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    Anyone tried zig zagging their calories?

    Posts: 54
    edited December 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
    Ive caluclated 1400 cals a day to lose 1 pound a week. I was working out my body fat % and came across a calculator recommended by a MFP user. It talked about zig zagging your cals.

    1 Week for me:
    Monday 1836
    Tuesday 1469
    Wednesday 2203
    Thursday1836
    Friday 1653
    Saturday 2020
    Sunday 1836

    Has anyone tried this or knows that it works?

    thanks

    *Read that doing this helps with not hitting a platau as your body doesnt get used it

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    • Posts: 749 Member
      Honestly being an avid athlete and workout person, I feel that zigzagging your calorie intake will have your body so confused it will not know what to do. Yes it might help you lose weight but it will also mess up your metabolism and how you eat your meals making you maybe eat meals/food that you do not need or want to eat!! This is my opinion so you can take it or just ignore it lol

      Good luck and here for support
    • Posts: 282 Member
      Honestly being an avid athlete and workout person, I feel that zigzagging your calorie intake will have your body so confused it will not know what to do. Yes it might help you lose weight but it will also mess up your metabolism and how you eat your meals making you maybe eat meals/food that you do not need or want to eat!! This is my opinion so you can take it or just ignore it lol

      Good luck and here for support
      Not being rude but that's rubbish. It wont impact your metabolic rate whatsoever. If it did my metabolism would be in the gutter. Op calorie cycling can work well, don't be afraid to give it a shot, its the only way your going to find out what works for you.
    • Posts: 219 Member
      i tried it and was successful for a few weeks doing it.. pounds did come off. but... i also ended up being extremely hungry on low calorie days.. and too full on my high calorie days. it didn't work for me.. i find that my body needs to have the right fuel for the day's events.. and not be tricked into losing weight. hope that makes sense.
    • Posts: 7,010 Member
      personal preference. It won't make a significant difference. I eat more on days I work out than on days I do not.
    • Posts: 1,000 Member
      I really like zig zags but JOB's work a lot better
    • Posts: 3,010 Member
      I don't zig zag per say, I look more at a weekly... I splurge on Fridays forsure, sometimes Saturday then eat at 1300 cals for the rest of the week. Has worked for me -- have lost 81 lbs.. Recently though I find my loss is slowing, so I am going to cut out the Saturday splurge and see what happens.
      ETA - this works for ME, alot won't agree... It's how I do my moderation.
    • Posts: 402 Member
      On 1400 cals a day you eat 9800 a week. On your zig zag diet you eat 12853 a week. I think you are supposed to take 500 cals off those numbers each week then it will add up pretty close to your cal intake now. I dont think you will loose if you are eating 3053 more cals a week :wink:
    • Posts: 698 Member
      I love zigzagging! I started zigzagging to bust through a plateau, and it helped!! Then the loss continued. :)

      Don't believe the "it will confuse your body and it won't know what to do" garbage... that's just plain silly. Our bodies know what to do...

      I do the calculator as sedentary, and eat back exercise calories. And honestly, if I need extra calories because it's a high cal day and I cranked it at the gym, I just have an extra scoop or two of protein (my body needs it anyway if I cranked the workout), and/or peanut butter to help fill the calories. It is not hard and it doesn't have to be extremely "over filling."
    • Posts: 7 Member
      :P I would've thought it would be easier just to carb cycle
    • Posts: 224 Member
      Some days I eat more than others. I eat when I am hungry but, I try to not go over 1600 calories a day not matter what I eat. So, some days are quiet low and others not so much. Seems to be working
    • Posts: 5,561 Member
      Honestly being an avid athlete and workout person, I feel that zigzagging your calorie intake will have your body so confused it will not know what to do. Yes it might help you lose weight but it will also mess up your metabolism and how you eat your meals making you maybe eat meals/food that you do not need or want to eat!! This is my opinion so you can take it or just ignore it lol

      Good luck and here for support

      Lol....
      dramatic-chipmunk.gif
      Whaaaaaatttttt?

      Feed when you need!
      If you lift heavy one day or expend a ton of energy by working out then eat up!
      You can cycle cals high on heavy lifting days and low on rest days.
      Keep the week in a deficit to lose weight.


      On 1400 cals a day you eat 9800 a week. On your zig zag diet you eat 12853 a week. I think you are supposed to take 500 cals off those numbers each week then it will add up pretty close to your cal intake now. I dont think you will loose if you are eating 3053 more cals a week

      If OPs TDEE daily was 2100 for example she would expend 14700 a week.
      If she cuts 30% from TDEE and gets 1470 she could eat this on rest days.
      If she lifts 3 times a week and eats 20% ABOVE TDEE at 2500 cals on lift days...heres the math...
      1470 x 4 for rest days =5880
      2520 x 3 for lift days =7575
      She would be eating 13455 on a weekly basis.
      Hormonally she would be losing weight and maintaining or possibly gaining lean mass if her training was spot on and if her nutrition was 80% perfect.

      http://www.leangains.com/2008/06/sure-fire-fat-loss.html

      The deficit is very low sure but the results can be astounding when you lift heavy and feed when you need.
      Also read the Intermittent Fasting guide on www.Leangains.com.
      OP may have great results from that as well.
    • Posts: 289
      Just started this week not sure yet but I have had good control do far with the lower amount
    • Posts: 537 Member
      i tried it and was successful for a few weeks doing it.. pounds did come off. but... i also ended up being extremely hungry on low calorie days.. and too full on my high calorie days. it didn't work for me.. i find that my body needs to have the right fuel for the day's events.. and not be tricked into losing weight. hope that makes sense.

      THIS is EXACTLY what happened when I tried it...
      I gave up on it because it didn't feel good to me to eat when I wasn't hungry just to achieve my calories on higher calorie days...

      DO WHAT WORKS FOR YOU... WE ARE NOT ALL MADE FROM THE SAME MOLD AND EACH OF OUR PREFERENCES AND BODIES ARE DIFFERENT :flowerforyou:
    • Posts: 989 Member
      I am actually going to start zig zagging on MOnday
    • Posts: 679 Member
      I think that will make you stay fat, you cant range your calories all the way from the 1400s to the 2000s. Thats a 600 calorie difference, thats going to mess up your metabolism and it just screams that you don't actually want to get healthy.
    • Posts: 35
      About a year ago I was doing a body builder style diet where we Carb cycled so it would be one high Carb day (4000kcals) followed by 3 low days (3200kcals) and for me with the correct training I found it to be a very effective diet especially for fat loss as I was having my lean body mass calculated every fortnight using the body calipers.

      Another poster put that its bad because the body doesn't know what to do but I was always led to believe that it was a positive thing to keep the body guessinhg. Like if you follow a system similar to what I did, just as the body is getting used to the low days and your metabolic rate might be slowing down all of a sudden you throw in a high day so its got to speed back up again so that it can deal with the extra energy. So knowing all that I can only assume that zigzagging will work in a similar way to keep your metabolic rate high and stop you hitting any plateaus.
    • Posts: 715 Member
      I started zig-zagging about 2 weeks ago to break through a 2nd plateau I have been experiencing. I was about 8 lbs short of reaching my goal & I just couldn't get the scale to move. I excercise intensely and was very shy of eating back a majority of my exercise calories. I read on one of the forum post about zig-zagging. It recommended 3 days out of the week eat between 1800 - 2200 calories & your other days eat at your set BMR. I was very gun shy of eating so much instead I compromised between 1600- 1800 on three days & the remaining four days I eat at my BMR of 1360. So far it is working for me. I broke t through the plateau- I lost 4 lbs and I am now 4 lbs from my set goal.
    • Posts: 282 Member
      I think that will make you stay fat, you cant range your calories all the way from the 1400s to the 2000s. Thats a 600 calorie difference, thats going to mess up your metabolism and it just screams that you don't actually want to get healthy.
      This actually made me Lol :laugh:
    • Posts: 247 Member
      I personally eat a constant of 1700 cals ,with or without excercise and make sure the weeks deficit comes upto 3500 cals, the only variable here is excercise, my body better adapted to this than the zigzagging,that kind of confused my body-i had spent a couple of years on low calories before-that might be the reason i didnt respond well to zigzagging.
    • Posts: 5,561 Member
      I think that will make you stay fat, you cant range your calories all the way from the 1400s to the 2000s. Thats a 600 calorie difference, thats going to mess up your metabolism and it just screams that you don't actually want to get healthy.

      www.bodyrecomposition.com
      http://rippedbody.jp/2011/10/08/leangains-intermittent-fasting-guide-how-to-do-it-by-yourself/
      www.leangains.com

      Ignore the Intermittent fasting and understand that all these folks use cal cycling.
      They arent fat and the metabolism is just swell.
    • Posts: 693 Member
      show previous quotes
      This actually made me Lol :laugh:

      Me too. How do people come up with this crap?
    • Posts: 140 Member
      I do it, but not intentionally. I sometimes eat close to my calories goal, and other days, I'm 500-600 under. I'm still losing just fine. I think it is prolly different for each person.
    • Posts: 1,150 Member
      Unless you're already very lean, it won't make a whit of difference as far as fat burning is concerned. Eating more on training days and less on off days may help with performance, but that's strictly personal preference.
    • Posts: 698 Member
      show previous quotes

      Me too. How do people come up with this crap?

      It made me giggle too. There is so much garbage to try weeding through to get to anything useful around here.
    • Posts: 1,090 Member
      personal preference. It won't make a significant difference. I eat more on days I work out than on days I do not.

      I feel this sums it up best for me too.
    • Posts: 282 Member
      Unless you're already very lean, it won't make a whit of difference as far as fat burning is concerned. Eating more on training days and less on off days may help with performance, but that's strictly personal preference.
      Ron i agree with you to a degree, but there are some hormonal benefits to eating higher calories, around workout days not just performance. I know you like a good debate, but im too tired to start pulling study's out to prove it. So will leave it at that :smile:
    • Posts: 1,150 Member
      show previous quotes
      Ron i agree with you to a degree, but there are some hormonal benefits to eating higher calories, around workout days not just performance. I know you like a good debate, but im too tired to start pulling study's out to prove it. So will leave it at that :smile:

      Agreed, but for the vast majority of people on this site, the differences are negligible. Once you get lean, then this stuff becomes more of an issue. Typically, when someone uses the term "zig-zagging" as opposed to "calorie/carb cycling", it's a pretty good bet that they don't need to worry about it.
    • Posts: 282 Member
      show previous quotes

      Agreed, but for the vast majority of people on this site, the differences are negligible. Once you get lean, then this stuff becomes more of an issue. Typically, when someone uses the term "zig-zagging" as opposed to "calorie/carb cycling", it's a pretty good bet that they don't need to worry about it.
      I see your point, but for many here, who have been eating very low calories for an extended period of time. They could very well benefit hormonally from days of increased calorie intake, opposed to a static low number. Even zig zaging can bring you up to maintenance or above for a few days a week. This is why i think some people stuck at a plateau have good results, when zig zaging. However if someone has not stalled, and is losing weight on a regular basis, i see no need to try and fix what's not broke. But yet again the psychological benefit of eating more some days may appeal to them. Whatever way you look at it, there is nothing to lose by trying it, its how we learn how our body's respond to different approaches of dieting.
    • Posts: 303
      I "zig zag" by not according to any offical equation. I just do lower calorie for several days and then up it for a few and then back down. It really seems to work for me even with my inability to exercise very strenuously and my sluggish thyroid (hoping that's what it is anyway and I have all the symptoms).
    • Posts: 157
      I did the zig zag lost 40 lb. i did it a little different but its all the same. I would go higher on the day I weight trained, normal on just cardio days and every other weekend the days i have off eat just lower then my normal and weight training.
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