Sounds like you're referring to 'zig-zagging' your calorie intake. Tom Venuto, in his book
Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle highly advocates this method - heck, it's a basic bodybuilder's diet credo...
Quote:
Zig-zag method
Every time you cut calories below your maintenance level, it’s never long before your body recognizes the deficit and adjusts your fat burning thermostat so fewer calories are burned. The larger the drop in calories and the longer the drop is maintained, the bigger the drop will be in metabolism.Your body is an amazing machine that is remarkably adaptable to any situation or environment. Your body likes to stay in a state of equilibrium and will always fight your efforts to change.
Fortunately, there is a way you can “trick” your body into keeping your metabolic rate up while you’re dieting for fat loss – It’s called the zig zag method and it’s without question the most powerful fat burning technique ever developed.
You must have a deficit to lose fat, but what you don’t want is a large deficit for a long period of time. The way to “outsmart” your body’s starvation response is to avoid prolonged calorie deficits. You simply drop into a calorie deficit for a brief period of three days, then – before your body has a chance to decrease your metabolic rate– you raise your calories back up to maintenance level (or even above maintenance) for one to three days. You then repeat this process until you reach your desired body fat percentage.
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There's a pretty nifty zig-zag calorie calculator here:
http://www.naturalphysiques.com/tool...mid=64&catid=9