 Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome if you're new here. My name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and I'm on WW personal points. Happy Sunday, it is Sunday. And today, we're talking about calorie cycling. I have received so many questions, so many comments on YouTube, Instagram, in my Facebook group about calorie cycling. What is it? How do I do it? Why is it beneficial for weight loss? I calorie cycle. And that has been a big game changer for me when it comes to my weight loss. If you're new to my channel, I've lost over 126 pounds. The majority of that has been from counting calories, watching my protein intake and calorie cycling. So if you wanna hear all about what I've done to lose over 126 pounds, give this video a big thumbs up. Subscribe if you're not because I upload new videos five times per week and check out that description box where you will find nutrition coaching. I offer personalized to you macros and calories. This is what I did for myself. This is what I have done for hundreds of you is give you your calories and your macros what you should be eating every day to see success. And in order to calorie cycle, you need to know what your personalized calories are. So I highly recommend this service. It's a small investment in yourself and it leads to huge, huge weight loss success. I also have one-on-one coaching if you have a lot of questions or you wanna walk through your personalized macros and calories, I have sessions that are directly with me via Zoom that I can answer all of your questions and set you up for success. You'll also find links and discounts to my favorite things and my Facebook group. Definitely come and join us there. It's free, it's a great supportive community. And again, it's a place you can ask questions and get support. So let's jump into what is calorie cycling? How is it beneficial for weight loss? So let's talk all about it. So first let's talk about what is calorie cycling? Calorie cycling, sometimes called a zigzag diet or calorie shifting, isn't really a diet at all. Put simply, it's a way of eating fewer calories some days and more calories other days. So in a nutshell, you have a caloric goal every day which adds up to a caloric goal every week and you're shifting the amount of calories that you're eating throughout the week, basically cycling or zigzagging your calories for weight loss success. Have you ever splurged on a meal or had an all-in weekend or even a vacation and then you came back to lose weight? That is very common because you're essentially taking a break from dieting. You're eating a little bit more than you have been eating, maybe a little less of a calorie deficit or maybe even a little bit of a calorie surplus or even eating at maintenance. And sometimes that's just what our body needs to get the scale moving again. One of the top ways to break a plateau is to calorie cycle. That way you're changing up the calories that you're eating every day, kind of shocking your body into shedding some of that excess weight or even breaking a plateau. Before we get more into calorie cycling, I want to define a few things so that you understand what makes up a calorie deficit and what makes up calories and macros. So macronutrients are fats, carbs and protein. I get asked this question a lot. That is what macronutrients are. A calorie deficit is essentially taking in less than you're putting out. So basically consuming less food or less energy than you're actually taking in during a day. Generally that's about 500 to 750 calories less than the calories you need to maintain your weight. And remember, everybody is different. So the calories I need to maintain my weight and to be in a deficit are different than anybody else. That is why it's important to have your personalized calories and macros done so you know, number one, what is your calorie goal every day? And number two, what are your macros, fats, proteins and carb goal every single day? Now there are some online calculators that you can get your macros and calories from. Unfortunately, these aren't accurate. They ask you some very generic, very basic questions and spit out a number to you that is very generic. It is not personalized to you. For me, and when I started seeing success was when I utilized my personalized macros and calories. And again, that's a service that I offer. It is an inexpensive service. It's an investment in yourself. And I highly recommend it. If you're interested at all in losing weight or trying calorie cycling, you definitely want to have your macros and calories done. My nutrition coaching website will be down in the description box for you. And I'll pop it up here on the screen as well. So with calorie cycling, your goal is to have an average number of calories every day or at the end of the week, having your calories total up to a deficit. Let's do some quick, simple math. Let's say that your calorie goal every day is 1500 calories. There are seven days in a week. And if your goal is 1500 calories every day, you're going to take 1500 times that by seven and that's going to give you total calories for the week of 10,500. So at the end of the week, you have eaten 10,500 calories, which is a calorie deficit, which leads to weight loss. Now, if you're in maintenance, you can do this same thing. You're going to take your maintenance calories times it by seven and that's going to give you your total maintenance calories for the week. But since most of us here are in weight loss mode or trying to shed a few extra pounds, let's focus on calories for a calorie deficit and weight loss. So at the end of the week, you should eat 10,500 calories. So I'm going to pop in a graphic here that kind of shows how you can break up your calories throughout the week. Now, this person gets substantially more calories than our example of 1500, but you can see here how they've broken their calories down. So on Monday, they're eating 2200. Tuesday's 29, Wednesday's 22, Thursday's 29, Friday's 22, Saturday's 29, and Sunday is 22. And at the end of the week, they've consumed all of their calories and they're averaging about 2,700 calories per day. So going back to our calorie deficit of 1500, again, 10,500 calories is your goal at the end of the week. So what you'll do is you'll break that down into some higher calorie days and some lower calorie days. So for ease of math, let's say that on Friday and Saturday, you wanna have higher calorie days. It's the weekend, you're at events, you're out living your best life, you're eating out, you're going to cookouts, you're going out to dinner, you're eating things or drinking adult beverages and you wanna have a little extra calories for the weekend. So let's say on Friday and Saturday, you want to have 2000 calories to enjoy the weekend. So what we're going to do is take 10,500 and subtract 4,000. 2000 for Friday, 2000 for Saturday. That's going to leave us 6,500 calories for the remaining five days of the week, essentially Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. So we're going to take 6,500 and we're going to divide that by five, which is the remaining days of the week. So that means the rest of the week, you eat on average 1300 calories per day and including those two high calorie days to enjoy your weekend at the end of the week, you are still at 10,500 calories, which is a calorie deficit and will lead to weight loss. It's very, very simple. If you want more high calorie days or less high calorie days, all you have to do is do some quick, simple math, taking your total calories for the week, subtracting the days that you're eating higher calories, dividing what's leftover of the balance of calories by the remaining days of the week and you can literally flex your week every week. You can flex your day. Another thing you can do with calorie cycling is maybe you don't have a planned event coming up. Maybe something has sprung on you. You had all the intentions of eating chicken and broccoli for dinner and you came home and your husband and kids say, we're going to pizza. This calorie cycling allows you to have the flexibility to go to pizza. You can make that a high calorie day on the fly. You don't have to plan it. You'll go to pizza, you'll eat your 2000 calories that day instead of 1500 and you'll subtract that from the total amount of calories during the week and divide it with the days remaining. So you can calorie cycle in a planned way or an unplanned way, whatever works best for your lifestyle. One great thing about calorie cycling is its flexibility. It allows us to live our life. It allows us to do all the things to enjoy events, to have things sprung on us where we're not eating the food that we plan for the day and we need a little bit of extra calories. That is what calorie cycling is for. Not to mention all of the benefits when it comes to your metabolism, your weight loss, breaking plateaus and living a sustainable, healthy lifestyle. Obviously calorie cycling alone isn't going to lead to weight loss. You still need to be in a caloric deficit to see the scale move. Whether it's from a plateau or in weight loss mode you still need to be in a calorie deficit. But calorie cycling, like I said, offers the flexibility that we need to make weight loss sustainable. We can get stressed out or feel like a failure if we don't reach our calories on the nose every single day. This is not an exact science. Consistency over perfection. I never hit my calories on the head. Sometimes I'm over, sometimes I'm a tiny bit under. Most of the time I'm over and that is completely okay. We don't wanna let being in a calorie deficit stress us out. Eating over your calorie goal by 200 calories, maybe you're eating a donut, can really cause you stress. Don't let it phase you. Being on your feet all day and taking an extra 4,000 steps and burns an extra 200 calories. Don't let slightly over or under eating stress you out. It's impossible to hit the same exact caloric target every single day with so many factors affecting your neck calories. Simply aim to be close every day. Don't chase perfection. That is going to make it really difficult on you and you're never going to get perfection. We're not perfect. We make mistakes. Choose consistency over perfection. We also have to remember that we don't lose weight by the day. We really don't even lose weight by the week. We lose weight by the month. So there are going to be days or weeks that we eat higher calories. There's going to be days or weeks that we eat lower calories, but at the end of the month, as long as you're in a deficit, you're going to see success on the scale. Another thing about calorie cycling that's really beneficial is it allows you to eat a little bit more on days that you're a little bit more hungry. Remember I said that you don't have to plan your calorie cycling. You can just fly by the seat of your pants. Maybe you had a really hard workout in the gym and you are just extra hungry. Take advantage of eating a little more calories that day and just deducting them from your total caloric intake for the week. It's important to listen to our body and if you're hungry, you need to make sure that you're fueling your body. There's a reason your body is signaling you that it's hungry. So make sure you fuel it and use that as a little bit higher calorie day. So I'm going to pop up another picture here for you that talks a little bit more about calorie cycling. And again, that's the idea of consuming different calorie amounts each day with the goal of at the end of the week being in a calorie deficit. Calories don't reset overnight. So looking at the big picture of the full week can make things a lot easier for you. And also like we said, it doesn't have to be planned. You can eat less on days you aren't very hungry and eat more on days that you are. So let's take a look at this. So here is someone who eats the same number of calories every single day, resulting in 17,500 calories at the end of the week. Now here is a way to calorie cycle having higher calories every other day. You have lower calories on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. You have higher calories on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And look, at the end of the week, we still end with 17,500 calories. And here's another way of calorie cycling on the weekends like we talked about. Monday through Friday, we're eating 2,200 calories. And then on Saturday and Sunday, we're eating 3,250. This is 1,050 more calories than during the week. But guess what? At the end of the week, it still works out to 17,500 total weekly calories. So in all three of these examples, we're still in a deficit at the end of the week. We just cycled our calories based on our hunger or based on events and things that we have happening in our life. For me, I have higher calorie days on the weekends. Generally, Friday and Saturday are the days that I eat higher calories. Now, if I have things planned during the week, like maybe I'm going to dinner with my in-laws or maybe on Monday, I have a really hard workout, I'm a little extra hungry, I can add and flex those higher calorie days to suit my hunger and to suit my lifestyle. This is what makes it so sustainable. And this is what also makes calorie cycling so essential when it comes to losing weight in a healthy way and being consistent and seeing success not only on the scale, but also helping to heal your relationship with food. That has been a big thing for me is learning to listen to my body. And if I'm a little more hungry one day, then I make sure that I eat a little bit more, even if that means cycling and pulling some calories from later in the week to meet my body's needs, that is what has helped me lose over 126 pounds. So whether you're planning your calorie cycling or you're just letting it happen based on hunger or things that pop up during the week, calorie cycling can be really beneficial in losing weight and working on your relationship with food. I wanna go back to really focusing on calories and being stuck on that number. So if you're 1,500 calories a day and you think you can only eat 1,500 calories a day and anything over that, you've completely ruined your day, ruined your week, you're not gonna lose weight, you have to remember that this isn't an exact science and again, consistency over perfection. You can really overeat one day and still lose weight at the end of the week. This example shows that sample maintenance calories are 2,200 per day. So in order for this particular person to be in weight loss mode, they're going to consume 1,800 calories per day, which is about a 400 calorie a day deficit. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, they're killing it, they're eating their 1,800 calories. And then all of a sudden on Sunday, bam, they eat 3,200 calories. Maybe they had a party or an event or they just overeat that day. It happens, it's reality. And then Sunday, they're back to their 1,800 calorie goal. Their total caloric deficit after one week is 1,400 calories. So even though they ate 3,200 calories on Saturday, at the end of the week, they're still in a deficit, which means they're still going to lose weight. This is about a half of a pound of weight loss even with completely blowing it on Saturday. And this is even eating almost double the amount of calories that they eat in a typical caloric deficit day to day. One day won't make or break your progress. You didn't gain weight overnight, you're not going to lose weight overnight. And it's more what you do consistently rather than one day that makes a difference in your weight loss. So the total deficit at the end of the week for this person may not have been what they were shooting for. They wanted a little bit higher deficit, but they're still in a deficit and they're still losing weight and they're living a flexible lifestyle. They're cycling their calories, they're enjoying their Saturday with all the good food that they could have ever desired. And at the end of the week, they're still losing weight. You cannot get fixated on the numbers. Say that you blew it because you over ate one day when at the end of the week, you're still in a deficit, you're still losing weight. And remember, we don't gain or lose weight by the day. Calorie cycling can really help focus on healing your relationship with food, allow you the flexibility that you need to live a sustainable lifestyle. None of these quick fix diets are sustainable. We want to do something that allows us to live our best life and still lose weight and hit our weight loss goals. Like I always say, I don't feel like I'm on a diet. I eat what I want, when I want, I calorie cycle every single week, whether it's planned or based on my hunger. And not only has this helped me shed weight effortlessly, it has also really helped with my relationship with food. I always say that my relationship with food is the healthiest it's been in my entire life. My entire life, right now my relationship with food is the healthiest it's ever been. And that's why I can confidently say that I will never gain my weight back. Not only have I learned to listen to my body, I've healed my relationship with food, I calorie cycle every week, allowing me maximum flexibility for a fun, healthy, sustainable lifestyle. And I'm also losing weight slow and steady, which also helps keep the weight off long term. These quick fixes, these fast diets, they don't work. They're not sustainable. And most people gain even more weight back than they lost in the first place. So focus on doing something that is sustainable and effortless. I say to my coaching clients a lot that as I've lost weight, especially over the last year, so it really feels so easy to me. I felt like when I was on StrictlyWW or doing other diet plans, I felt like it was really hard to lose weight. And now since I have complete food freedom and I calorie cycle, it's literally so simple to take the weight off. And I don't ever feel like I'm deprived, starving, hungry all the time, or even really in a caloric deficit. It feels really effortless and easy, and that is how weight loss should be. And calorie cycling can give you that effortless weight loss. Don't stress out about hitting your calories on the nose every day. You can see in that example that you have a lot of flexibility. Even if you blow it one day, it doesn't affect your weight loss for the week. Just get back on track and you'll still be in a caloric deficit at the end of the week. And remember, listening to our hunger signals of our body is really, really important. I believe that everyone can benefit from calorie cycling for flexibility, for a healthy lifestyle, and just to allow yourself those indulgences without feeling like you screwed up or blew your diet. Down in the description box, I'll go ahead and type out my example of how to calorie cycle in a planned way. Of course, calorie cycling unplanned. I can't really list all that out for you because it's unplanned. And we just have higher calorie days based on our hunger or things that pop up in our life. But if you want to plan for some high calorie days, some calorie cycling week to week, I will list out in the description box how to calorie cycle, how to figure out your calories for a planned calorie cycle week. And again, don't forget to have your personalized macros and calories done. This is the only way to know, number one, if you're in a deficit, how you're supposed to calorie cycle and what of the macronutrients you're supposed to focus on every day, how much protein, fats and carbs to have maximum weight loss results. If you have any questions when it comes to calorie cycling, definitely leave those down in the comments for me. Again, I recommend your calories and your personalized macros so that you can get started making weight loss effortless. I truly, truly believe that by focusing on calorie cycling, a calorie deficit, eating whatever sounds good to you, not eliminating or restricting any foods is the key to success. And I can speak from experience. I've lost the majority of my weight since focusing on calories, macros, calorie cycling and living a healthy lifestyle and not focusing so much on restricting or eliminating any foods or any food groups. That is where the success comes from with healing your relationship with food and making it so that you can lose weight effortlessly and most importantly, keep the weight off. Nobody wants to lose weight to gain it all back. It's important that we fix the things that need fixed during weight loss so we can keep it off long term. I hope this video was helpful. The next video that I will be doing will be on carb cycling, which is similar to calorie cycling but a little bit different. So stay tuned for that video coming out in the future as well. Leave your questions down in the comments. Don't forget to check out the description box for the calorie cycling example, nutrition coaching for your personalized macros and calories and discounts to all of my favorite things. And of course, come join our Facebook group. We'd love to have you. Thank you for watching and I'll see you all in the next one. Bye.