Calorie cycling: Does it work?

[SubjectiveIllusion]

I was wondering what you guys thought of about the idea of doing bunch of mini-cycles. I was thinking of cutting 500 below maintenence once every four days. I'm thinking the metabolism might stay high and allow you to burn your regular calories as if you were to bulk straight. I've heard that as one diets the amount of fat they lose diminishes as their bodies begin to adapt and hold onto it better. Well, I think this would be such a short and undramatic cycle that the body would just keep doing what its doing- burning calories.

Or is it possible that the body might figure it out and adapt thus lowering metabolism? If this did works out exactly like the math (which almost never happens but lets use our imaginations - It appears to be all I've got to go on ) then you'd lose 2 lbs per month and 24 lbs per year more then you would if you just straight bulked at 500 calories above the maintenence level. I like the idea because: how many of you go on a two week or more cutting schedual only to end up losing more fat then muscle? The thing is how much loss would come from mass? And would it massively hinder muscle gaining progress?

Lots of input please!

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

Is this just me or has not one person even looked at this post?

"Hi me!"

 

[BOOEY]

I thought about doing this, I think 3 weeks on/2 weeks off would be better, then every 4 days, unless I was reading your post wrong ... I'm going to give it a try once I cut down to my desired bf level, which hopefully will be in June

 

[bran987]

I thought about doing this, I think 3 weeks on/2 weeks off would be better, then every 4 days, unless I was reading your post wrong ... I'm going to give it a try once I cut down to my desired bf level, which hopefully will be in June

this is kind of what I'm doing...

and on another note there is the idea of carb cycling.. no carb day then low carb day then high carb day to keep the body confused as well.. I find these kinds of diets really hard to follow but in theory they sound great to me.

 

[Tom Treutlein]

Mr. X recommends something like this...

 

[ProtienFiend]

its good to cycle between lifting and non-lifting days...

ie, more carbs/cals the days you lift, less the other days

other than that there is really no point to cycling (save the CKDers)

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

Well guys, I'm going to try it once I get back up to a healthy weight. Then I think I'll take ProteinFiends advice and not lift on my cutting days- sounds sensible.

Thank you all for the input.

 

[juve]

This is one of the reasons why I don't like a set number of cals for each individual depending on their weight, bf and whatnot. Number of cals should reflect your energy expenditure - more consumption when more exertion - inherently this concept is very similar to cals cycling. Fluctuate from low cals on low activity days to high cals on high activity days.
Another path is to manipulate specific macronutrient ratio's so as to keep them variable

 

[SubjectiveIllusion]

This is one of the reasons why I don't like a set number of cals for each individual depending on their weight, bf and whatnot. Number of cals should reflect your energy expenditure - more consumption when more exertion - inherently this concept is very similar to cals cycling. Fluctuate from low cals on low activity days to high cals on high activity days.
Another path is to manipulate specific macronutrient ratio's so as to keep them variable

I hear you. It often slips my mind that it might make sense to take in more cals when my body is under a greater workload. Thought processed.

Thanx.