what is zig-zagging?

Hi all!

I'm relatively new to dieting on CC.com, have been poking around the forums a little and came across zig-zagging....

what is this and how does it help and when do you do it?

 any help would be fantastic!

Thanks!

When ppl refer to "Zig-Zagging" they mean you should like eat 1700 cals one day and 1400 the next etc..

Or - zig zagging your caloric deficit means that one day you have a 500 cal deficit and the next a 900 cal deficit (shouldn't go over 1000 cal deficit per day).

Caloric deficit - the difference between what you burned and what you ate.. I.E.: I burned 2500 cals today but I ate 1600 cals - that would give me a deficit of 900 calories. :)

BTW - Welcome to CC! :)

Read this post. I have some information in there about how to zigzag.

http://www.calorie-count.com/forums/post/5589 8.html The main idea is to change the number of calories you every day, I range between 1600 and 2400, to keep your body guessing how many calories it should burn.

read that thread, it has alot of good info on it.

The idea is that you are attempting to change your Rest Metabolic Rate by raising and lowering your caloric intake.  Since you actually can't see your RMR, only your weight.  It is imagined by many people here that this is what they are doing.

There seems to be no significant body of medical information to support this idea and some to discredit it.  It seems far more likely that any weight loss achieved is done through simple caloric restriction.

Oh and the thread that rae852004 points you to does contain links to many calorie calculators.  There's some information there on longevity via severe caloric restriction.  Which if you are keeping up with research has been shown to have very little effect on humans.

so is zig zagging to be used on a regular basis or only at plateau? I'm just starting to count calories and need a good start point...

There is no reason to believe that it does any good at all. So you're not going to find any useful information on when to use it.

*SIGH*

However if you want to do this.  It's probably one of the more harmless dieter delusions. What I expect you should do is keep your average calories constant while varying your daily intake.

So to do that you probably want to avoid severe caloric spikes - since whatever imaginary effect happens it's less likely to result in a net loss as the size of the spike goes up.

So when you divide up your weeks calories do so that the MEAN (Total/7) is close to the MEDIAN ( Line up your daily intake in ascending order - and take the middle value - that's the median).

That guarantees that you will have no significant spikes.

Math - gotta love it! :)

I use that to look at the number of calories I would need to maintian. Not to be used for the calorie restriction.

sarkeizen -

what's with the "sigh?" 

I use that to look at the number of calories I would need to maintian. Not to be used for the calorie restriction.

Good.  Because it's unlikely to have an effect on large organisms:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd= Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus& amp;list_uids=16046282 ;

So I have a question, if you don't believe in CR Longevity why do you believe in zig-zagging?

The medical evidence for CRL outweighs that for ZZ.

Not trying to be argumentative and I get that nobodies belief set is entirely consistent but still... 

so rae, you zig zag between the number of calories you need to eat to maintain you weight and what?

what's with the "sigh?"

Sorry about that meg ( Can I call you Meg? :) ).  All week, sometimes several times a day I've been trying to keep the threads here straight on the facts concerning Zig-Zag type eating.  It just gets to ya after a while. 

I have heard of people zig zagging more frequently when they are trying to break a plateau. Personally I have been stuck at my current weight for a while and as a means of trying to get it to move it has been suggested that I zig zap my cals. Simply put, I would eat 1400 cals per day to lose 1-2 lbs a week (in conjunction w/exercise). What I have done is multiple 1400 (cal) by 7 (days) and I come up with 9800 cals allowed per week. Instead of eating straight 1400 per day I now eat 1800-Sunday 1200-Monday 1350- Tuesday 1200-Wednesday 1400-Thursday 1200- Friday and 1800 Saturday.

I have only been doing this for a week, but it I like it. I will let everyone know if I start losing. The person who suggested it to me had great results. 

 

no worries sarkeizen...

amy - let me know how that works for you  -  I'm certainly no where near a plateau but if I ever do i'd like to have some handy information.

 I like the idea of keeping the same calories as you normally would for the week but varying the daily amounts if a plateau were to occur...i don't think i would do that on a regular basis..

i think this zigzagging is cool when you have parties going on.

For example....you usually have a 500 cal deficit...during a party you allow yourself to eat alot and then the next day your calorie deficit is 900 or 1000... 

Sorry, posted twice.  :)

I have only been doing this for a week, but it I like it. I will let everyone know if I start losing. The person who suggested it to me had great results.

In the "Yeah but..." category. Your mean intake is 1421 which is likely running a caloric deficit. Over time you have to lose weight, zig-zag or no.

So the problem, as ever is that there is no distinguishing characteristic between the outcomes of the person doing ZZ and the person not. Both are expected to lose weight over time.

How is it that so few see the problem in crediting Zig-Zag eating habits here.

Meg: Thanx - good luck with your program. :)

I zig-zag, but not for any reason other than that is where my hunger and social life lead me. I don't like the idea of having to be so precise every single day. I am hungrier on days I work out and I like to have a couple drinks and go out to eat on the weekend. So, I eat less on days when it is most convenient.

sarkeizen - if not zig zagging, how do you suggest to break a plateau?

Hey Meg, 

I'm a big, big math nerd, and one of the things nerds like to do is define terms.  So bear with me, I'm going to do that for a bit.

Ok we need to know what a plateau is:

Now we could say that it's when we are not losing any weight but there are two problems with the definition.

i) No restriction in time - I just weighed myself twice in an hour and there was no change in my weight.  Another hour I weighed myself and I gained two pounds ( I had just drank a liter of water :) ).   So obviously we need some restriction there.

ii) No restriction in deficit - An obese person who is only running at a 50 Cal/day deficit is going to notice 'no change' for a very long time.

 iii) No sense of environmental factors - believe it or not there is evidence to support the idea that your mood affects your RMR.  One of the reasons some researchers believe that Anorexia Nervosa (AN) sufferers have a harder time gaining weight than people with no eating disorders is that stress is causing them to burn more cals than other people and to them food induces stress.

As I've said elsewhere - small changes can be influenced by insignificant factors.  So if we're going to talk about plateauing we have to be assured that it's not affected by 'small' factors.

So for the sake of argument lets say that a 10lb (30000 Cal) deficit is 'big'.   Now there is some evidence stating that on average it is difficult to lose more than a few pounds of fat per week (not impossible just abnormal).   Let's also say that baring some major pain ( nasty breakup, etc...) that our moods cycle relatively normally across a month.

So I'm going to say that we can be sure if something is a plateau if it's carried for a month with no change in weight given a 10lb caloric deficit (~30,000 Cals).  The caveat here is that we are assuming this has al been accurately measured.  Measurement and accounting error is a another thing entirely.

I'll say up front that this dismisses the vast majority of plateau reports I see (not all).  From there I'd see if it's healthy to add some aerobic exercise or reduce my caloric intake.  If neither is safe or reasonable I'd just wait it out.  Perhaps there's some combination of subtle factors that are at work there

For the record me plateau has been going on for about 4 months! Up until a week ago I ate healthy foods and stayed within 1421 cals a day.. maintaining a 500 calorie deficiet. I also did 45-60 minutes of cardio 5 times a week. And I did light weights 2-3 days a week. For the past week I have been zig zagging cals, but staying under my weekly calorie allowance and this morning I hopped on the scale and I lost 1 lbs since last Friday.. The only change I have made is switching from straight calorie counting to zig zagging my calories. Maybe it was just time for me lose something, but I can't help but draw the conclusion that maybe the zig zagging had something to do with it.