I came across this link and thought it might be interesting to post under the Stalls Thread. Opinions would be appreciated.
Wanda

http://www.allyourstrength.com/nutrition_1202_cs.html

Caloric Staggering
A simple trick to help you lose bodyfat quickly

Article Summary

By planning your calories out over the course of a week rather than daily, Caloric Staggering (CS) allows you to eat few calories, lose more bodyfat and prevent metabolic decline associated with low calorie diets.
CS helps prevent hormones such as leptin, thyroid and testosterone from declining over the course of the week.
CS is a good technique psychologically-speaking as you don't eat the same thing every day, plus you have two 'refeed' days that allow for some slack in the diet.


Most people approach fat loss with the same enthusiasm as they would a Roman execution. No wonder—the very word "diet" has, as its first three letters, a fairly apt explanation of what your body thinks you're doing to it.

As most dieters have found out, some degree of caloric supervision is necessary—especially when one is trying to lose stubborn bodyfat or break a plateau. Over the years I've used a trick I call caloric staggering to help with these plateaus. To my surprise this is now a trick I use almost full-time, even with my kcals are not excessively low. Despite your goals, caloric staggering (or CS) will help you avoid the pitfalls of dieting, which we'll cover later in this article.

First, let's define CS.


What is "Caloric Staggering"?

CS is a relatively simply mathematical approach to decreasing overall calorie consumption by using a weekly approach rather than a daily protocol to govern caloric intake. Realistically speaking, 10 calories per pound of bodyweight would be considered an extreme fat-burning diet plan for anyone who is weight training and seeking to drop excess bodyfat. Even at 10 calories per pound, muscle mass is sacrificed. However, using CS, your weekly totals can be as low as 7-8 calories per pound while actually gaining muscle mass. How can this be?

Taking advantage of the body's "fat thermostat"
The term 'fat thermostat', while not entirely accurate, is sufficient to describe the process the body goes through while under caloric restriction. After a few days, the body 'lowers' this thermostat to protect its fat reserves. This is due to the fact that starvation is sensed and the body reacts by saving what it's designed to live off of during times of famine: fat. This is not good for a dieter, right? Enter CS: CS allows you to lower calories even more drastically for just a few days, then bump those calories up on key days to help prevent the thermostat from dropping. This means greater and more consistent fat loss over time. There are many other benefits as well, which we'll discuss later.

More on the weekly approach
Let's say hypothetically that you weigh 200 pounds and want to lose 20 pounds of bodyfat while maintaining your muscle mass. This is not an simple goal, as many who have tried will attest. However, this go-around we'll be using CS strategies. Rather than taking the standard approach of 10 times your bodyweight in calories, which would be 2,000 calories per day, a CS-type strategy may look something like this:


Day One: 1,200 calories
Day Two: 1,500 calories
Day Three: 2,500 calories (a refeed day)
Day Four: 1,200 calories
Day Five: 1,500 calories
Day Six: 1,000 calories (a tough day!)
Day Seven: 3,500 calories (Say what?? That's right: this is a planned overfeed.)

Now, let's do the math: on the conventional approach your 'weekly' caloric intake would have been 14,000 calories (2,000 calories per day x 7 days per week.) Now, look at the CS totals: your weekly caloric intake is only 12,400 calories, despite a free-for-all day on Day Seven and a maintenance-level caloric intake on Day Three. This equates to much more than a merely greater fat loss as CS does much more than 'cut calories.'

Let's take a look at the science behind CS.


Why CS Works

Hormone levels are more stable
When calories are cut, the body goes into starvation mode. That means that 'nonessentials' such as hormones (testosterone, leptin, thyroid and others) tend to crash. (1) This is not good, to say the least. Starvation mode also creates a vicious fat-storing cycle. Fat is essential for human survival, so when the body perceives starvation, guess what it chooses to hold on to? Bodyfat.

The good news is that this doesn't occur overnight. It takes the body anywhere from 48 to 72 hours to 'sense' starvation and begin to lower the fat-burning hormones. This is a rough estimate, of course, but factually this is what I've seen time and time again in the real world. Using CS, you body simply doesn't have time to adapt. Your hormones stay optimized and, with the two days of overfeeding, leptin (a powerful fat-mobilizing hormone when used properly) and insulin (a very powerful anabolic hormone that's safe when insulin resistance is decreased by low-carbohydrate intake) get to work their magic. More fat is burned and muscle mass is either spared or actually increased. Many bodybuilders wonder why they look better two days after a contest. The reason is leptin: once leptin kicks back in, lowered by severe dieting, fat burning is restored and all is well again.

Extreme decrease in calories on certain days
There's no doubt that if you decrease your calories enough you'll drop weight. The question is simple: where is that weight coming from? And, for that matter, how long will that weight loss last? Not long, that's for sure—and unless you're weight training, much of that weight will be water and muscle. However, by using CS principles you can get the best of both worlds. Extremely low-calorie days will strip off fat like you wouldn't believe. I've personally noticed a pound per day in fat loss both in myself and others, especially when CS is conducted using a low-carb diet. Carbs are reintroduced on Day Three and in mass on Day Seven to restore depleted glycogen reserves (the glucose fuel stored in the liver and muscles that is used during intense exercise.) The best news is these higher-calorie days prevent the starvation cycle from ever beginning.

This is a similar diet as the one we grew up on
By "grew up on", I'm referring to our Paleolithic ancestors. Many days of plenty were followed by days of practically nothing. Now, CS isn't that extreme, but the principles are the same. Interesting to note that according to the research of Dr. Weston Price, obesity was all but unheard of until the advent of grains in our world eating plan. So obviously our ancestors didn't have a problem with bodyfat. (2)

Psychological Variance
In my article on Planned Variance I mention the psychological aspects of dieting. CS can be a tremendous psychological boost to the ordinary "eat the same thing every day" approach most diets adhere to. Even on low-calorie days, you have something to look forward to just around the corner. And, of course, that Day Seven is very nice. Pizza anyone?

Bottom line: a diet is only as effective as the dieter. If the dieter isn't a happy camper the most precise and perfect diet on earth will fail. CS can help you avoid the mindtrap associated with prolonged caloric depravation while burning considerably more bodyfat in the process.


Simple CS

If you want to try CS for yourself, here are some simple principles you can put into practice on any dietary program:

1) First, get a good baseline on your maintenance calories. Usually this is about 15 times your bodyweight, but this varies a great deal from person to person and depends on your activity level.
2) Once this baseline is established, chart out a course that, over a seven-day cycle, puts your calories at no more than 8.5 times your bodyweight. Be sure to follow the sample above for staggering principles. For example, you should not eat four days straight with the same caloric intake.
3) To pull of CS practically, simply eat an extra meal on your up days or eat less food per meal on your down days. Days 3 and 7 are more carb-heavy days (unless you have an illness that would prevent the use of carbs—consult with your physician prior to undertaking this or any other diet.)

That's all there is to it. After a few weeks you'll get used to eating less on one day and more on another. In fact, you should eventually get to the point to where your body, not a weekly schedule, dictates your caloric needs. This is for advanced athletes only, so if you're just beginning, stick to the formula.


Advanced CS

Ah...everyone wants this information! But alas, this is going to be covered in my 6-Week Peaking Program which will be available, if all goes well, in January. I'll cover all kinds of tricks to making CS even more effective including:

• Fat fasting
• Fat cycling
• The uses of MCTs
• Foods for refeeding
• More drastic, short-term CV cycles
• CV for athletes and bodybuilders
• And much more.

Stay tuned...and remember to stagger those calories!

Sources
1) McDonald, Lyle CCN; The Ketogenic Diet
2) Price, Weston, M.D.; Dr. Price's Search For Health