I know everyone seems to do it a little differently. I keep my calories below 1400 on the weekdays, as an average, I tend to eat more on Monday and less on Friday for example. I'm way more lax on the weekends. I'll eat up to 2,000 if I'm doing a lot of physical activity and I'm feeling hungry. I don't fill the extra cals with fried crap and ice cream, though (okay maybe a litttttle bit of it ). I tend to ramp up the protein on those days. I've consistently lost this way. I think it's good to keep your body guessing. This is a lifestyle after all! I like to have a 'life' on Sat/Sun and go out to eat etc. This allows for that.
I kind of cycle.
I eat 1450+ ish Tuesday to Saturday, I eat 1500-1600 on Sunday, 1200 on Monday and weigh in Tuesday morning.
So far so good, 37lbs in 107 days.
I guess I'm kind of calorie cycling without really meaning to. I'll have days that are kind of high (like today), and then I'll have several that are lower. I try to keep my weekly average between 1650-1700. This week my counts were: 1740,1676,1809,1593,1669,1526,1521 for an average of 1648. I don't really plan it out that way, but somewhere in the back of my mind I must realize that the 1809 day needs to be balanced out with a lower day.
This past 5 weeks I have consistantly lost. One week was a low of .9 pounds, but I also had a 3 pounder in there so it's all working out fairly well. Some folks are more discplined and have a specific calorie target for specific days, but I just kind of play it by ear and decide as I go whether or not I can afford a certain food.
I am trying to keep an average of 1200 a day (but of course it's never that easy!) so on the days when I overindulge I either try and excercise (which is again not that easy, because overindulgence makes me totally lazy or I excercise more on the day after the sinful day
I do the weekend splurge version of calorie cycling too. Generally I keep below 1300 on weekdays and below 2000 on the weekend. This averages to 1500cal, and I find it works for me. I have the flexibility to eat within my social life on weekends, and a much needed (!) routine for weekdays. I used to eat at work because I was bored, so having specific meals and mealtimes is really useful. I've been actually counting calories for only two weeks, before that I was approximating, but I've lost 3.6kg in two weeks, which makes almost 17kg for the year. Yay
I did calorie cycle for about 6 weeks. I was kinda stuck around 180 lbs (not really a plateau, but just sort of crawling along for about a month) right after Christmas/New Year's, so I thought I would shake things up a bit.
Worked great for me. In the 6 weeks I was calorie cycling, I lost 11.8 lbs. I feel like, for me, it revitalized my enthusiasm and drive for the program as well, so that was nice. It took a bit more planning (keeping track of the right number of calories for each day), but I had success with it, and would use it again if I ever needed to.
Here's what a typical week looked like:
Day 1: 1380
Day 2: 1560
Day 3: 1440
Day 4: 2160
Day 5: 1380
Day 6: 1620
Day 7: 1500
Average: 1577 kcal per day. I started my week on Tuesdays (my weigh in days) which made the high calorie day Fridays (which suits me well). The only thing to consider is where the high calorie day falls in relation to your weigh in day, since you will see a bounce up on the scale for a day or two following that day.
The scale has larger daily fluctuations on this plan, but I lost every single week I was on it. If you are a daily weigher, you need to be prepared for that.
Who calorie cycles and how do you do it?
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). I tend to ramp up the protein on those days. I've consistently lost this way. I think it's good to keep your body guessing. This is a lifestyle after all! I like to have a 'life' on Sat/Sun and go out to eat etc. This allows for that.
