What Is Calorie Cycling?

Calorie cycling occurs when individuals consciously vary the calories they take in each day, rather than consuming one set amount each day. This can help individuals lose weight and stick to a diet. Depending on an individual's diet restrictions, dieting can make them feel hungry and increase their likelihood of bingeing. By engaging in calorie cycling, along with making sure they're getting the right number of nutrients each day, individuals can ensure their body is healthy and balanced. Calorie cycling increases weight loss by speeding up the individual's metabolism. If individuals restrict calories exclusively, their metabolism will slow down to retain weight. However, if they eat a high amount of calories one day and few the next, their metabolism will burn more weight because it's not in survival mode.

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Basic Definition

Calorie cycling is shifting between high-calorie and low-calorie periods. Some also call this diet style calorie shifting. Calorie cycling can be integrated with many different types of diets. It doesn't specify any food restrictions, portion sizes, times to eat, amounts of meals per day, or strict guidelines to follow. Instead, individuals can customize their diet to suit them. Of course, individuals should always talk to a nutritionist or doctor about how to get the right nutrients in their diet, especially if they have any health conditions impacted by what they eat. Calorie cycling doesn't function as a traditional diet, but is instead a way for individuals to structure their monthly or weekly meals. By using this technique, individuals may be able to boost their metabolism enough to lose weight even if they don't change the kinds of foods they eat from day to day. Researchers have found calorie cycling helps individuals stick to diets and feel less hungry throughout the day.

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Potential Side Effects

Traditional dieting and severe calorie restriction cause several side effects that make weight loss nearly impossible. When the body detects an individual is eating less food, it causes serious metabolism shifts to retain weight. This is an adaptive survival mechanism to protect against starvation. Calorie cycling can cause the same metabolic shifts as with traditional dieting, but studies indicate this occurs on a much smaller scale. Rather than shifting completely into survival mode, the body varies the calories individuals burn in normal ways based on how much they eat. Restricting calories for too long can lead to a decrease in testosterone. It also decreases the amount of resting energy individuals expend, the amount of thyroid hormone circulating in the body, the amount of physical activity they can handle, and the amount of the hunger hormone leptin. Leptin tells an individual's brain when they're full. At the same time, restricting calories can cause the stress hormone cortisol to increase and increase the amounts of ghrelin in the body. Ghrelin is a hormone that tells individuals they're hungry.

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