[carolineintx]

I sort of naturally do this, although not very extreme. I decided to go for 1400 calories a day, and some days I hit that, others its low, others its high...overall it generally averages over time to 1400, usually with no lower than 1200 and no higher than 1800. I find it hard to be exact every day, especially when my appetite varies and various social things come up where its not feasible to eat that amount (like going to a mexican restaurant for lunch to celebrate a coworkers birthday...I'm not going to eat a 200 calorie dinner to hit that 1400, I'm just not!), not to mention I workout some days and some days I don't... So far so good, my loss seems to average around 1 to 1.5 pounds a week, which was what I was hoping for.

[Fat Pants]

I do this naturally as well. I shoot for 1400, but I found it nearly impossible to stay right at 1400 every single day. This week I've gone from 1200, to 1400, to 1500, then back down to 1200 today.

I found that when I ate a low calorie diet during the week (and lost steadily, about .2 lbs a day), and then on Friday nights would go out and most likely blow my calorie intake by at least 800 calories, the next day on Saturday, I would always drop weight, usually around 1/2 lb to a full pound. Then, I would get back on the wagon again. It shocked me that I could eat 4 pieces of pizza on a Friday night and still lose weight the next morning. The only thing I can figure is that calorie cycling actually works for me.

[sumu1]

As they say calories in= calories out. So technically if you set out to eat 10000 calories a week(1500 per day) and it cycles up and down your body will still lose. But your body still needs to be fed properly everyday. If you splurge on junk and then try to compensate by eating 1000 cals the rest of the week you are not getting the proper nutrition. For me my Resting Metabolism is 1400 so anything way under that is starving myself.

My personal opinion is there are days I can't eat enough (PMS) and days I'm too busy and just have enough to stop my stomach from growling, it's just life. But like others have said, you need to recognize this as part of the diet process. Too many times we fall into the trap of "I blew it so now I can go hog wild and give up for the rest of the day/week. "

When I started I kept pretty close to my 1600-1800 calories every day jusat so I could learn and get comfortable with what that amount of calories looked and felt like to eat. After that, I gave myself some leeway. Hope this helps a bit.