Zigzagging Calories

1200-984=216 So you would have to exercise away 216 calories. Is that what you mean? Then if you exercised more than that, you could also eat those calories.

I am stuck at a plateua and I have been researching zig zagging my calories. But I have a few questions and need some advice.

First, I have gone to several websites to see what my calorie intake should be and all of them come back with the same or similar numbers:
Mon 984
Tues 984
Wed 1184
Thr 984
Fri 984
Sat 1083
Sun 984
As you can see, everyone of these numbers is under 1,200. I know your never supposed to be below 1200 so I am hesitant to start this.

I am also really confused on how exercise will fit into this... Right now I eat about 70 percent of my exercise calories ( I assume the treadmill "calories burned" is pretty inaccuate).

So is there maybe a way to still eat 1,200 but then exercise so there is the same defecit as if I just ate 984 calories?

I think all the math is tripping me up a bit :laugh: Please help!

If this is your TOTAL calories intake for the day, you are WAY too low. Even if this is your net (total consumed minus exercise burned) this is too low. You should not drop below 1200 very often. So if you burn 400 cals exercising, you should eat 1600 cals a day. However, you can't trust the calorie estimate from the machines. You need a good hrm to give you a better est. of your calories burned.

That said, none of this is "calorie cycling." My understanding is that you should consume at your daily burn, i.e. active metabolic rate plus exercise for several weeks, then cut out 200-300 cals per day for several weeks, etc. Songbyrdsweet can give you a really good explaination for this.

Bottom line- you're currently not eating enough. You need to slowly up your calories. You might notice some weight gain during this time. Be patient!!! Once your body is accustom to getting enough calories, then you can start cycling.:flowerforyou:

No, no no... I have been eating 1200+ a day (normally about 1400-1600 after adding my exercise calories), and still am. This is just something I was looking into because I've been stuck for a few weeks.
I eat about 70% of my EXERCISE calories ON TOP of my usual 1200.
I work out about 3-5 times a week and burn about 300-600 calories everytime I go.

Sorry.. I know this is kind of confusing. My questions are:
1. Can I adjust these numbers so they are over 1200/day but still zig zagging?
and
2. How does exercise fit into this?


I don't know why but this really really confuses me. :huh: I'm sorry if I'm not communicating what I'm trying to ask very well.

Well, those numbers show wednesday and saturday having 200 more calories than other days. So do a different kind of exercise on those days, maybe the kind in which you're burning on the high end of your range.

NOTE: You can also try eating all your exercise calories. I know it's scary but it works when you're exercising a lot.

I'm lost and my head hurts...anyone have the ADD abbreviated version? Gross/net...I have no idea.

Kerrishannon,

You may want to pm songbyrdsweet about this since she doesn't seem to have found this thread. She's very smart and knowledgeable- B.S. in exercise physiology, I believe; just starting her graduate studies.

Good luck!!!

Zigzagging is keeping your weekly amount the same but not your daily. So for example, eating 1500 calories a day would give you a weekly total of 10,500. Or you could eat Sun-1500 Mon-1200 Tue-1800 Wed-1600 Thu-1400 Fri-1300 Sat-1700 which also totals 10,500.