Also referred to as \u201crefeeding\u201d in bodybuilding circles, it\u2019s a technique I\u2019ve been using for years \u2014 and it\u2019s super simple to figure out.<\/p>\n
For the purposes of this article, we\u2019ll be looking at zigzag dieting as a plateau-busting tool, so your caloric baseline will be whatever you\u2019re eating when that plateau kicked in. You may be an endurance athlete eating 3,500 calories a day and struggling to perform, or someone trying to lose weight at 1,200 calories.<\/p>\n
Just keep in mind that if you\u2019re down at 1,200 calories and not losing weight, in all likelihood you\u2019re not eating enough, so don\u2019t go below 1,200 when you zig and zag.<\/p>\n
On two to three days of the week, eat the same number of calories you usually would. On the remaining four to five days, eat more calories. The general practice is four days of change and three days of remaining the same; some prefer five days of change and two days of the same, or even changing daily as shown in the graph below.<\/p>\n
No matter which plan you follow, your body will tell you if it was a good idea. Your workouts should improve almost immediately and\/or the scale should move within the week.<\/p>\n
How Many More Calories Should I Eat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\nThe bigger and more active you are, the higher number of calories you should add or subtract. Most people move in a 200 to 500 calories per day range (or more, as you can see in the image above, though that\u2019s more of a deficit than I\u2019d use unless I was well versed in it). Most people will stay in the 200- to 300-calorie range. For others, such as serious athletes, 400+ calories comes into play \u2014 but don\u2019t get too caught up in the numbers.<\/p>\n
For the most part, zigzagging is fine over long periods of time. However, when it comes to weight loss, once you\u2019ve reached your goal, you\u2019ll want to push your overall daily calories more toward the higher side of the zag.<\/p>\n
Also, your body can also get wise to the tactic and resume your plateau. When this happens, increase your diet on all days by 200 to 300 calories.<\/p>\n
How Is Zigzagging Different From Intermittent Fasting and Yo-Yo Dieting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n![\"How](\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/beachbody-blog\/uploads\/2017\/04\/How_a_Zigzag_Diet_Can_Break_Your_Weight-Loss_Plateau.iStock-171116792.inpost2.jpg\" "\\"How")
<\/p>\n
Unlike yo-yo dieting, zigzagging won\u2019t negatively affect your metabolism. Yo-yo dieting means eating at an unhealthily low calorie count for weeks at a time \u2014 and then binging all the hard-lost pounds back. Eating like this puts your body into a stress state for a prolonged period, which can wreak havoc on your stress hormones.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, zigzagging has you eating different amounts each day in a controlled, sensible fashion, which is more of a natural way to eat. If anything, it has the opposite effect on your hormones, convincing your body that you\u2019re in less of a stress situation, so it\u2019s less inclined to hold onto emergency fuel stores (body fat) or slow down energy systems.<\/p>\n
As for intermittent fasting, they\u2019re two entirely different things. With intermittent fasting,you don\u2019t eat at all for long stretches ranging from 15 to 24 hours, using the stress state to force physiological changes.<\/p>\n
With zigzag dieting, you continue to eat the whole time, just in different amounts \u2014 and you\u2019re trying to minimize the stress state. While neither is backed by overwhelming scientific research, both have decades of anecdotal evidence in fitness circles backing them up, so I recommend trying both.<\/p>\n
How a Zigzag Diet Can Break a Plateau<\/strong><\/h2>\n![\"woman](\"https:\/\/bod-blog-assets.prod.cd.beachbodyondemand.com\/bod-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/15143149\/zig-zag-diet-600-plateau.png\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\n
Say, for example, you\u2019re eating 1,500 calories a day and you\u2019ve lost weight. But now your weight loss has stagnated. That\u2019s because the new, fitter you has a different body composition than the former you. You have more muscle and a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) \u2014 the calories you burn in a day just by existing.<\/p>\n
In order to continue your weight loss, you need to eat more, because 1,500 calories isn\u2019t enough, causing your body to react in a number of ways, including slowing down your metabolism and actually reducing the amount you fidget. (Yes, fidgeting burns calories.)<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say you run a calorie calculation and determine that you need to 1,500 calories per day. (Here\u2019s an article to help you figure out how many calories you should be eating.) You don\u2019t want to jump straight up to 2,500 calories. First, it would cause some shock to your system and second, calculators \u2014 even sophisticated ones like the Mifflin St. Jeor equation \u2014 only give ballpark figures, so you\u2019re not 100 percent sure of the first number, you can\u2019t be certain of the second one, either.<\/p>\n
The most effective thing to do is to subtly zigzag your caloric intake, basically shifting calories in small amounts that don\u2019t overshoot your needs, but are still dramatic enough so that you can observe if they\u2019re helping.<\/p>\n
In this instance, I would recommend eating 1,800 calories per day three to four a week and 1,500 calories on the other days. Note how your body responds. My expectation is you\u2019d feel good on the higher calorie days and famished on the lower calorie days.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m wrong about feeling famished and it\u2019s working, stick with it. If you are famished, after a week or two, bump up your calories to around 2,200 calories for four to five days and 1,500 calories on two days. Do this for about a week. If you\u2019re still starving on the low days, try bumping them up to 2,000 and see how you respond.<\/p>\n
You can tell when you\u2019re eating too many calories because you feel full and you\u2019ll feel more lethargic at the beginning of workouts. You want to be energized, but not hungry and not stuffed. In other words, once you get it down, you should be getting results while feeling great. Sounds like a good plan to me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The name of the game when it comes to human survival is adaptation. When you do a hard workout program or a low-calorie diet, your body doesn\u2019t know you\u2019re doing it on purpose and it doesn\u2019t know how long this new stress will continue, so it adapts to survive the new situation with minimal breakdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n
Unlike yo-yo dieting, zigzagging won\u2019t negatively affect your metabolism. Yo-yo dieting means eating at an unhealthily low calorie count for weeks at a time \u2014 and then binging all the hard-lost pounds back. Eating like this puts your body into a stress state for a prolonged period, which can wreak havoc on your stress hormones.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, zigzagging has you eating different amounts each day in a controlled, sensible fashion, which is more of a natural way to eat. If anything, it has the opposite effect on your hormones, convincing your body that you\u2019re in less of a stress situation, so it\u2019s less inclined to hold onto emergency fuel stores (body fat) or slow down energy systems.<\/p>\n
As for intermittent fasting, they\u2019re two entirely different things. With intermittent fasting,you don\u2019t eat at all for long stretches ranging from 15 to 24 hours, using the stress state to force physiological changes.<\/p>\n
With zigzag dieting, you continue to eat the whole time, just in different amounts \u2014 and you\u2019re trying to minimize the stress state. While neither is backed by overwhelming scientific research, both have decades of anecdotal evidence in fitness circles backing them up, so I recommend trying both.<\/p>\n
How a Zigzag Diet Can Break a Plateau<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
Say, for example, you\u2019re eating 1,500 calories a day and you\u2019ve lost weight. But now your weight loss has stagnated. That\u2019s because the new, fitter you has a different body composition than the former you. You have more muscle and a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) \u2014 the calories you burn in a day just by existing.<\/p>\n
In order to continue your weight loss, you need to eat more, because 1,500 calories isn\u2019t enough, causing your body to react in a number of ways, including slowing down your metabolism and actually reducing the amount you fidget. (Yes, fidgeting burns calories.)<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s say you run a calorie calculation and determine that you need to 1,500 calories per day. (Here\u2019s an article to help you figure out how many calories you should be eating.) You don\u2019t want to jump straight up to 2,500 calories. First, it would cause some shock to your system and second, calculators \u2014 even sophisticated ones like the Mifflin St. Jeor equation \u2014 only give ballpark figures, so you\u2019re not 100 percent sure of the first number, you can\u2019t be certain of the second one, either.<\/p>\n
The most effective thing to do is to subtly zigzag your caloric intake, basically shifting calories in small amounts that don\u2019t overshoot your needs, but are still dramatic enough so that you can observe if they\u2019re helping.<\/p>\n
In this instance, I would recommend eating 1,800 calories per day three to four a week and 1,500 calories on the other days. Note how your body responds. My expectation is you\u2019d feel good on the higher calorie days and famished on the lower calorie days.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m wrong about feeling famished and it\u2019s working, stick with it. If you are famished, after a week or two, bump up your calories to around 2,200 calories for four to five days and 1,500 calories on two days. Do this for about a week. If you\u2019re still starving on the low days, try bumping them up to 2,000 and see how you respond.<\/p>\n
You can tell when you\u2019re eating too many calories because you feel full and you\u2019ll feel more lethargic at the beginning of workouts. You want to be energized, but not hungry and not stuffed. In other words, once you get it down, you should be getting results while feeling great. Sounds like a good plan to me!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The name of the game when it comes to human survival is adaptation. When you do a hard workout program or a low-calorie diet, your body doesn\u2019t know you\u2019re doing it on purpose and it doesn\u2019t know how long this new stress will continue, so it adapts to survive the new situation with minimal breakdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozhelp.org.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/p>\n