Spike Days?

Sounds like 1 day a week where you come up out of calorie defecit and go to maintenance level or above. The theory goes that this prevents you from ending up in starvation mode. If you extend that theory then, you should be able to go lower in calorie defecit on the other 6 days and net out at a greater overall fat loss over the course of a week.

Whether that's true or not I don't know but it's something I do every week and I am on week 9 with no slowdown in weight loss. I have data from previous years showing a 20 week diet where I didn't slowdown either.

But that's not why I do it.

I do it because it gives me someting to look forward to at the end of the week which makes me far more able to be strict on the other 6 days. For me this is a successful approach.

Now if I could just learn not to regain my lost weight all the time I would truly have it made.

I've always had 'spike days' once a week (sometimes twice) and have managed to lose 60lbs with pretty consistent weight loss each week. I never called them spike days, I'd never heard the term before I started using this site, I just had a day each week where I could go for a meal and not bother about how many calories I was eating.

At the time I thought I was slowing down my weight loss by doing this but being as I was still losing I didn't worry about it. However, I recently stopped doing them because I'm close to goal and got impatient to hit it. My weight loss stalled and I got stuck on a plateau. I'm now back on spike days once a week and I'm losing again Seems it was the spike days that kept me losing regularly. Not only that, I'd say they definitely kept me going with my plan as I had something to look forward to. I'd be miserable if I couldn't have pizza or go for a Chinese and would probably have sacked off the diet if I didn't have them.

I have a LOT on my spike days, usually a Chinese buffet meal and dessert and probably double my BMR for the day. The following day I weigh about 2lbs more but it falls over over the next couple of days and by next weigh-in I've usually lost another 1-2lbs.

I also zig zag my calories on the rest of the days: My daily allowance is 1200 but I have about 1000 on lazy days and 1400 on days when I do cardio. I don't eat back exercise calories, I stick to these numbers more or less. Spike day is hard to measure if I eat out but it's probably around 2500 - 3000.

This works for me, I think because my body isn't getting used to a certain amount of calories each day and adjusting itself to live off them and maintain my current weight. Keeping it guessing I guess.