Calorie Cycling
 

I've read about how many of you guys cycle your calories and I've been doing some reading. My mom's personal trainer told me that I should do 3 weeks of my calorie restriction and then 2 - 3 days off where I eat 1600 - 2000 calories.

I'd love to hear what works for you guys.

I know a lot of chicks use this method with lots of success, but I don't think they go 3 weeks at a time. One of the ladies on the forum who has lost a lot of weight mentioned freedieting.com, and if you use the calorie calculator, it will tell you high, med, and low calories for you. then at the bottom, you can create a zig zag plan, that is what I am planning for this week. Good luck to you! let us know how it works!

I did search out a calculator that could tell me how I should be cycling but the amount of calories it gave me were well above what I'm already eating. I was thinking I would just take their guideline and eat accordingly based on the calories I'm already consuming and see what happened.

3 weeks seemed long to me too, but I think he was talking more about tricking your bodies metabolism than calorie cycling.

Edit: I went to the link you provided and I like their plan much more! Thanks, I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.

I've been doing calorie cycling for about 4 months I think. I love it, it gives me tons of flexibility. I use freedieting and yes, it's way more cals than I was eating before, but before at the lower levels I kept stalling. Now when I stay on plan (this being the key component) I don't stall.

Ncuneo, do you follow what the calculator on freedieting gives you if you have it zig-zag for you? Or something different.
BTW- I am a firm believer in too little calories, stalls you out!

So glad to see this thread! I am just starting calorie cycling (zigzagging) and I am wondering how much of a range I should give myself each day. For example, my plan from freedieting.com said that yesterday I should've had 1421 cals, and I ended up having 1474. Is that too far off the mark? Do you all stick much closer?

Interesting what you guys say about the too few calories. The website recommends I eat before 1400-1900 calories a day but I've been focusing my diet on a 1200-1600 calorie range and losing weight.

Do you guys thing I should up it to what's been suggested? Or stay where I am?

I've had the same problem with being as low as 900 calories some days. When I changed my diet to mostly fruits and veggies it became HARD for me to eat my target calories because what I mainly consumed [and was filling me for the entire day] was just too low in calories. To be honest, I pretty much had to cut lettuce salads from my diet to UP my calorie intake.

I went out and bought a food scale and now it's easier for me to meet my 1200 [or whatever] calorie goal, I pretty much keep avocados on hand to up my calorie intake if I need it, and now I'm eating some more granola too.

In can tell you that the range she gave you would not work for me. Unless I have at least a day or 2 of less than 1400 the scale doesn't budge, or not more than 1/4 pound a week which is too slow to keep me motivated and once mistake and everything's gained back.

Avocado is delicious on a sandwich with cheese and tomato and mayo.

Avocado was an acquired taste for me, mostly because I have some texture issues too (biting into a chunk of avocado is still too mushy for me to enjoy) but I love it as a spread or in guacamole. You could try mushing one up into a paste and using as a substitute for mayo on a sandwich and you may be pleasantly surprised.

I grew up in California and have been eating avocados all my life. I love them and have no issue eating them plain. You may want to try some nuts, they are relatively high in calories and great for you.

I've been working on losing weight since September or October of last year, but I haven't been dedicated to it until recently. I have lost a total of 78lbs from my heaviest weigh in. I have had a good number of stalls, especially recently seeing 200lbs has taken a lot of hard work and I know it's going to continue to take hard work from here on out. I'm trying to make sure I don't stall out too much anymore, which is why I'm curious about the calorie range the link above gave me, instead of using the calorie range I am now.

I do exercise, I do a fitness boot camp five days a week, for an hour a day, and I try to add extra activity in where I can, walking the dog, going for hikes, etc.

I have been losing weight consistently, just not as quickly as I imagined, but I know that I didn't pack on the pounds over night, and they aren't coming off over night either so I don't really get too discouraged.

I don't cycle--I am a creature of habit and cycling would throw me off--plus, I'd be tempted to eat unhealthy things on high calorie days. In over a year, I've had 3 stalls of over a week, but none was over 3 weeks and all were followed by steep weight loss, enough to bring my average back up. So cycling isn't always needed (though it seems to work fine.)

As far as number of calories, the trick is to find the highest number you can lose weight on. That's where the experimentation comes in. I know I lose the same on 1500 and 1300 calories, and an extra 200 calories a day makes all the difference in the world in my quality of life. I sure am glad I experimented and discovered that!

Oh, and high calorie only works if you are really, really honest with yourself. Some people (not in this thread, in my life) are like 'Oh, I could never lose if I ate more than 1200 calories" and they say it with a sniff, like I'm somehow weak willed for eating 1500. But SOME of those people also have "cheat days" --well, if you eat 1200 calories six days a week and 3000 calorie cheat day once a week, you are eating 1500/day! It's just cycling.

When I first started I was at 1300 cals. I stalled after I started running a few times a week. So I upped it to 1500, I stalled again after increasing the duration of my runs. That's when I found freedieting.com thanks to suggestions here. I then uped my cals to a daily average of 1750 (I don't remember what the day to day was). I was then losing 2lbs/week for a long time. I preemptively started dropping my cals because I thought that was what I needed to do to keep losing. Then recently I started exercising daily and I was down to about 1600 daily average and I stalled again. I recalc'd my cals using the daily exercise option and it was back up to a 1750 daily average because of the daily exercise. So I upped my cals again and started losing again immediatly and have lost 6 lbs in the last 3 weeks. I use their basic info for the calorie range, but I adjust the days for higher or lower cals to my benefit. For example, I like to have my highest cals on the weekends to account for splurges and I think they suggest it on Wednesday. I also like to have higher cals on days I strength train. So I think it's fine to tailor it to your personal needs.

I think you just need to do what feels right for you. I'm about to start training for a half marathon so I'll be curious to see how that effects my calorie needs. Here my exercise and calorie schedule for reference. I've recently played with how my zig zag works so it's not verbatum per the sites suggestions.

Monday - Run - 1500
Tuesday - Strength Train - 1950
Wednesday - Run - 1750
Thursday - Strength Train - 1500
Friday - Run - 1750
Saturday - Walk 2100
Sunday - Run 1750

Right now those runs are typical 2 miles of running and 1.5 miles of walking w/ one longer run on Sundays. When I start training on Monday those runs will increase by quite a bit. Strength training is about 30-45 mins of intense lifting. The walk on Saturday is leisurly.