Calorie Cycling

dochumphreysnow

I took several WOE concepts and worked them into this new idea. It has been very successful for me. As I said in another thread I weigh less than what I weighed in 1974. My blood pressure and blood sugars are normal (type 2 diabetes). I have lost 143 lbs from my heaviest and in the last 5 weeks I have lost weight every week. This WOE is so adaptable that I am pretty sure others will benefit from it also.
When starting Calorie Cycling, for the first couple of weeks you will do better to keep your meals as simple as possible until you get used to it. Then you can start expanding. While it is better to track your calorie and macro breakdown, it is not mandatory. In fact, for most of my yellow days I air fry a avocado and make bread using one egg and ¼ cup of Brown Flax meal. When done, I then quarter both the avocado and bread and use saran wrap to secure my 4 little meals. These meals don't look like much but they are enough calories (388) that they will keep you going. They will not fill you up, and they are not designed to. They are enough to force your metabolism to keep working. And since it is digesting this small meal it is unable to go into starvation mode, like when fasting. And that means it has to make the calorie deficit up with body fat.

Again, on my yellow days I eat about every 3-4 hours. For those of you still working you may have to get creative on doing this, but if you can maintain that gap between these meals on yellow days, it will work better. Which brings me to the next point.

When you lay out your weekly meal plan, the first thing you need to do is determine how many green, yellow, and red days you will have in that week. Some questions to ask yourself:

Are any of your days more stressful or physical than others?

Are there any restrictions on when you can eat?

Are there any days where you go out to eat with friends or family?

Any trigger days when eating lower calorie might cause you to binge?

I could go on but I think you get the idea. You obviously will want some days to be green, which is fine. You should never do just yellow days. This will eventually cause you to go into starvation mode and stall your progress. It also can cause vitamin and mineral deficiencies by consistently not eating enough. The key to Calorie Cycling (CC) is to cycle from full calories to partial calories (see chart). The more you cross the weight loss zone the more weight you will lose.

If you are new to intermittent fasting, my suggestion is to leave that off for now. Just stick with green and yellow days. At the minimum your should have at least 2 yellow days each week. At the maximum, no more than 5. If you can, space your green days out as much as possible. Here is the schedule that I do: Sunday – yellow, Monday – green, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday – yellow, Friday – green, and Saturday – yellow. This gives me two yellow days in a row, a green day break, and three yellow days in a row with a green day break. I find that I use the green days as my “reward” days. It gives me a short term goal to look forward to. It is amazing what you can do when your body cooperates with you.

Now we come to the types of food. While it is easier on yellow days if you are in ketosis or doing low carb. You body will be conditioned to burn fat for fuel. I don't think it is absolutely necessary to do so. With CC I think the key is cycling your calories, whatever they are. I'm sure as time goes by we will have eaters that will try it that way.

Another factor is how much food to eat. The better you control your total calories the more successful you will be. If you use a calorie tracker that will help you to know exactly how many calories you are consuming. I have even used a food scale to determine portions. I am not going into any more of that. There is plenty already written about it. Your total calories needed are going to depend on many, many things, I would start out at 1200 calories on your green days. Then, on your yellow days, you have a choice to reduce that by 25,50.or 75 percent. Don't start off at 75% as you will probably fail. Start off at 25% for a week or two. Let your body adjust into it. If after a couple of weeks you are still stalled, you can reduce your green day calories by 100. Wait another week to see if that helps. Never drop or add more than 100 calories at a time. Make sure and adjust your yellow day calories if you change a green day. I am now finding I look forward to yellow days almost as much as green days. If you decide that tracking calories is too complicated or too much work, you can do the division method. Take a green day meal, remove ¼ of it, then break that into 4 equal portions. Can't make it any easier than that.

Weigh-in and weight loss. It's a good idea to do a weekly weigh-in. This gives you something to look forward to. I would try to do it right after a yellow day. That will be more accurate for you. Also, especially if you are exercising, you may reduce inches, rather than lbs. Taking measurement when you begin is not a bad idea and those can also be checked weekly if you wish. Turning fat into muscle will reduce it's size by a factor of seven, since muscle is much more compact.

As you start loosing fat the majority will be burned up for fuel, however what is left is very sticky, and very hard to remove from your body. Two things can help that a lot; drink 1/2 your weight in water in ounces and eat as much fiber as possible. The fiber will greatly help to eliminate this nasty stuff. Believe me, I know. I am eliminating fat that has been on my body since 1974! Talk about crusty!!

Red days or modified red days, as I said earlier shouldn't be added into the rotation when first starting. I had a modified red day yesterday because the green day before I had more carbs than usual. When we eat too many carbs the body converts that to glycogen (glucose) and stores it in the liver. My red fasting day forced my body to dump all of that excess glucose so that I maintain my ketosis, and my fat adapted calorie burning. So, let's say the family wants Mexican and you don't want to be left out. Go ahead and enjoy, but schedule a red day the next day. If you have trouble with fasting, use a couple of yellow days.