[Jessica Committed]

Hi all! I think I have been "accidentally" calorie cycling lately and wanted your opinions on the subject. I eat between 1200 and 1400 calories a day, but I'll sometimes have around a 2000 calorie day on the weekend. I weigh myself daily, and it seems like a couple days after my 2000 Cal day, I'll see a couple pound loss. Is this just a coincidence, or do the higher calorie days effect my body in a certain way? I've always just stuck to the "calories in, calories out" basic methodology, but I wanted some input from calories cyclers. Thanks!

[kittyfan]

Hi there, I have been doing this for 10 months, and have lost 50 pounds. Your body will get used to a certain calorie amount if you eat the same amount of calories daily, and you will have the dreaded plateau. My baseline is 1200 calories, but zig zag through out the week, all the way up to 2000. For instance, yesterday I had 1900, today I will have 1200, tomorrow 1400. It works....and you also do not feel deprived because you know you can have at least one high calorie day a week...

what she said!

[lin43]

Well, I don't know the science behind it, but all I can tell you is that I calorie cycled all through losing and managed to lose approx. 45 lbs. in about 5 months. Now, it's how I maintain. Beyond any possible weight loss benefit, though, I find that calorie cycling just makes more sense in my life: Some days there are more eating "events" than others (e.g., my husband and I might go out to eat on the weekends, and I need more calories for that.

[chocohot]

i recently started something similar to kittyfan and i have to agree it is really an amazing plan. i could see myself keeping up with this type of plan for the long term because it's so flexible. whereas in previous plans i could never see myself keeping to that same amount of calories each day for the rest of my life. (like how am i supposed to keep under 1,400 or so when i go out to eat? skip breakfast and lunch? no thanks! i'd rather have a higher calorie day that day and save 1,400 for another day without many social plans)

[Jessica Committed]

Thanks so much for the input, folks! I'm going to try it out and track my progress!