How does calorie cycling work?

Calorie cycling involves alternating between high and low calorie intake days while maintaining an overall calorie target for the week. This method helps mitigate metabolic adaptation, where your metabolism adjusts and slows down when following a constant lower calorie intake. By fluctuating calorie intake, your metabolism is kept more active, which could help prevent the slow-down that often accompanies consistent calorie restriction.

Some additional benefits of calorie cycling include:

• Psychological Flexibility: It mirrors real-life eating patterns more accurately than a static daily calorie count, making it easier to maintain long-term and adapt to normal eating habits after a diet period.
• Preventing Metabolic Slowdown: In some cases, higher calorie days can signal to the body that it's not in a starvation mode, potentially preventing the usual metabolic slowdown associated with dieting and thereby aiding in fat loss while preserving muscle mass.

Calorie cycling is not only practical for avoiding metabolic adaptation, but it also aligns more closely with how people typically eat, which can make adherence to a diet plan more manageable over time 1 2.