Someone just mentioned Calorie Cycling in the "What I know now" thread - I didn't want to hijack over there - can someone help me understand what this is about?


Thanks! Hape ya'll are having a happy Thursday

The concept is to alternate the amount of calories you have each day to keep your body guessing, which gives you a little jump in weightloss. I am excited for an experienced calorie cycler to post more about it since it sounds like some have great succes with it.

That might have been me, and I'm new at it. I've never been a "by the books" person when it comes to losing weight, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

The idea of the plan is take your daily calories, multiply them by 7 days in the week and then divvy up your days so that they equal that number in the end. Maybe 1200 here, 1500 there, but enough to equal 10500 by the end of the week. (Based on a 1500 per day calorie budget).

I'm not that technical.

What I do is eat low calories about 5 days a week and higher calories 1-2 days per week. I'm trying to schedule higher calorie days around events like birthdays, nights out with friends, pizza night, holidays, etc. This week I have nothing planned so yesterday was my higher calorie day. I ate an extra banana and double portions of much of what I already planned. My basic plan is to "re-feed" my body with healthy foods most of the time. But I'm not opposed to the above listed special events.

I started doing this because I was on a wicked plateau for a good 2.5 months and my losses were insanely slow before that. Now things are picking up again. Our bodies become really fuel efficient and I'm pretty sure that was what mine was doing.

Thanks, Eliana!

I'm going to a diatician next week to do some metabolic testing and discuss how many calories I should be eating. I'll ask her about this too!

I'm not exactly following a conventional plan either - so I'm up to try anything

Thanks for posting Eliana! That was really informative.

I've been trying to pay attention to my *real* hunger and eat more when I need more and eat less when I need less and this makes so much sense to me because I have seen a pattern. My body craves more calories about 2 or 3 days a week and less calories 4-5.

Noel, you bring up a good point. Calorie cycling isn't for everyone. My cravings are pretty much under control at this point. Some people are better off eating low carb or low sugar (low white stuff). This is probably especially important when doing something like what I am doing. If I went all out on white breads, potatoes and sweets for one of my "high" days, it would be a terrible struggle coming back to low days.

Just something to keep in mind.

The reason I started doing calorie cycling was because my weight loss had reached a bad plateau. At that time I was eating 1200 calories daily. I did a search on google and read a lot about the starvation mode and how to break the cycle. There is some controversy on whether or not the starvation mode is a real thing that happens. kcnc I would be real interested to know what your diatician has to say about calorie cycling. So please post again
The calorie cycling did get me out of that plateau but I have recently gone into another one. I am working out more with exercise this week to see if I can break it. I eat 1200-1500 calories daily. On the day's I eat more I try to move more.

I just eat a CHEAT MEAL once every week or two and I've not had any plateaus yet! I think that one higher fat and sodium meal I give it, keeps my body confused enough to never have a stall. We'll see if it works down to the end though...

I have not heard about calorie cycling until this forum. I did calorie counting over the Spring and was pretty successful (no plateauing). About once a week I would go over with "controlled" calories - meaning, I would purposely add in 500 - 600 calories to my day, while still tracking it! That way I still controlled myself, but I could have bigger portions etc.

However, if I find I am plateauing, I may try this. Will be interested to hear everyon's thoughts on this!

My appointment with the Diatician is next Thursday - I'll definitely ask her about Calorie Cycling and 'refeeding.'

Any other questions ya'll want me to ask?? I've got a whole hour with her

You might want to google calorie zig-zagging- another term for the same thing. I first read about it in Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle, which is a really great e-book. Zig-zagging is the term he uses. Same concept, there's tons of info on the web about it.
Another thing to consider is carb tapering through the day. Eat your carbs at breakfast and lunch and then focus on protein and non-starchy veg at supper. No starchy carbs after 2 pm.
I used that when I lost weight last time (ugh, I know) and it seemed to help- especially in conjunction with fasted morning cardio. If only I had never stopped...

hmm... very interesting

This is what my personal trainer recommended for me. I have done it and seen a pound of two of loss. I am doing it again this weekend. I think it helps since I am only about 1200-1500 calories per day.

Ya...I normally stay around 1500 calories/day, but when I have my CHEAT MEAL, my calories only hang around the 1800-1900 calorie range. But my fat%, carb%, protein% and sodium% go way up for the day. Maybe it's the shift in macros that keeps my body guessing All I know is I've lost 38 lbs in 4 months doing this (without any stalls and close to ideal body weight)...so it must be something to it.