Weight-Loss Yet another calorie question

Weight-Loss
mizzie

mizzie

New member
I have a calorie question that I haven't seen here yet. When I look back over the last few weeks, my calories seem to be all over the place. I aim for 1500-1600 daily, but I might be under or over depending on the day.

That got me thinking, would it be better to buckle down and make sure I hit within my range every day? Or is it actually better to let it fluctuate a bit? (my thoughts are it might keep the metabolism from adjusting to the calorie load) Or doesn't it make one bit of difference other then how big of a calorie defect I have? I guess this is a "what's going to keep my metabolism running as high as possible" question.
 
depends what you do activity/exercise wise every day. I am sure this fluctuates each day so I am sure it would be fine for your food intake to fluctuate also.

But don't let it vary too much, more then a few hundred calories and you risk making things harder for yourself.
 
No one burns exactly the same amount of calories every day. Getting worried about keeping it exact day to day can drive you crazy. Really.

If you get up to go to the bathroom 2x more during the day, you're going to burn an extra 30 cals. If you sleep in 30 mins, you're going to burn 45 fewer calories. That kind of thing.

So ... it's good to stay within a rage, but not to obsess about being totally exact.
 
Thanks for the replies. Mostly I was wondering if it was possible to "fight" plateauing by varying your calorie amount slightly. Keep your metabolism guessing, if you will. But I suppose that would be so variable and slight that it wouldn't matter.
 
I know some people that swear by "calorie cycling" which is a term that tends to be used for this type of thing... Having said that - there are other people that swear by giving themselves a free day every so often while being extra strict the rest of the time... I dont go out to do it as such - but certainly have some days where I eat more calories than other days...

I think that the main thing is to make sure that your calories come up over the week at pretty much the level that you want them to be. If you eat too much on average you will gain or not lose anything - so you need to retain control.
 
I used calorie cycling once every 5 weeks of my dieting process just to kick start the metabolism. There is a good calculator on this link that will build your calorie cycler plan.
 
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