Here’s an old post, resurrected because I need it and my fitness buddy needs it.
I know I sound like a broken record when I rave on about Tom Venuto’s e-book book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. But at the moment I’m especially gung-ho about Tom because I’m liking the zig-zag calorie rotation he describes in chapter 6 of the book. For one thing, it makes the whole calorie-counting thing more interesting and tolerable.
Here’s how it goes:
First you figure out your basal metabolic rate–how many calories you need just to sustain life. If you know your lean body mass (LBM), the Katch-McArdle formula is best and works for both men and women:
BMR - 370 + (21.6 x lean mass in kilograms)
Hint: divide your LBM in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms.
If you don’t know your LBM, use the Harris-Benedict formula, based on body weight:
Men: BMR - 66 + (13.7 x body weight in kg) + (5 x height in centimeters) - (6.8 x age in years)
Women: BMR - 655 + (9.6 x body weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in centimeters) - (4.7 x age in years)
Once you’ve got an estimate of your baseline calories, below which you should never go when counting calories, multiply the number by an activity factor:
Sedentary: use 1.2
Lightly active: use 1.375
Moderately active: use 1.55
Very active: use 1.725
Extremely active: use 1.9
So, given my LBM of 109 pounds (49.5 kg), my BMR, using the Katch-McArdle formula is 1,440 calories.
I use the activity factor 1.55. Multiplying it by 1,440, I get 2,232 calories per day.
I suspect I probably burn a few more than that, but I’m being conservative.
Okay, so what’s the zig-zag rotation all about? The idea is to spend three days on a moderately reduced-calorie diet (15 to 20 percent below maintenance), then one day at maintenance level.
Why zig-zag? To prevent the body from reducing metabolic rate in response to reduced intake. By eating at maintenance level a couple of days a week, so Tom says, you help prevent the body from thinking you’re starving. The other plus, of course, is that not every day is a restricted day. Nice.
The key reason to zig-zag is that it works. In 30-plus years of caring about this sort of thing, the ZZ is the fastest, most-effective, most muscle-preserving method of fat loss I’ve ever seen.
And I’ve seen it work wonders for people I know as well. Usually women who tell me, “Well, I’m eating right, but nothing is happening.” Sad but true: if nothing is happening, you need to change the equation. Alter the food plan. Increase the activity. Try the ZZ.
