zig-zag dieting?

briteyes

anybody have better results with this than just doing the same # of calories a day? I was thinking this would be good not only for the whole plateuing thing, but also wouldn't it be helpful for satisfying those urges to eat more some days? i am lightweight already and just trying to lose the final few so to say - mainly wanting to just tone up - get rid of all the fat that plagues me and keeps me from looking my best. and i feel like it's a HUGE battle now!

nikkijennings

I'm doing that ...... but not deliberately!!!!! I have lower daily calories to begin with (1270) based on MFP, but have a very chaotic lifestyle as well as having an extremely underactive thyroid so this works well... I'm sure I'm meant to find it harder than I have been :laugh:

efcdcdb

I absolutely think "mixing it up" works better. I don't intentionaly zig zig, but I try to eat really good / healthy as much as I can, then splurge when the opportunity / desire is there. For example, last Friday, I had ice cream cake at work, and then went out for dinner. I had a 16 oz beer (Sam Adams Octoberfest, which is higher in calories), a fish fry with beer battered fish, sweet potato fries, macaroni salad, cole slaw, & rye bread (I ate half and took half home)...then later I had a chocolate chip cookie. I didn't exercise at all, not even my usual 30 minute walk at lunchtime. All that, and I STILL had a loss at my weekly weigh-in this morning. I have lost 39 pounds since January, which may seem slow to some of the people on this website. But with very few exceptions, I have had a loss every week, even if it was only .2 pounds. I see people who want to lose 30 pounds by Christmas or someone who lost 24 pounds in 9 weeks, and it makes me think that weight will come back pretty quickly for them. I don't mean to sound self-righteous - believe me - I have struggled with weight issues for my entire adult life (and I am 53!). But I AM pleased with how long I have stuck with MFP, and how it seems that I can "have my cake & eat it too". Maybe in 6 months or a year I'll be singing a different song, but for now, it's working!

aleslie

I just started zig zagging. I was skipping around alot just by per luck, but I wanted to try and structure it more. So far, no results to really give, but I will let you know next week

briteyes

thanks i think i'm going to try it out too and hope it works out better... a little loss slowly is better than no loss at all!

for those of you that zig-zag on purpose, how do you break up your calories?

i was thinking of doing:

Monday 1,000
Tuesday 1,000
Wednesday, 1,050
Thursday 1,200
Friday 1,300
Saturday 1,600
Sunday 1,500

francesstewart1

thanks i think i'm going to try it out too and hope it works out better... a little loss slowly is better than no loss at all!

for those of you that zig-zag on purpose, how do you break up your calories?

i was thinking of doing:

Monday 1,000
Tuesday 1,000
Wednesday, 1,050
Thursday 1,200
Friday 1,300
Saturday 1,600
Sunday 1,500

I know I am a bit late, but did you have any sucess with this structure?

briteyes

honestly, i never got to give it a go. The day I started it I came down w/ a bad tummy flu and then got a cold on top of that. Now I'm doing the intermittent fasting instead, which is in a way kind of like zig-zagging... lol

rljohnson11

I have thought lately of adding a "cheat meal" to my diet. It's one meal where I can eat whatever I want. I have read that the drastic change in calories jump-starts your metabolism again. I'm still doing the research, but a BIG PLUS is that 1 time a week I get to eat a giant bowl of fetuccini alferdo and order dessert!

francesstewart1

Oooh Yum! I wonder if it really does work, something I have never tried. Keep me posted plz

belfastbiker

Tom Venuto in his "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" book extols the virtues of deliberate zigzagging.

Theory seems sound to me - don't let the body plateau, don't let the metabolism slow down, occasional proper refuelling of glycogen. Trying it out since Sunday. If nothing else, it leads to vastly more careful meal planning than before - for 3 days, I get 2300calories, with 30g of protein in each meal over 6 meals., between 50-70g of fat.

On the 4th day, it rises to 2900 calories, with the extra coming mainly from carbs.

I'll let you know how I get on.

carolww

Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle is a great book! I think it must work. Has anyone ever noticed that sometimes after a high calorie day - either by accident or design, that sometimes you then drop a couple of lbs shortly after... its strange.

khollyk

I have read that the drastic change in calories jump-starts your metabolism again.

Oooh, I hope so, because I plan on splurging on Thanksgiving. I was starting to feel a bit guilty about it, but maybe it'll be for my own good....

Sweet13_Princess

I'll definately be zig-zagging over Thanksgiving as well. I just hope it doesn't end up derailing all of my hard work! I'm going to try to only eat the big Thanksgiving meal... no leftovers this year.

Shannon

Lyadeia

I have thought lately of adding a "cheat meal" to my diet. It's one meal where I can eat whatever I want. I have read that the drastic change in calories jump-starts your metabolism again. I'm still doing the research, but a BIG PLUS is that 1 time a week I get to eat a giant bowl of fetuccini alferdo and order dessert!

I do this once a week. It has really worked for me! Before MFP my highest weight was 191. I got down to 128. I was eating 5 meals a day, which is 35 per week. But on one of those 35 meals, I ate whatever I wanted no matter what the calories were. It allowed me to not restrict ANYTHING from my diet, and I had a ton of pizza to say the least. Also, I was doing extreme exercise like P90X, so I was also getting heaps stronger all over. My labs at the doctor all improved as well (cholesterol dropped from 201 to 169, for example). All that goodness in spite of eating like a freakin' cow once a week.

I gained some back last year which is why I joined this website because my method of tracking calories obviously wasn't working when I was trying to maintain. So I am currently doing the same thing, more or less, than I was before. I weigh myself every 2 weeks, and my last weigh in was 3 pounds lighter than my starting weight, so I am losing about 1 and half pounds per week by eating like Miss Piggy for one of my 35 weekly meals. Today I pigged out at China Buffet with NO GUILT cause I know tomorrow I will burn 600 calories with my exercise and eat good. I can't wait until my next weigh-in cause I KNOW that I will be below 140 again since that's what I weighed a week ago...and I got 1 more week to exercise and I already had my cheat meal. :flowerforyou:

carrie_lebel

Do we count our exercise calories into the zig zagging. I can't shake this weight. I am starting this right now.

I read that we should never go below 1200 calories. That should be our minium calories.

Mine will look like this : Because I love structure and a plan I thrive on it:

Monday 1200
Tuesday 1500
Wednesday 1300
Thursday 1200
Friday 1600
Sat 1200
Sunday 1500

I will give it a bit and see how it goes if not I will switch back to my non moving 1200 calorie a day thing. Yeah