How To Plan Your Own Calorie Cycling Diet
69What Is A Calorie Cycling Diet?
Calorie Cycling diet is also known as calorie-based rotational diet, calorie shifting diet and zig zag diet.
Unlike a normal low calorie diet that requires you to eat low calorie meals everyday, the Calorie Cycling diet is a diet that requires you to "cycle" your nutritional intake daily or occasionally. Why is this so?
This is because according to some research reports, when a person is constantly taking in a very low nutritient, his body will automatically be alerted that he is insufficient of food, thus his body will digest less food and burn less calorie so that it can store more energy for future use.
As a result, a general low calorie diet will not be very effective in the long run since it will trigger the problem as aforementioned. Calorie cycling is a diet that has been invented few decades ago to tackle this problem.
How To Plan Your Own Calorie Cycling Diet
In order to plan your own diet plan, you should first know how much is your daily calorie usage. Upon knowing the daily calorie usage, you should minus the daily usage by 300calorie, this will be your medium calorie baseline.
Then, during the cycle, you will need to slot in high and low calorie days. High calorie day is medium calorie + 500, while low calorie is medium calorie - 200.
After that, you can cycle the diet in anyway you want. However, you should have about 2 high calorie and 2 low calorie days in a week.
It can be something like...
Day 1 - low
Day 2 - highDay 3 - lowDay 4 - mediumDay 5 - mediumDay 6 - highDay 7 - mediumRemember that after 7 days, you should take 1-2 break from the diet so that you can gain other nutrients and minerals. This step is very important to avoid your body from thinking that you are getting less nutrient.
Some Good Sites
- Free 7 Days Calorie Shifting Diet Menu
You can find a free 7 days diet menu in this website. Very useful. - Calorie Cycling Journal
This is a very inspiring journal by Alice Stiles.
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Hi! I am constantly struggling to find the right diet. I have tried so many things..everything makes sense and then can't decide which way to go. Your info looks interesting but not enough info, help!
Do you still exercise? I am hitting big plateau now.
Hi,
there isn't enough information. Can you eat everything you want as long as its in calorie range. Should you still exercise.
This diet is good for convincing yourself that you aren't starving, and therefore done properly you should lose weight effectively (even if not overly quickly)
On a healthy eating plan you shouldn't 'eat what you want'. You should eat a balanced plan with plenty of protein, fibre, carbs and fat.
You should also be exercising, this diet should give you the calories to be able to maintain 3-4 30-60min exercise sessions a week. And if it doesn't, go back to your BMR and adjust the Harris Benedict formula to make your calories allow exercise.
Do not do a healthy eating plan without exercise, while this will mean you require more calories exercise is vitally important. It improves bone strength and generally will make you feel better and see the improvements you want. Healthy eating and exercise should be put together always.
As Carlie says you should eat a balanced diet no matter what eating program you chose to go down.
Ultimately calories in vs calories burnt = change in body fat, so as long as over a given period (say 1 week) your under your calorie requirement, you will lose body fat. Simple as that......
I'm looking into calorie cycling as a way of building a lot of lean muscle mass, whilst losing body fat, if my goal were simple fat loss, with a moderate more toning base training program, I'd simply stick to calorie deficit. Which until now has worked for me, but unfortunately constantly being in deficit is slowing my muscle gains (bare in mind I'm training like a bodybuilder, not the average gym goer)
Hope this helps some people
burton18 Hub Author 16 months ago
Hi, everyone, if you have any questions regarding this diet, feel free to ask me :)