Friday 18 May 2012

Day 4 of 30 Day Shred

Four days in and the aches and pains continue, but I am definitely noticing that my arms, legs and abs are feeling firmer.  I have not been using a mat to do the floor work and noticed that I've got bruises on my knees from the push-ups!  We do have a nice rug on the floor, but it's obviously not soft enough for my nobbily knees!  I must admit, getting the umph to do the workout on a Friday night is going to be difficult, but as soon as my husband and son are finished with the TV, I will don my trainers.

So, I did a bit of research today on Calorie Cycling and I definitely think I'm going to give this a try.  Also known as Zig Zig Calories, it works on the premise that by varying your caloric intake from day to day, your metabolism never knows how many calories to expect and therefore works more efficiently.  In a normal weight loss programme of counting calories, as our weight decreases, our body gets used to functioning on a lower number of calories - meaning that a plateau in weight loss could be inevitable.  Eventually, our metabolism slows even further and because we're only consuming the bear minimum of 1200 calories per day, we can't drop this more, so we plateau.  It kind of sucks, doesn't it?

I found a very helpful website that puts together a 7 day calorie cycling guide for you:

Daily Caloric Intake Calculator

To get your Zig-Zag calorie guide, click on the box at the bottom of the tool.

My recommended caloric intake is actually quite a step up from the 1200 calories I have been eating, so my plan is to gradually increase this over an extended period.  Today, I started with 1400 calories (easy because we had a lunch-time meeting!), tomorrow I will have 1300, Sunday 1600, Monday 1300 and so on.  I may not weigh myself for a bit, but rather take my measurements and then hopefully get a nice surprise in a couple of weeks.  Provided I am staying below my 'maintenance' calorie level of 1923, and continuing with the 30 Day Shred, my weight should come down.  Fingers crossed and watch this space!


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