what is zigzagging calories?????

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Someone will explain it better than I could. I really want to get started on this, but MFP doesn't really have the settings to make this user friendly. It would be nice to be able to edit our daily caloric goals and have them changing daily.

When my weight loss slows down I zig zag my calories to confuse it and start my weight loss again. It's helped me - I dropped 6 pounds last week from zigzagging.

What I do is I typically eat my allotted calories (1260). When my weight loss slows down I bump up my caloric intake to 1400-1500 to confuse my body. I keep what I eat the same and I workout the same. When my weight loss starts slowing down on the higher intake, I go back to 1260.

For me, it's also about WHAT I eat and not HOW MUCH I eat. I eat more healthy foods, not just eating to eat. I hope that helps! Let me know if you have questions. When I change my caloric value I don't change my settings. I just go over my allotted calories. I have to plan my days in advance though.

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In Weight Watcher's circles, this became known as The Wendie Plan. Basically you alternate your "points" day to day, so rather than look at your "points" on a daily basis, you figure them out for the week. Then you have some "very low point" days, then other "very high point" days. At the end of a week you still end up consuming within your allotted "points", but your body doesn't get stuck on the same "points" intake each day.

If you google "The Wendie Plan", you'll find most people that have used it have found great success in breaking a plateau.

Really interesting post - I'd never heard of zigzagging but it makes a lot of sense..

(copied from my blog)

Zigzagging is a method of eating that prevents your body from going into homeostasis. Your body is constantly trying to reach this state of balance, which means if you constantly eat 1200 or 1400 calories a day, your body will adapt to living on this low calorie intake and your metabolism will DECREASE to adjust to receiving low levels of food (fuel). However, if you ingest different amounts and kinds of calories every day, your body will be "confused" and your metabolism will not slow down. On the contrary, for a lot of people whose bodies are used to eating so few calories, their metabolism will speed back up. You can utilize the calories needed calculator on freedieting.com to figure out how many calories you should strive to eat. Let me know if you have anymore questions.

I've got a question LOL
How does this work with workout calories.....meaning if I am at 1540 each day not including my workouts calories then I try and zig zag off that number, some days that maybe put me at like 2500 calories a day including my exercise calories....make sense??

Thanks!!

On the calculator I used to determine how many calories I should eat, it includes an input for your exercise level. It ranges from no exercise to every day (intense) exercise; therefore, it accounts for your exercise calories. The budget I allow myself daily is TOTAL calories, not NET calories. So that means today, my goal is 1877. I'm doing HIIT which will burn off about 250-300 so I will end up netting around 1577. This also means, however, that on the day I eat 1365, if I burn off 300 calories during exercise, I will only net at 1065.

Unlike some people might think, netting below 1200 for one day will not put your body into starvation mode. It takes at least a few days of eating very few calories before your body will react by slowing your metabolism.

Hope this clears up any confusion.

Edit: Here's the link
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

(copied from my blog)

Zigzagging is a method of eating that prevents your body from going into homeostasis. Your body is constantly trying to reach this state of balance, which means if you constantly eat 1200 or 1400 calories a day, your body will adapt to living on this low calorie intake and your metabolism will DECREASE to adjust to receiving low levels of food (fuel). However, if you ingest different amounts and kinds of calories every day, your body will be "confused" and your metabolism will not slow down. On the contrary, for a lot of people whose bodies are used to eating so few calories, their metabolism will speed back up. You can utilize the calories needed calculator on freedieting.com to figure out how many calories you should strive to eat. Let me know if you have anymore questions.

I've got a question LOL
How does this work with workout calories.....meaning if I am at 1540 each day not including my workouts calories then I try and zig zag off that number, some days that maybe put me at like 2500 calories a day including my exercise calories....make sense??

Thanks!!

On the calculator I used to determine how many calories I should eat, it includes an input for your exercise level. It ranges from no exercise to every day (intense) exercise; therefore, it accounts for your exercise calories. The budget I allow myself daily is TOTAL calories, not NET calories. So that means today, my goal is 1877. I'm doing HIIT which will burn off about 250-300 so I will end up netting around 1577. This also means, however, that on the day I eat 1365, if I burn off 300 calories during exercise, I will only net at 1065.

Unlike some people might think, netting below 1200 for one day will not put your body into starvation mode. It takes at least a few days of eating very few calories before your body will react by slowing your metabolism.

Hope this clears up any confusion.

Edit: Here's the link
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

You are AWESOME!! Thank you :flowerforyou:

Do you think that it would work the same to zig zag the calories that I am at right now, and just give myself my exercise calories on the day I do the exercise? For example, I typically take in 1440 for the day. If I zig zagged those to have 2 low days, 2 high days and 3 on days, could I add in my exercise for that particular day---let say I burn 200- just add that on? Does that make any sense?