Daily Calories
Counting Calories each Day

Calculating your average daily calories for the week is something you will need to do during your weekly WLC assessment. Depending on your goal and your weight gain or weight loss during the past week, we will adjust your calories for the upcoming week. In order to do so, we're going to need to know how many calories you've been eating for the past week.


To calculate how many daily calories you've been eating for the past week, we will take an average of your daily caloric intake over the past seven days. I will go through an example, and you'll see how easy it is to calculate this average. The table below shows your caloric intake for the week following the WLC calorie cycling diet.

Now, to calculate the average, we're going to take the sum of all the days. In other words, the first step you need to take is to add up all of the calories over the seven days. In order to make all of this possible, you need to learn how to count calories. Counting calories is easy once you learn!


So, get you a calculator or add the calories up in your head if you like to do it that way. I love doing calculations in my head. Keeps my math skills sharp! You can also keep a database of all your calories in one of the good websites such as Fit Day or you can keep a database in Microsoft Excel. Fit Day will easily keep track of everything for you if you take the time to enter the individual foods that you eat.


Now, let's add those calories up from the example in the table above:
3200 + 2800 + 3200 + 2800 + 3400 + 2800 + 2800 = 21,000 Calories


Now that you have the total calories, we will divide by the total number of days to get your average calorie intake. This is simple math and should be easy for most everyone. Since there are 7 days in a week, divide your total by 7.


21,000 Calories / 7 days = 3,000 Calories / Day


So, you can see that your average daily calorie intake is 3,000 calories. We will increase or decrease that value for the upcoming week depending on your goals and your weight loss or weight gain. To learn how to adjust your diet, see adjusting diet. You'll learn how to adjust your WLC diet during your weekly assessment now that you've learned how to calculate average daily calories.

Counting calories each and every day is vital to your success no matter what your goals might be! Once you learn how to count calories, you have to put it into practice and be conscious of making it a habit each and every day.


Counting calories will make you pay more attention to what you eat, and you'll start to think more about whether or not certain foods you are eating are helping you to reach your goals. You'll start eating healthier foods, and your dream body will soon become a reality.


You now know how to average the calories you eat each week. You'll use this average to determine your new calorie target for the upcoming week. This method helps you to get to where you want to be. Start using it today, and you'll be well on your way to success!


To summarize, take the following two steps to calculate your average calorie intake for the week per day:

    1. Add each day's calorie intake to get a total for the week.

    2. Divide the total by 7 to get the average per day.



I also like to provide links to other websites with good information. I've found a few here. If you'd like to learn more about the importance of counting calories, please see the links below. You can never get enough info in that brain of yours!

Losing Weight - Start by Counting Calories: This is an article that talks about why you should count calories to lose weight. I don't agree with the BMI stuff because it's not a good way to measure progress. According to the BMI chart, I am obese and therefore unhealthy. My body fat percentage is well within the healthy range, but since I have more muscle weight than fat weight I am considered obese. Body fat percentage is a much better method of measuring your progress and healthiness.

Do's and Dont's of Counting Calories: This is a very good article on calories in general. All calories are not created equal, but we use calories on the WLC Program to adjust our diets each week. The better food choices you make, the better results you will get! This is a good read.