Alternating calorie intake every week

  •   #1  
    emilyatau's Avataremilyatau , 04-08-2004 11:41 AM
    I wish I would have bookmarked the website I read about this to share it with you all! Anyhow, I read that alternating your calorie intake every week or every two weeks is a good way to bump up your metabolism. Say you're eating about 1700-1800 calories a day, if you were to cut that to 1200-1300 every other week, your metabolism would still be fired up and you could potentially lose quite a bit more weight. It seems to make sense to me, but maybe some experts could weigh in. The reasoning in the article was that your body wouldn't go into "starvation" mode and your metabolism won't slow down if you limit this low calorie period to a week. Does this make sense to anyone else?

    Another question - how many calories are you all consuming? I've been trying to get a good balance for myself so I can keep losing.
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  •   #2  
    missaprylj's Avatarmissaprylj , 04-12-2004 06:08 PM
    Hmmm.... that sounds reasonable for some reason. I'm starting to calorie count tomorrow and I think I'm going to go for a maximum of 1800 at first, I think I'll probably lose there considering how I've been pigging out lately.
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  •   #3  
    MrsJim's AvatarMrsJim , 04-12-2004 06:27 PM
    Sounds like you're referring to 'zig-zagging' your calorie intake. Tom Venuto, in his book Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle highly advocates this method - heck, it's a basic bodybuilder's diet credo...

    Quote:
    Zig-zag method

    Every time you cut calories below your maintenance level, it’s never long before your body recognizes the deficit and adjusts your fat burning thermostat so fewer calories are burned. The larger the drop in calories and the longer the drop is maintained, the bigger the drop will be in metabolism.Your body is an amazing machine that is remarkably adaptable to any situation or environment. Your body likes to stay in a state of equilibrium and will always fight your efforts to change.

    Fortunately, there is a way you can “trick” your body into keeping your metabolic rate up while you’re dieting for fat loss – It’s called the zig zag method and it’s without question the most powerful fat burning technique ever developed.

    You must have a deficit to lose fat, but what you don’t want is a large deficit for a long period of time. The way to “outsmart” your body’s starvation response is to avoid prolonged calorie deficits. You simply drop into a calorie deficit for a brief period of three days, then – before your body has a chance to decrease your metabolic rate– you raise your calories back up to maintenance level (or even above maintenance) for one to three days. You then repeat this process until you reach your desired body fat percentage.
    There's a pretty nifty zig-zag calorie calculator here:

    http://www.naturalphysiques.com/tool...mid=64&catid=9
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  •   #4  
    emilyatau's Avataremilyatau , 04-12-2004 07:21 PM
    YAY! Thank you! That's exactly what I was looking for!
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  •   #5  
    dixiedog6's Avatardixiedog6 , 04-19-2004 07:48 AM
    I want to say thanks for posting that website address, I was loking for something like that too. It looks great!
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