Can Calorie Cycling Help Manage Your Weight?

There are many ways to adapt calorie cycling into your diet to lose weight.

Calorie cycling is a routine shift from the strict diet regimen, which may allow you to lose weight. You will be instructed how many calories to consume during the days or weeks. 

In a normal diet, a person eats about 1,300 to 1,400 calories per day to lose weight, but this is considering that each day includes the same ratio of proteins and food intake.

With the calorie cycle, you consume the same number of calories per week but a different number each day. Therefore, you eat less for a few days and more on other days, but the weekly ratio remains the same.

The idea behind this is to fool the metabolism so that it does not know what to expect.

When your metabolism gets confused and difficult to adapt to the changes, there is a spike in metabolism and fat burning increases.

Calorie cycling is an advanced plan for people who have already implemented meal planning and macronutrient planning successfully.

A review in 2001 suggested that people who had lost weight in the initial years following a strict diet plan eventually regained most of the lost weight in the years to follow.

Although a few studies have claimed the advantages of such a shift in the diet plan, there should be further studies to confirm this, so that it may be safely followed by people or recommended by dieticians.

Changes in the hormone levels

Some hormonal changes do occur during this regimen. There may be a decrease in testosterone and thyroid hormone levels and an increase in the levels of cortisol, which is the hormone associated with inflammation and weight gain. 

The hormone leptin (which signals the brain that you are full) is decreased, whereas ghrelin (which tells the brain that you are hungry) is increased. Following a strict diet plan may make a person lethargic and decrease physical activity.

However, studies have reported that alternating between consuming fewer calories followed by eating more calories can cause a significant loss in weight.

If a person is interested in following a calorie cycling plan, there are many ways of doing this. One way is to consume lesser calories according to the diet regimen until the body starts sending signals, such as exhaustion, lesser sex drive, and reduced sleep. You may then shift to the higher-calorie diet for some days to allow your body to recover and rejuvenate. 

Another plan is to follow it every week, wherein the person can have a low-calorie diet for four to five days and then shift to high-calorie foods for the remaining two to three days.

Others may consume fewer calories for two to three weeks and then fall back to normal eating for five to seven days. 

It all depends on how a person wants it, and whichever plan is comfortable, they can follow the same. This may be a bit difficult in the beginning, but after a bit of practice, the person may feel comfortable shifting to this plan of dieting and seeing its beneficial aspects.

• A little flexibility: This plan may especially work out if the person has a habit of indulging in eating more during weekends. Therefore, it may not be difficult to abstain from having more food than normal during weekends if the days overlap with the high-calorie period.
• Carb cycle: One part of calorie shifting is known as carb cycling, which can be an effective fat loss method. During calorie shifting, some people can exclude calories in the form of carbs. On a low-calorie day, you may replace carbs with a ketogenic diet with low or no carbohydrates at all. This will keep the protein intake high. 
• Exercise and cyclical shifting:
  • It is always recommended to make exercise a part of the routine along with the diet plan. This helps in weight loss at a proper rate than with a diet plan alone. However, exercise causes a person to feel tired and hungry.
  • This may lead to the consumption of more food. Therefore, the participant can shift intense workouts to high-calorie days. This will be beneficial as the calorie requirement will be taken care of as per the schedule of calorie cycling. On other days when the diet is stricter, the person may include less intense exercise, so that the consumption of calories is lesser. 

There are other plans that the participant can choose according to their comfort level.

Further research is needed to prove that calorie cycling or shifting can lead to a better weight loss program.

Although it looks likable, following it along with a proper exercise routine is essential.