Zig Zagging Calories

According to NEWFIEDAN - 5/2/11 http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/212510-how-to-zig-zag-cals-properly-caloric-cycling-properly?hl=how+to+zig+zag&page=5

"...so on your home page after you put in your food and exercise at the end of the day that number (that number being your zig zag goal for that day) should = your net calories...."

FOOD EATEN - EXERCISE BURNED= NET CALORIES

That means EAT BACK your exercise calories otherwise your NET (on the home page summary box, not the food diary totals) won't equal whatever your zig zag goal is. The zig zag goal will not match your MFP numbers since MFP is setup for the same goal 7 days a week and zig zagging isn't. Some days you will be over and some you will be under. It's helpful to put your zig zag goal in your food notes so you (and others if it's public) will know you were zig zagging and not just over/under eating.
The only time it doesn't make sense to eat back your exercise calories is if you are working off your maintenance numbers.

As I said earlier, today is my 1680 day (high day). I exercised and burned 575 calories. I've eaten 2011 calories (despite what my food diary is telling me I need to do) So far my day looks like this:
As you can see my NET caloires are still 244 calories UNDER my zig zag goal of 1680. If I didn't eat back any of my exercise calories today and stopped food at 1680, my NET would be 1105 calories for the day. Oh another thing, disregard the big 64 calories remaining since that is based off of the MFP goal and not the zig zag goal. You will need to manually calculate that by taking your zig zag goal (1680) and subtracting your logged NET (1436) which means that at 11:12pm I still have 244 calories to consume to meet my goal for today.

It's really up to you but if you find that your zig zagging and not eating back your logged exercise and you feel tired, don't lose, feel hungry more often than before, consider trying it this way the next week and see which way works better. When losing weight, bigger (losses) isn't always better.

bump

I think I get it now....:drinker:

Yes, it totally depends on what you are using as your numbers. On the calculator that I used you put in your number of days that you exercise and it will figure your exercise calories in so if I look at my numbers, most days for zigzagging it has me at 1506 then a couple higher and a couple lower. But the average is 1506 -- on mfp I am supposed to eat 1200 plus my exercise calories so if I would be zigzagging and using 1506 plus my exercise calories I would be WAY to high -- I would be eating to maintenance every week therefore would NOT lose anything. But this adds the 300 calories that I would normally eat back to my food goal everyday for the week (it just uses high days and low days instead of the same every day)

So you can do either BUT if you use the calculator on the freedieting.com site and you put in that you exercise 5 days a week then DO NOT eat back the daily exercise calories because it IS calculated in there for you.

What I do is the same as Sara -- I don't exercise on my low days and exercise a lot on my high days so the numbers on mfp turn out to be close.

If you are using the calculator on the freediet.com site than read this blog -- she explains everything very nicely: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/AggieCass09/view/my-positive-experience-with-calorie-zig-zagging-98777

The other method using mfp numbers (maintenance and max loss) and you do eat back your exercise calories (using net as your goal) that nckrystalblue is speaking about -- is described in this post:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/212510-how-to-zig-zag-cals-properly-caloric-cycling-properly?hl=how+to+zig+zag

So either way is right it just depends on how you calculate your zig zag numbers to begin with.

Hope this helps!