What it is?
Calorie cycling is looking at your calories as a weekly (or monthly) total rather than a strict day by day number and making sure that you hit your calories over the whole week. Your body doesn’t strictly cut off at midnight every night and restart it calorie needs so you don’t need to do that with the calories in either. Calorie cycling allows you to be flexible and eat different calories on different days while still making sure the average amount of calories in are the right amount for your goals!
Reasons to calorie cycle
- Eat more on the days when you workout and less on rest days where you may not feel as hungry
- Eat more calories on a day you have a special event or if you enjoy eating out etc
- Use when in a calorie deficit so be able to fit social events in that may mean you eat higher calories or consume more alcohol than your normal calories would allow
- Creates more flexibility when calorie counting as we don’t always need to eat the exact same every day
- Eliminates the need for “cheat meals” as you can fit these in your calories on a high calorie day and still hit your numbers
How to do it
I am going to use the example of a calorie deficit as I think this is really the best way to consistently stick to a deficit
What not do to
Do NOT punish yourself the following days if you go over one day. That is NOT how this works. Punishing yourself or restricting food will only lead to further binges or days going over your calories. You need to pre-plan when you are having your higher calorie days and if you do end up going over one day that is unplanned move onto your normal calories the next day and keep aiming for consistency!
