Do Calorie Shifting Diets Work?

While a lot has been written and said about the so called ‘calorie-shifting diet’, I am sure that the common man, including you, is interested in knowing only about how it would them lose and how fast, rather than its nuts and bolts.

However, I believe that in order to understand any new diet program, it is important to know about its functionalities and structure. With that view in mind, I will offer you a short introduction to the calorie shifting as well as how it can help you with loss.

If you have tried and failed with some of the most popular low-calorie diet programs out there, you would agree that while almost all of them helped you lose a few pounds, the ‘ loss’ lasted only for a short while. Here is actually what happens with those fad diets: since loss occurs with a reduction in calorie intake, they restrict your daily calorie intake to an awfully low level. Now, as a matter of fact, your body adjusts your metabolic rate based on your average calorie consumption.

Thus, if your average calorie intake is high, your metabolic rate would also be high; similarly, your body would lower your metabolic rate with a reduction in your average calorie intake level. To what level your metabolic rate would be reduced/increased depends on by what amount you have reduced/increased your calorie intake, but keep in mind that the higher your metabolic rate is, the faster you would lose weight.

Now, suppose that normally you consume an average of about 2,500 calories per day. Since you are on a low-calorie diet now, you are consuming only 2,000 calories, which means that you have reduced your daily calorie intake by 500 calories. Thus, you would reach a deficit of about 3,500 calories by the end of 1 week. Since 3,500 calories equal to 1 pound of fat, you can also say that you would be losing a pound per week.

However, your joyride would last only for a short while. Soon your body would get accustomed to your new food habits and would lower your metabolic rate to fit your new calorie intake level. When that happens, you would stop burning fat like before. After a while, you would probably give up on dieting out of frustration and take to normal eating, thereby increasing your daily calorie intake level by 500 calories.
Since your body’s metabolic rate is set to burn only 2,000 calories, the extra 500 calories would get deposited as fat and in due time, you gain back all the pounds you lost, plus some more as bonus.

The calorie shifting diet works differently. It doesn’t actually reduce your average calorie intake level. With calorie shifting, the level of your calorie consumption varies on a daily-basis. For example, if on one day you have a high-calorie meal, the next day you must consume a low-calorie meal. It is also important that you eat at different times on different days. Rather than having your lunch at 12:30 pm everyday, you may have it at 12:00 PM on one day, 12:30 on another day, then 1.00 PM on yet another day, etc.

When you consume different amounts of calories on different days, your body becomes confused as to whether to keep your metabolic rate at a high level or low-level. Consequently, it would always keep your metabolic rate at a high level just to be on the safe side.

This way, you keep burning fat fast everyday notwithstanding your calorie consumption level. A good diet plan which follows the calorie shifting method of dieting is Fat Loss 4 idiots. Lots of people have found success with it so I recommend that you too try it.

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