Did calorie cycling work for those of you on a plateau or ga

spinaddict4life

Trying calorie cycling starting today to see if it ends this lose gain cycle. I noticed I pretty much eat about the same calorie daily. MFP gives me 1530 and I usually eat 1600 to 1630 and occaisionally 1700 or 1800. I went to free dieting.com and it agrees wtih my bmr that mfp gave of 1614. I exercise 5 days a week. do you think this will help? My cycle is 1600, 1600, 1920, 1600, 1600, 1761, 1600.

LovingMe19

Read this, I just did because I have been stuck on a plateau for about a month now and have actually started to gain despite all of my hard work. More water, more calories, less cardio, more strength training and a required rest day. Thats what I got from it lol. Hope it helps.

http://fitnesswithnatalie.blogspot.com/2011/05/most-dreaded-word-in-weight-loss.html

TranceGirl

I never zig-zag more than a 100 calories and that works for me. My goal is 1600 so I will do 1550, 1600, 1625, 1575, etc, you get the idea. I don't know about your body but it seems like we have the same calorie goal. I work out 6 days a week with Insanity which burns ~700-900 calories and if I ate 1920 calories I know I would gain weight.
I hope this helps!

spinaddict4life

Well I spin most days and run so that is almost the same burn or so. Thanks!

RangerSteve

Calorie zig-zagging is based off of hormonal changes that result from dieting. If you keep yourself in a deficit for too long, your hunger and stress hormones will increase in order to stop possible starvation, or so the body thinks. These hormones have many uses but the main ones you should be concerned about are increased fat storage (especially cortisol) and increased hunger (leptin and ghrelin).

If you zig-zag your calories for a couple days, you can trick (for lack of a better word) your hormones into thinking you're safe again and your body will adapt to losing weight easier again. If you have a little extra cash on hand, you can get these hormones checked with a blood test to see what the levels are.

Danahimself

Good article

looks like I will be eating more!