I saw someone mention calorie cycling on another thread (couldn't find it again afterward) and wondered if you all could explain this a little better for me. I'm guessing it involves higher and lower calorie days, which seems to happen to me on a regular basis by accident and I'm still losing. How much range in calories do you maintain or do you just pick a day and "pig out" within reason of course Just wanting a few more details and wondering if I'm understanding what calorie cycling means.

Thanks!

I am interested in knowing this too!

People do calorie cycling in different ways. Calorie cycling means that you simply eat a different calorie amount each day. Some people do it by accident, and some do it regimented.

For instance, someone could eat like so:

Monday: 1200
Tuesday: 1800
Wednesday: 1200
Thursday: 1800

They are having high and low days...but it averages out to about 1500 calories per day, over the course of a week or month.

From what I understand, calorie cycling includes eating the same/similar amount of calories per week, but you just spread them out differently. According to the people that do it, it keeps your metabolism "guessing" about what move you're going to make next.

Sooo say you normally eat 1,600 calories a day. Calorie cycling, you might do:

Monday: 1200
Tuesday: 1600
Wednesday: 1400
Thursday: 1550
Friday: 1800
Saturday: 2000
Sunday: 1650
Total = 11,200

(Eating 1600 M-Sun = 11,200)

I DO think there is something to this calorie cycling thing. Last week I went out to dinner with friends and went a little over my calorie goal. I saw my weight actually DROP the next morning. I thought maybe it was a fluke, but it continued to drop over the course of the week. Maybe my body just needed a little something to say "Okay, I know you're gonna keep feeding me, so I can let some of that extra fat go" :0)

Apart from the metabolism thing, there are some other "benefits." For one, calorie cycling can give you a lot of flexibility to plan your calories around your schedule. For instance, based on this one I made up, Monday (the lowest calorie day) might be the day that I take off from the gym, so I take it down to 1200 since I didn't get formal exercise. You can push higher calorie days to the weekend if you're eating out or going to a party so that you can indulge a little bit and still stay within your calories.

I'm like you, ronni: I pretty much calorie cycle naturally. I shoot for 1600 a day, but some days I'm not as hungry, other days I eat right at 1600, while others I go out with friends and will eat over that goal. For me, trying to keep up with a formal calorie cycling plan would probably stress me out. I'd have to remember what I'd set for my goal each day. At 1600 a day, I can pretty much just go on auto-pilot.

I'm a calorie-cycler! Once I started counting calories, and trying to fit them to 1200-1600 a day, I started going nuts! Some days I just wasn't hungry enough to get to 1200, and other days I'd get to 1500 by 4:00 pm and still be ravenous!

Then I came on here and read about calorie cycling - I couldn't find the original post either, but there were 2 ways of doing it... either by deciding at the beginning of the week which days would be best for high days and which would be best for low days, depending on situations (like parties or events) - the other way was just to take each day as a new day, really paying attention to your hunger and keeping a good food log, and making sure that your average calorie intake is lower than your average calorie expenditure.

I personally take it day by day, keeping an eye on my average calorie intake... It's really great for people who just naturally have cycles of hungry and less hungry days. It takes a lot of discipline to put in calories into fitday or to keep a log every day, but it's pretty essential if you're cycling without a pre-set schedule.

My calorie intake for the past week has been:

1950
2400
1450
1900
1050
1000
1250

The average for the week is around 1550, a good average, even though I hardly ever eat around that many... I'm always way above or way below. Eating very low calorie intake for a few days in a row isn't dangerous. Your body doesn't get into the fabled "starvation mode" where it starts hanging onto fat as if you were starving in the desert. It just mixes up the metabolism, so that your body isn't expecting to deal with 1550 calories a day.

I do this too. This week I've been anywhere from 1200-1800, averaging 1400. It works great for me!

I have been calorie cycling last week and this week. It is really pretty easy.

I used an online calorie calculator at freedieting.com and it told me based on my age, height, weight, gender and exercise level what my cycle should look like. This is what it gave me....

Monday 1784
Tuesday 1784
Wednesday 2141
Thursday 1784
Friday 1784
Saturday 1963
Sunday 1784

Good luck!

Thanks a lot, everyone! I just seem to be doing this naturally. Weekends see my calorie intake go up as a routine. The past week has been 1551, 1925, 2400, 1915, 1999, 1584, and 1465 so far today and I've lost 10 pounds since 9/15! I can remember trying to follow plans of 1000 cal per day when I was in high school (in the late 70's) and I just kept yo-yoing and getting fatter and fatter. I still can hardly believe that I can eat so much and still lose (but I'm eating much healthier stuff now-live and learn!).

Thanks for the info

We're caloric cycling twins! I eat 1200-1600 and average out at 1415 according to Fitday!

I lost weight (78 lbs) before calorie cycling with a higher calorie count - without a single plateau. Regained after a knee injury and a late first trimester preg loss. Started back and forgot about cycling and just cut too low in cals and didn't cycle and plateaued for basically a month. In the last 2 1/2 weeks I've been losing 3 lbs a week by increasing my overall calories with cycling. Here's my last week:

1,727 2,372 1,391 1,328 1,701 1,586 1,972


This works out to an average of 1725 a day. It's kind of weird for me. I don't plan the calories per day that I will have but rather rely on what my body is telling me it needs.The higher days correlate with higher activity days. Today for example, I expended over 3500 calories and I'm trying to stay at a daily deficit of around 1500 to continue at the 3 lb per loss while I can. I am monitoring my 7 day rolling numbers to shoot for the 1700 range over the course of a week and 3200 burn.

Although I'm tracking calories, nutrients etc very concisely, I'm trying more to work on getting my instinctual - eating when my body needs food and eating the food that will fuel it - rather than eating because I need X calories or what not. I've found that the cleaner my diet is - especially when it comes to removing refined sugars/carbs - the easier it is to do this naturally. ie I never start out a day now saying I want to eat only X calories. If I'm PHYSICALLY hungry, I will eat. The idea of spending the rest of my life counting calories isn't too appealing so I'm hoping that by following this model, it will ease me off the "diet mentality". My strategies then will be back to how I maintained the same weight for 16 years - weigh in daily and cut back a bit or get more activity if I go outside of a range.

Wow, what an interesting concept - I can totally see how this would work to aid in effective (and plateau-free) weight loss.

I've just started here and I'm using FitDay to record my food and activity journals. So far I can see that while I'm 'aiming' for 1,500 per day it doesn't always end up that way. I'm going to keep an eye on my average intake over the next few weeks...

Ingrid

I do it naturally. I'm working on trying to eat an additional 500 calories a day over what I was (apparently my calorie intake was WAY TO LOW). I now find myself totally calorie cycling, but it's not on purpose! Some days, trying to eat 1000 calories seems impossible! I get too full and I HATE that full bloated feeling now, so when I'm full, I don't eat anymore. Yesterday for example, I was not feeling good and ate only about 700 calories. But the day before I was closer to 1100. I find the same thing as Quiddkidd, I usually end up losing a pound on days when I "eat a lot". I don't know why, I can only think the same thing that quidd does, my body is willing to burn a little more cause it knows it's not getting starved. :-) I am a believer that calorie cycling works & once you figure out how to work it, you can use it to your advantage.