Calorie cycling\average

[gobbla]

I'm pretty lost on calorie cycling and how\why it works (or doesn't) for weight gain\loss.

How does the body treat calories differently over a period of time vs a steady diet? (average weekly calories of 2k vs eating 2k calories a day every day).

From a dieting perspective I can see how it can force you to go into a harder deficit than you could normally maintain and make additional progress for longer\faster I'm not really sure if there are any hard or fast "rules" on it though. Where is the line drawn between eating too much\too little vs a day in reference to the rest of the week?

For gain I don't really get what it does...if anything. Would you cycle higher for a period of time after a workout and less (maintence) for the next period of time before the following workout? Are there any strong advantages to cycling calories during a hypertrophy stage?

Just before someone posts it I seen Tony G's mini article already, I'm looking for the explanation behind the madness vs getting the madness in and of itself.

[RobLL]

From reading on this and other forums I think any form of diet 'cycling' is controversial. Physiological? Psychological? Who knows. I'm sitting on the fence on this one.

[Lost Dog]

G, the Kelly Baggett "No Bull" program has a lot of details on this. It's all about cycling.

I'll see if I can quote a little of it for you. But, it's all hardcopy, so I'll have to type... And, as you know, I like to stick to very short, brief, and succinct messages, when I type. This will be challenging.

[BFG]

I dont agree its psychological, like any machine the body is designed to run efficiently on the fuel you provide it with. Which is good as we have fat reserves we want to burn.

However if you maintain it say at 2000 cals per day week in week out you get the plateue that everyone whinges about. It would be far better to have that "early stages of diet feeling" all the while. Im not saying it will make you lose 4 1/2 lbs every week but I and many others found it gave a much more consistant weightloss each week than a static deficit.

I go to the extreme of cycling tho and the method I prefer is a 200 down 100 up alternating weeks, as you always know you have a small refeed ahead after a particularly grueling week.

The other thing is as you start to shed the body fat and you r weight goes down then theoreticly you need less calories anyway

[Alan Aragon]

Originally Posted by gobbla

I'm pretty lost on calorie cycling and how\why it works (or doesn't) for weight gain\loss.

How does the body treat calories differently over a period of time vs a steady diet? (average weekly calories of 2k vs eating 2k calories a day every day).

From a dieting perspective I can see how it can force you to go into a harder deficit than you could normally maintain and make additional progress for longer\faster I'm not really sure if there are any hard or fast "rules" on it though. Where is the line drawn between eating too much\too little vs a day in reference to the rest of the week?

For gain I don't really get what it does...if anything. Would you cycle higher for a period of time after a workout and less (maintence) for the next period of time before the following workout? Are there any strong advantages to cycling calories during a hypertrophy stage?

Just before someone posts it I seen Tony G's mini article already, I'm looking for the explanation behind the madness vs getting the madness in and of itself.

Madness is a good word.

The best possible nonlinear intake would be an attempt to match high exercise output days with high calorie intake, and lower output days with lower intake. Beyond that, it's a lot of theoretical jacking off. Training programs typically don't have huge disparities in energy output from one training bout to the next, so if you were to calorie cycle, simply eat less on the days you don't train. The amount you reduce (or increase) calories depends on the estimated calorie output of exercise (400-800 cals for most "regular" people). You can also opt to do a 3-tier system where you eat about about 600-1200 cals (beyond days off cals) on 2 or 3 of your hardest training days per week.

Or you can choose to keep it linear, and not complicate things, and live a pretty normal life for cripe's sake. The primary benefit of nonlinear intake is definitely the periodic opportunity to eat a shitload of food, a move whose benefits are for all realistic purposes, mainly psychological.

[BFG]

Originally Posted by Alan Aragon

Madness is a good word.

The best possible nonlinear intake would be an attempt to match high exercise output days with high calorie intake, and lower output days with lower intake. Beyond that, it's a lot of theoretical jacking off. Training programs typically don't have huge disparities in energy output from one training bout to the next, so if you were to calorie cycle, simply eat less on the days you don't train. The amount you reduce (or increase) calories depends on the estimated calorie output of exercise (400-800 cals for most "regular" people). You can also opt to do a 3-tier system where you eat about about 600-1200 cals (beyond days off cals) on 2 or 3 of your hardest training days per week.

Or you can choose to keep it linear, and not complicate things, and live a pretty normal life for cripe's sake. The primary benefit of nonlinear intake is definitely the periodic opportunity to eat a shitload of food, a move whose benefits are for all realistic purposes, mainly psychological.

Id agree with you on the fact of varying it day to day but not week by week altho would agree the psychological factor really does help especialy if you want to drive the diet down real low as opposed to waste time running it off

[gobbla]

thanks for those of you that dug this one back up. more responses this time! WOO!

In the mean time for those that are interested Alan briefly touches on cycling in his book which should be the first nutrition (notice I didn't say diet) book you buy.

After playing with it a little bit for the bulking, linear really seems to be the way to go. The more quantity you're figuring out every day, the bigger the pain in the ass and it's just not worth it.

The "cutting" I liked the cycling. Legitimate benifits are arguable but it A: forced me to pay attention to what I was doing (tracking...not limited to cycling) B: kept things interesting like I was being an active participant vs just doing the same thing every day C: the big food days were sent from Jesus.

So I reckon it was largely brain porn.

[BFG]

totaly agree it makes an ardous task sustainable on a cut. Especialy when you suddenly realise its day 7 and you can eat an extra 200 calories the next day which seems like a banquet

[Alan Aragon]

Originally Posted by gobbla

In the mean time for those that are interested Alan briefly touches on cycling in his book which should be the first nutrition (notice I didn't say diet) book you buy.

Here here!! Raise one up for this guy!!