I've never calorie cycled, but what some people do is decide on a weekly calorie goal. That gives you a bit more room than a set amount each day. That way if you're hungry you can have a higher calorie day and if you're not you can have a lower calorie day.

It takes a bit of planning, but it works like this:

Say you want to eat an average of 1400 calories a day, you would figure out how many calories that is in one week:

1400 x 7 = 9800 calories for the week

You can split that up however you want throughout the week with higher and lower days. It doesn't matter as long as you're at or under that weekly calorie goal.


You can also try giving yourself a calorie range each day rather than trying to eat a set amount. When I was losing I focused on getting 1200-1500 calories a day and I was happy as long as I ended up somewhere in that range. The range gave me a bit more room (so if I was hungrier I would end up on the higher end) and it's what I do now when I'm maintaining


It takes a bit of trial and error to find what works for you. Don't be afraid to play around with things!

Oh sorry, I got confused when you asked:

My bad. I try to stay in the 1,200-1,500 range and that seems to work well. I am not comfortable going much past 1,600 but that's just me.

Good luck.

I use MFP too and when I put in my stats it says I'm supposed to be on 1200 - I try to stick to this daily, at least 6 days out the week, I cheat 1 day, usually during the weekend and that kinda helps my metabolism to keep
going.
I do have days where I go over my 1200 (maybe 200 calories over not anything crazy), most times it doesn't really hurt though, worst case scenario is that I haven't lost from 1 week to another.