Question For Those Calorie Cyclers Out There

bombsfadeaway

Any advice is appreciated, both with using the site for this kind of thing, as well as how to best estimate what kind of cycle I should work on. Currently, my plan is:

Sun: 1200 calories - no exercise
Mon: 1900 calories - No More Trouble Zones DVD (burns approx 750 calories)
Tue: 1200 calories - Biggest Loser Power Sculpt DVD (burns approx 550 calories)
Wed: 1600 calories - P90 Sweat Phase 1&2 + Ab Ripper (burns approx 420 calories)
Thur: 1300 calories - Power Sculpt again
Fri: 1800 calories - Trouble Zones DVD again
Sat: 1500 calories - P90 Sculpt Phase 1&2 + Ab Ripper (haven't done it yet, so calories burned is not yet known)

I feel like with both varying my intake of calories and my workouts, that eventually something will click and I can start taking off pounds again. I've been stuck at 205lbs for the past few months now, and it stinks.

Also, when using MFP, obviously you have a set calorie goal for the day. However, because I'm giving calorie cycling a go for a few weeks in an attempt to boost my sluggish weight loss (damn those plateaus!), I've found that the up/down calories don't mesh well with MFP's set per day calorie limit.

So my other question is, do those of you who have done calorie cycling while using MFP keep the lowest or highest day of your cycle, then just deal with the "you've eaten too many/too few calories" notes, or, because I know you can manually adjust your calorie goal, do you go in every day and change it so you're still spot on when it comes to "cashing in" for the day? I'm one of those super detail-oriented people, so I'm not sure if there's a better way to go about it while using MFP.

Tari_D

do you have the MFP app for your phone? I have the android app and this gives me a weekly target so I just aim to stay under that and ignore the daily notes etc. Not sure where this is on the website though.

I know some people keep seperate spreadsheets or right the real totals in their 'food notes' on the website.

if you use google documents you could access the spreatsheet anywhere, even from a smart phone and get the calorie values of food etc from mfp

I have another question on calorie cycling (sorry to hijack!). Does it hurt to have 1 or 2 days a week under your BMR if other days are very high in calories and it all equals out to above BMR for the week?

cinsuccess

I don't calorie cycle right now but I have in the past. From what I can see your weekly average is way too low. You are currently at an average net arouns 1000-1100 calories per day. You need to ensure that your daily average for each week is above your BMR or you'll stall.

For Example: my BMR is 1265 so if I times that by 7 days that means that each week I have to net a minimum of 8855 calories in order to cover my body's basic needs. When I used to use calorie cycling, this is what it looked like:

Sunday: 1200 calories - no exercise
Monday: 1900 calories - one hour cardio step class (burn about 500 calories)
Tuesday: 1500 calories - no exercise
Wednesday: 2000 calories - 30 minutes heavy weights 30 minutes cardio (burn about 500 calories)
Thursday: 1200 calories - one hour dance aerobics (burn 650 calories)
Friday: 1500 calories - one hour walking (burn 300 calories)
Saturday: 2000 calories - one hour kickboxing (burn 500 calories)

That gave me an average net of 8850. It worked for me for a while but then I had to mix things up because I hit a plateau.

You never want to eat less than your BMR, even if you're calorie cycling. The average should still always be higher than you BMR.

bombsfadeaway

I've done quite a few different BMR calculators, and they've given me between 1400 and 1700 (per day), so I aimed for 10,500 calories per week for an average of 1500 per day before exercise, figuring that in the middle was better than going too low.

It's weird to think that I might not be eating enough. Like, it goes against every "lose weight" instinct I have to eat more food. My boyfriend and I argue back and forth about eating exercise calories vs not or whether I'm eating enough food. I'm just so tired of dancing around the 200 mark, that I'll do pretty much anything at this point to get under it.

@Tari- I have a MFP app for my Kindle Fire. I'll have to check and see if it lets me do weekly calories vs daily. Thanks for the tip!

cinsuccess

I know exactly how you feel. At first, I resisted it too but then I realized that I wasn't giving my body enough energy to burn the fat by eating so little. In the beginning I lost by eating less but then I stalled so I slowly increased in by 100 calories per week until I was at least netting my BMR. You know what feels right so you need to listen to your body. If you're not losing, it's trying to tell you something.

I went to a clinic and had my BMR measured because the websites were all giving me different numbers too. It turns out that my BMR was much lower than the lowest number I received (which was 1400 and I'm at 1265). That was also part of the problem. The online claculators only go by age, weight and height. The clinic I went to had a machine that used hand and foot sensors to measure me more accurately.