How to zig zag cals properly/caloric cycling properly

Is the max deficit of 800 a straight figure or a percentage?

My current maintenance is 1550; I think I would have a really hard time eating just 750 and not sure how safe that would be. I do exercise 3-4 days/week and that would add another 300-400, but there are some days where a work-out is just not very feasible. Any suggestions?

If your maintenance is 1550 the lowest you should go is 1200, for women whom are shorter than 5ft tall you can push it to 1100 but anything less and you are really pushing it. It works off a percentage and that gets lower as you approach your goal weight. For women no less than 1200 as a general rule and for men no less than 1500 as a general rule. My maintenance is 2440 right now so I have more cals to play with. 800 works for me as I am 11.6 pounds shy of my goal. But I am also active so I have more to play with. The more weight the greater the wiggle room, the lighter the less wiggle room.

Do you eat your exercise calories? My calory level is set at 1210 now and I'm not seeing any change after 2 months. I do eat my exercise calories, maybe I shouldn't?

OK, I was stuck in a 6 week plateau or so, tried several different approaches with no success, so thought what the heck, I'll try this.

Well, after 8 days doing 1310, 1310, 2110...

I lost over 4 lbs!!

And, I'm only a few lbs from my ultimate goal, which makes this all the more impressive.

Thanks for the info!!!

Here is another great article on this approach, I actually ate the foods recommended in this first chart too:

http://www.rippednaturally.com/zig-zag-diet.html

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I agree!!!! I hate it when I change my goals for the day....and it messed up all of my history! I have a piece of paper by the computer, and i keep track on there! Maybe MFP could fix this!!!

I forgot to mention in my previous post, but I did eat all my exercise calories back for the 8 days I've been doing this.

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An odd thing I noticed, after reading Eat, Stop, Eat.

I've been zig zagging my calories, using the 3 day method originally outlined. The thing is, I've noticed that with the small amounts of calories I'm consuming on my low days...I occasionally don't eat much, or at all until dinner. When I do this...I'm going 24hrs without food...which qualifies as fasting. I started two weeks ago when I got sick (didn't eat for 2 days)...then I ate a lot more on the third.

I'm betting this was the cause of my 8lbs worth of loss over those two weeks, as well as breaking my 6 week plateau. I am now going to more purposefully zig zag and make sure I don't eat for at least two 24hr intervals a week (this includes sleep time...so it's not as bad as it seems). I'm thinking the losses will continue to come, particularly since I'm back on track with exercising, and after the two weeks off, my workouts are more intense than ever.

Cris

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I do 1 increased calorie day per week on a Saturday. That's my treat/cheat day and also kicks my metabolism into shape for the following week. I do find that I see a spike in weight on Sunday/Monday but the drop over the week after stays steady where if I don't have the treat day my loss progress gets a bit sluggish.

I can see this working on a 1 day in 3 schedule though. The theory seems solid.

bump to read over tonight!

Bump! Have to try this!

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