Zigzagging Calories

I've been reading a lot of posts and doing a lot of research on zigzagging calories and it seems that a lot of people have had success with it. So I've decided that I would try doing this too in hopes of losing the last twenty or so pounds that I am hoping to lose. For those of you that have been successful zigzagging calories, does this sound like a good plan: Sunday: 1400 Monday: 1200 Tuesday: 1500 Wednesday: 1300 Thursday: 1450 Friday: 1150 Saturday: 1500 Do my calories vary enough to actually be zigzagging? By the way, I'm 18 y/o, 5'4, and I do a 30 minute workout on a stationary bike at least 5 times a week with about a ten minute abs workout as well. I'm just looking for advice on zigzagging and hoping it can help me with my plateau that I have been at for a while. Thanks.

I've never heard of this? How does this work?

zigzagging won't help you with that plateau. You already are not eating enough on 2 of those days and barely getting enough on thursday. The easiest way to over come a plateau is to give your body just a tad bit more food.

Find your BMR, find out how many calories you are burning during work outs. Add then up. then subtract smoething like 800 from the number (the deficit) but never more than 1000 and that's how many calories you should be eating to lose weight. Now add like 200 to the total calories you should be eating and after a few days or so you should be back to losing weight.

But then again you don't list your current weight so we won't know if your bdy is just at a point where it is harder to lose or if you are at an already healthy BMI.

"1450 Friday: 1150 Saturday"

Um, how about 1400 Friday and 1200 Saturday?

the best way to figure out how to zigzag is to take the amount of what your intake is daily x by 7 with that result dided those calories between the days day one up day 2 down ect... and even if you are getting 1200 for one day is not going to hurt you....Zigzagging DOES help get you out of plateau's.

The thing I like about zigzagging is your calorie days are not the same old, same old, day after day.  Here is a link www.naturalphysiques.com ;

For me, height and age I get 1310 calories on average per week.  I get a "high" day of 1654, and two "lower" days of 1272.  That is based on the X8 method.  There are other options.  Hope this helps!

I zig zag my calories and I love it. It got me out of a plateau and I have seen a loss every week so far. What I do is this: 1300 cals x 7 days = 9100 cals for the week. Mon is low cal day, Tues higher cal, Wed low cal, Thurs, lowest cal day. Weigh in Friday. Then I add up the calories I have consumed so far in the week and dived that by 3 and thats how much I can have during the weekend. Saturday is usually my highest calorie day so its cheat day without me cheating. Everyone is different so my strategy might not work for some, but I've been successful so far with it. So I am sticking to this for now. You should try it :)

If any of your high days are not above maintenance, then your pretty much wasting your time. And none of the examples here would count. The whole point to zig zagging is for hormonal regulation.....7 days of deficit is still a deficit, nothing hormonal is going to happen.......  300 to 500 calorie variances are pretty much a normal occurrence when evaluated over a 30 day period. If someone is in a 500 calorie deficit then it would take a 1000 calories to be enough over maintenance for these hormonal responses to happen. Give that a try and see. just my opinion.

 

Well, one of the websites I looked at in my research said that when zigzagging, you should eat five days at 500 calories below your maintenance requirements, and then eat two days at 500 calories about maintenance. If caloriecount says that I burn 1650 calories on a given day and I burn about 250 calories working out, that gives me about a 1900 calorie expenditure. So 500 calories below that is 1400, no problem, I can do that. But eating at 500 calories above my maintenance would be around 2400 calories. I haven't eaten that much in literally 3 1/2 to 4 years and that number scares me. I've been stuck eating around 1000 calories a day for over a year even though I knew that was the wrong thing to do. I was just so scared to up my calories. Yesterday I ate 1400, and that scared me. 2400 sounds outrageous to me.

I understand you're trying to lose weight, but you should never eat below 1200 calories a day for a woman and eating the 2400 with moderate exercise is right for matinence, don't you burn about around 300-400 calories on the bike in that time anyway?  If you don't eat enough actually, you won't lose any weight and might start to gain weight. because you're body isn't getting enough.

I've seen so many people scared to eat more food because they're scared they'll gain weight, and once they start to eat more calories (healthy ones that is) they start to lose weight.  You can't burn if you're not giving the fire enough fuel...

Good luck, I zig-zag too.  But it's determined on my level of activity that day.  I have easier days which just include cardio or no workout at all.  And my hard days with involve lots of cardio and weight training.  I obviously don't always follow the plan, but my calories vary between 1500-1800 on those days.  You gotta eat! haha.

i did this before. it was extreme but i lost weight and wasn't out of it. on sparkpeople there are two groups and they call it Dr.Johnson's Alternate day diet. or JUDDD, up day, down day. Down days you eat a minimum or 500 calories, up days you eat what you want. It tricks your stomach and keeps it active. They also do water fasts. It's also called calorie cycling. i was doing 500-700 on down days and 1200-1600 on up days.

Oh, well I didn't know it was some diet plan or not, I just created that myself, but I think it's a very smart plan.  I've read several places that if you eat the same amount day in and out that you're body gets use to it.  Sometimes when I eat even above that my higher calorie count, it gives me a metabolism boost and I end up losing weight.