in the way your body processes everything and reacts to exercise. Essentially, you can average your caloric intake to a point, but if you are following the numbers you are showing, you're looking at 1500 daily calories, maximum.
It's a relatively good number for most people to lose rapidly, but might still be too low, if you are pretty active. If you are pretty normal, but don't exercise a lot, it is probably a good number for losing 1-2 pounds a week.

I am not an expert, so I am kind of curious what the resident professionals have to say about it, too.