ok so i was researching online my bmr and how many calories i would need to have enough of a calorie deficit to lose 2 lbs per week. anyway, i came across a website that suggested a different way to get to your goal weight. instead of putting in your current weight and your goal weight and it giving you the number of calories you should consume, this website said that you can also put in your desired weight and that you want to maintain and that whatever number comes up, if you stick to it you will eventually reach your goal weight.

so for me, instead of putting that i weigh 165 and want to weigh 130 and then eating the suggested cals (like 1400 i think), i would just put that i weigh 130 and that i want to maintain and if i just eat that amount every day (it was like 1900) i will eventually be that weight. has anyone ever heard of this or tried it? i dont think i'll do it bc if it does work it will prob take forever, but i just wondered if anyone has any input bc i had never heard of it or seen it discussed as a way to find your ideal cal range...? btw, sorry for such a loing post!

Yep, I've been doing that from the start. I need about 2000 to maintain a weight of 145 and that's what I eat. I've been losing like 2 pounds a week this way, but it'll slow up soon enough. If it gets too slow I might bump it down to 1800. HOWEVER, I DON'T eat back my calories from exercise. I try to exercise off 300-400 calories a day, leaving an overall net of 1700ish. But I think that's better than EATING 1700, because what I'm doing is training my body exactly how much food I need, so when I GET to goal I'll be better at maintaining it.

hmmm that is very interesting. i would try it but i do not think i exercise enough to have enough of a calorie deficit to lose 2 lbs per week if i were eating 1800-1900 calories. (my bmr is like 1,575 and i need a 1,000 deficit a day) i do exercise but mostly just walking, i do my bender ball abs and buns & thighs, and taking care of my son but its all very low impact. so without exercise i need to eat apprx 1,475 to lose 2 lbs per week. i guess if i look at it that way i could eat back my exercise calories on the days i do work out and still maintain my deficit but i know i dont work out enough to be able to eat 1800-1900 cals a day... right?

however, it does sound better in the long run bc i know it would be easier to maintain in the end... i am deathly afraid of when i get down to a low enough weight that it says i should only be eating 1200 cals a day to keep losing- i love food too much!

I've heard of it, too. It seems to make sense, but I imagine it would be a slow process, especially if you don't have a lot of weight to lose.

Yep, near the end I hope for a pound a week. I'm going to get this by trying to run for an hour a day. I can't run yet, I can't even really jog, but that's one of my fitness goals. I want to get there. I figure if I do that, maybe I'll learn to really like running and do it just because. If I DON'T, then I'll get a treat when I reach goal... I'll still have to exercise, but I won't have to do quite so much to maintain. I figure it's a win-win situation.
Note: I've actually "cheated" a little lately. The past two weeks I've averaged out at 1600 calories, so I'll probably lose much more than usual. But I didn't do it on purpose. When I got back from college I started eating a LOT more fruits and vegetables and was having trouble making it up to 2000 a day, feeling like I was stuffing my face and still not making it. Now I'm getting better since I looked into a bunch of healthy, high calorie foods and have been utilizing them to get me up there.

One thing I really think helps is eating at maintenance level for your new weight while simultaneously zigzagging your calories. I've tried this and am trying to get better at it but still have trouble making my high days sometimes. That way you're still preventing homeostasis before you actually GET to goal. I used this calculator to figure it out: http://www.naturalphysiques.com/tools.php?itemid=64 I actually toggled with it until I got an average calories of 2000 in the fat loss x11 category because it's just a nice even number to work with (I had to put in a weight of 181.8 lbs to get this). For 1900 calories as average in that column you'd put in a weight of 172.7 lbs and in the fat loss x11 column you'd find your daily numbers, or you can put in a weight of 135.7 lbs and in the maintain x14 column you'd find your daily numbers. Whichever floats your boat.

ok well if this is too much to ask its completely fine, but would you mind posting an example of what your zig zagging calories look like in a typical week...?

edit: i did not see that link you posted i will try that thank u!

I have heard of this and if I were just beginning I would do it. It seems to make a lot of sense. This is based on the Calorie Queens a mother , daughter team who lost 100 and 200 pounds buy eating at their maintenance level.

Well I can post what I SHOULD be doing and what happened last week (while I was still trying to get used to more fruits/veggies and trying to get my cals up enough).

Ideal zig-zag plan:
Monday 2000
Tuesday 1600
Wednesday 2200
Thursday 1455
Friday 2400
Saturday 1800
Sunday 2600

What ACTUALLY happened:
06/04: 1920
06/05: 1436
06/06: 2190
06/07: 2188
06/08: 1859
06/09: 1074 (not sure what happened this day )
06/10: 1611
06/11: 2343

I still zig-zagged like crazy (my body was probably like sooooooo confused lol) but had trouble sticking to their exact numbers. ALSO, they wanted my high day to be a different day than Sunday, but I just changed the highest calorie day to Sunday and shifted everything else with it accordingly, because that works better for me.

Sorry if I missed it but is there a book or website about this? It sounds interesting.

I'm not sure if there's a book on it but there's an abundance of information on the internet. I posted a link in my post to a link to a zigzag calculator, if you read up, but I actually learned about it around the forums here at 3FC. It's a fairly simple concept. You eat more some days, and less others, but your caloric average for the entire week averages out to a certain number. So instead of eating 2000 every day, I would eat 1600 one day, 2400 another day, and it'd average out to 2000. By doing this you don't allow your body to adjust to how many calories you're getting daily and thus slow down your metabolism. It tries to trick it so it keeps burning higher and more optimally and to avoid weight loss plateaus. I haven't hit a plateau yet but want to do it anyway, since I naturally kind of zigzag anyway; eating the exact same amount of calories every day is HARD.
By the way, ladyviv, we seem to have the same starting weight and goal weight, pretty much! I have a friend who is 5'4" and weighs 145 and looks great, because she distributes her weight very evenly. I have small bones and put it all in my stomach, so for me, at 175 (the equivalent of her 145) I didn't look nearly as good.

meg- thank you so much for that calorie zig zagging link it has helped me out alot! i am not comfortable eating 1800-1900 calories every day, but at least i get some days like that and some lower ones which is perfect for me bc lord knows i have some hungry days lol but i still feel like i am op since i dont eat like that every day. much more maintainable for myself in the end i think. thanks again!

Thank you for the info and link. I'm going to give it a whirl for a few weeks and see how I feel at that point.

Hey guys! I have a quick question about zigzagging, as I'm really new to it. I'm trying to keep a weekly avg of 1350, so my calories this week ranged from 1266-1464, basically low/med/high/etc, but does that really count as zigzagging? I can't really go much higher than 1500 since I don't want any days under 1200 (not enough food for me!), but is a 200 calorie range enough of a change for my body to sense and do something about it? Thanks!

I think the lower your average is the harder it is to zigzag, because the jumps are so much smaller. You could try the alternative of one high day ever 2 weeks to get your metabolism going again too. If your average is 1350, shoot for 1300 every day, and then once every two weeks eat 2000 calories for one day. It fires up your metabolism and gets it going again. Since you ate 1300 every day (50 less than 1350) you "saved up" 50 every day for 13 days, which is 650 calories. So for the 14th day you get 1350 + 650 = 2000. And you'd still be on-plan. At least, that's my thinking. That might work better for you since zigzagging is harder at a lower average.

This depends on the individual, but in my experience, the larger your swings are, the harder it is to even out, and for me the result of big swings is usually a stall in weight loss.

Recently I went 500 cals above my average target on one day. This is too much for zig-zagging. I just guess I had momentary insanity. Because I don't want to go below 1200 too much or too often, I couldn't just eat 500 calories less the next day. It took me six days of eating at or below my average target to get back on track, and during that time my weight stayed the same. And, I had some days where I felt hungry, and I don't like that.

So, zig zagging can work--as another poster said, one naturally eats more or less from day to day--just don't let the swings get too big.

Jay