Hello all! I've glanced around at a number of forums, and I've found a lot of helpful and inspiring messages. So many of you have lost so much weight, congratulations! I hope to join a lot of you at goal soon enough.

My questions is about calorie cycling, or "zig zagging" as some call it. I do the eat healthy, limit processed food thing already. I definitely want to do this the healthy way. Right now I'm eating about 1700 calories per day, which is what I've figured works for me to exercise as I do and still have a deficit. However, I do tend to do this day in and day out. It's been working, slowly but surely, but it's definitely slow the last few weeks. I don't want to do anything crazy, like some fad thing to hurry and drop a few pounds, but I've read about calorie cycling and have been thinking about giving it a try. Maybe it would shock my system a bit? I wouldn't want to dip too low, but I was thinking of having a few days closer to 1400, some closer to 2000? Something like that.

So basically, I was wondering if anybody does/has done this and if you had any success with it, especially if your weight loss was slowed or you were plateauing at the time. Obviously, your experience is yours and mine would be mine, but I'm just curious.

Thanks!

I cycle and love it. Check out freedieting.com for a good cycling schedule. Just click the 7-day option after you figure your daily cal requirements.

Hey I tried the freedieting.com thing & it confused me so I sorta made my own- to me this doesnt make sense.. it says I should eat 1840 cals/day, but on the zig zag it just takes a couple days & adds a couple hundred calories without taking any calories out of any of the other days... so to me that just seems like it would make me gain more??... so basically I try to do 1800 cals & some day subtract 200, some days add, etc.

Maintenance:
2594 Calories/day
Fat Loss:
2075 Calories/day
Extreme Fat Loss:
1840 Calories/day



7 day calorie cycle (zig-zag)

Ex Fat Loss
Monday 1840
Tuesday 1840
Wednesday2208
Thursday 1840
Friday 1840
Saturday 2025
Sunday 1840

I'm doing a high protein/low carb diet, (50% protein, 30% carb, 20% fat).
I eat protein with every meal(5), eat mostly fibrous carbs, no starchy carbs in PM.
I drink 60oz water minimum each day.

I'm zig-zagging... 3 days low carbs, 1 day higher carbs.
On the higher day I add carbs to increase my calories by 300-400.

I haven't been doing it all that long, but so far, so good.

I definitely did this while I was losing, but not in a formal, planned way. When I was aiming for 1700, at the end of the day, if I had 150 calories left, I'd "bank" them. Do this for a couple days of the week, and one day you can go over by 300 cals, or 450 cals, etc. I was using fitday at the time and it was so easy to see how many calories I was averaging for the week.

I don't really believe that zig-zagging "tricks" your body -- for me, it just works with real life. Some days I'm just less hungry or I just gravitate toward lower-calories options. And some days I want an extra fish taco at dinner. Zig-zagging lets that happen!

I uised that webite but its telling me im suppose to be eating like 2200 cals a day? thats way to much

Yeah mine showed the same sort of thing for the extreme fat loss, 1480 most days, no lower amounts, and two higher amounts. Sounds a little weird. But for the regular fat loss column, the calories went up and down throughout the different days as I would expect it should.

I think I'll just do what another poster said. If I happen to not be as hungry one day, I won't push myself to eat the extra couple of hundred calories to hit my calorie total, and then if I want a little something extra another day, I'll eat it without worrying about going over.

Thanks for the replies! My weight loss had slowed a bit and I was just wondering if calorie cycling would help a bit. Maybe I'm just at/near a plateau time, I'm about five pounds away from where I've plateaued both other times I've lost weight. It'll work out.

You'll want to use the example given in the fat loss column, not the extreme fat loss. In that column there are high days, average days and low days. The low days take cals away and move the to the higher days. So this is what my zig zag looks like

1750
1400
2100
1750
1600
1900
1750

I agree that you should try to do it naturally. If you're less hungry then bank the cals for when you're more hungry.

I also agree that freedietings cals are high, but I fought them for a long time and when I finally gave in my weight loss increased and stayed steady. So I think they're worth a try. If you're not comfortable with them then play with the activity option until you get to a level you're comfortable with.

I do zig zag....I started to notice the scales made a definite move on the days i ate higher and exercised higher. So now i eat 1800 mon-thursday (gym days) friday & sunday when i dont gym it i eat 1500 and saturday i eat 2100 just to have a real high day....this works out about 1750 calories per day for me...and this is working well for me. I did plateu for about 7 months last year and it was the zig zagging that got me out of that.

as a side note saturdays i gym too...and its sundays when i notice the biggest drop on the scales....i generally burn at least 900 calories on saturday mornings with eating 2100 calories

kazz =]

7 month plateu!? Were you tracking calories and exercising too? Gosh, that must have been so difficult

I was actually doing ww at the time...and was working out like a fiend ... was very frustrating...but it actually forced me to change my attitude...i started to research and read a lot more on nutrition and fitness etc...the whole time i was losing centimetres tho (was working with my personal trainer 3 times a week) so yes it was frustrating....but its just all part of the journey