How to zig zag cals properly/caloric cycling properly

purpleg

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Newfiedan

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ruhimaach

My maintenance is 1710 calories. I am 5'1.5" roughly. With 2lb/week loss, my goal is 1200. For 1 lb/week, my goal is 1210. I haven't lost anything since almost 10 days. It will be 2 weeks this Sunday. I don't want to wait for a month before figuring out what the heck is going on. If I were to zig zag my calories, I've read everywhere that I shouldn't go below 1200. I exercise 5-6 times a week (circuit training). Can you please help me figure out how much I should eat? I read a previous post where you said women shouldn't go below 1200. Is that NET 1200?

irisannRN

Bump - great post !

katy5692

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aeckels616

Might try this! Is there a way to easily get the food diary to change, or is it a manual change every day type thing?

I just started doing this yesterday, and I'm having to change my calorie goals daily. It only takes a second, but it's annoying when you go to look at other days and it says you're under or over or whatever based upon your current day's goals, even though you met your goal that particular day. I'm keeping notes in the food log about what that day's goal was so that I can go back and look.

The MFP iPhone app has a bar graph that calculates your weekly calorie average. I've found it very useful for zigzagging without the need to change goals every day. I don't see that graph on the website though...

Majunta

Thanks for sharing...saving for later.

MoM2LayLa09

wow thank you so much - 2 more days and it will be 3 weeks not one oz lost so i have been zig zagging on my own with no idea how to do it now i know thanks again! great post!

ImperfektAngel

I may need this at a later date, thanks !

teecampfat

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Janworkingitout

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bekahjk

Bump!

Rockin33

Saving this info

mishelnkiki

BUMP

CricketKate

Thanks for posting! I have been very interested in trying this. I think I will have to check out your diary. It sounds confusing to me.

newmeat30

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CommittohealthCHANGED

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pinme13

Obviously this is healthy, but it's not the first time I've heard of this concept. In my early 20's I would go to Ana/Mia boards for dieting tips (I was morbidly obese and nothing was working - I was going hardcore) and a lot of them went by the 2-4-6-8 Diet. X-(

Day One - 200 calories
Day Two - 400 calories
Day Three - 600 calories
Day Four - 800 calories
And repeat...

After I saw 95 pound girls actually DO this I felt so bad for using that board to drop weight. :-/ Good to know that there's a healthy way out there to do this.

Is the 200, 400, 600, 800 the amount of calorie deficit each day?

pinme13

So I reset my weight goal to lose 1lb per week and it set my calories at 1340 so what is my max and my minimum calorie intake?

crystal_sapphire

Obviously this is healthy, but it's not the first time I've heard of this concept. In my early 20's I would go to Ana/Mia boards for dieting tips (I was morbidly obese and nothing was working - I was going hardcore) and a lot of them went by the 2-4-6-8 Diet. X-(

Day One - 200 calories
Day Two - 400 calories
Day Three - 600 calories
Day Four - 800 calories
And repeat...

After I saw 95 pound girls actually DO this I felt so bad for using that board to drop weight. :-/ Good to know that there's a healthy way out there to do this.

Is the 200, 400, 600, 800 the amount of calorie deficit each day?

it's based on anorexia and bulimia. short answer is no. it's the total intake for the day.

nice post OP

slainger

thanks for the description, I was telling someone about this method but really couldn't describe it properly.

dawnemjh

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juliemouse83

Ok…this is similar to the second phase of the diet I am doing. It is supposed to cause metabolism confusion, which keeps it up. Thanks for posting this!

unhinge

Bump

KimDis

I've read a bit about caloric cycling - thanks for making it a bit easier to understand.

Wondering if this also may explain why we sometimes lose more on the weeks we've had a not so good day or two. I'd always cringe in front of the scale for a weigh-in and then go "huh?" when I lost as much if not more...

TS65

bump so this i son my topics

Newfiedan

One thing I want to make clear is that the lower your caloric intake the less wiggle room you have to work off of. I have a daily intake of 1940 cals to work from and that is why I was able to do the 300 extra on days 1 and 2 then back to maintenance on day 3. If you have a very low intake of 1200 for women and 1500 for men then you do not have hardly any wiggle room for caloric cycling, as dipping below 1200 is not advisable, and 90% of us out there really should not be on a super low intake like that as you will lose muscle if you are not careful (and I do mean really careful) on what you are taking into your body. I have easily lost fat and continue to do so because I feed my body right with a clean diet, lots of veggies, fruits, and lean meats with a bare minimum of processed foods. This is why I advocate eating healthy/clean it removed nearly every obstacle for fat loss from the body. Fat loss should be something you approach from a health perspective, eating the minimum will not get you the best results despite what many have said in the past. The whole point of the cycling is to confuse the metabolic rate keeping it high while reducing caloric intake. So please, please make sure that you are taking care of your body and not starving it of what it needs. I have received many emails from men and women asking me if they can do the -300 cals on day 1 and 2, and when I look over their intakes with them they can not do that much because their intakes are so low. So here is one example I will post so that you can see what I advised one man/woman to do on different intakes:

Woman: caloric intake 1400 set at a 1 lb/wk loss
days 1 & 2 1250
day 3 1900 (maintenance level)
repeat

Now see in her case a 1250 intake was the lowest I recommended because she had a good diet, rich in veggies/fruits/lean meats. Her biggest problem was drinking her calories with starbucks coffee. So she ditched the high calorie coffee for some honey/cinnamon in it instead. She has lost an additional 6 pounds this way in the last 4 weeks.

Man: caloric intake 1600 cals set at a 1 lb/wk loss
Days 1 & 2 1500
Day 3 2100

In this man's case he was already set at a low intake (was much to low in my opinion but this was what he was set on) so he tried this and it did not work as well for him. So after a week and a half of emails back and forth I convinced him to raise his intake for a week. On the week he did he dropped 2 pounds as compared to the 0.6-0.7 pounds he normally lost. We had tweaked his diet and got him on track, now he is up to 1800 cals a day and losing steadily.

So I want all of you to make sure that you listen to your bodies, use common sense and not apply this in the wrong way and use it as another useful tool to help shed fat when applied correctly. You do not need to change your daily intake goal at all, just have the deficit left over on day 1 and 2 and then go over on day 3. I still do this and am in the last 10 pounds range now.

soccermum75

Great post!

mckant

Great info! Thanks.

kcmurray

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