The text thing is only in cell B3, but we can ignore that for a moment.
Keep cell A3 as it is
In cells A4 enter the formula
=A3 + 1
and copy down to cell A33.
You can do the same to cell B3 (same formula as A3, formatted as general), and the same formulas in B4:B33. Then, for range B3:B33, custom format as
DDDD
and they will look like weekdays in column B but still be dates as their underlying value and will work in your calculations.