Fat Loss Pre- and Post- Christmas Season: An Effective Strategy

I'm pretty sure if you stepped on the weight scale or looked in the mirror, you'd discover you've put on a few pounds during the Christmas season! Some things are just unavoidable. You love all that Christmas cooking and baking. As a matter of fact, I might even encourage it to a certain extent. After over 12 months of maintaining a regimen of healthy nutrition and activity, it's probably not too damaging to have 1-2 days of indulging and enjoying your favourite cheat meals. Because come January, you're back at the fitness life.

Introducing Calorie Cycling

A key to keeping fat gain at a minimum during and after Christmas Season involves Calorie Cycling during the days leading up to the holiday, and afterwards. But what is calorie cycling?

Calorie cycling can be defined as a deliberate and calculated variation in the amount of calories consumed from a day-to-day basis- ranging from days of low, medium, or high calorie intake- all occurring in a cyclical pattern.

Example of Calorie Cycling:

Day 1: Low Calorie, 2000 calories

Day 2: Low Calorie, 1800 calories

Day 3: Low Calorie, 1900 calories

Day 4: Medium Calorie, 2500 calories

Day 5: High Calorie, 3000 calories (Refeed)

Total Calorie Intake for the 5 days = (2000 + 1800 + 1900 + 2500 + 3000) calories = 11200 calories. Cycle restarts again after Day 5 with low calorie intake.

Rather than eating 2500 calories for 5 days (2500 x 5 = 12500 calories) continuously, you can eat low calorie for a few days, and reserve a day where you can eat slightly higher than the other days. In this day, you can include a cheat meal.

For days where you are eating at low calorie intake, I recommend strength training combined with low intensity steady state (LISS) cardio (such as long walks at medium pace, or slow jogs). This permits muscle preservation (the function of weight lifting/ strength training during low-calorie phase) while also burning fat.

For days where you are eating at high calorie intake, I recommend strength training combined with high intensity interval training (HIIT) cardio (such as cycling between jogging-and-walking, rope skipping). This prevents excessive fat gain from the increased calorie intake and can allow muscle growth (the function of weight lifting/ strength training during high-calorie phase).

What Makes Calorie Cycling Effective?

In a traditional linear diet, continuous consumption of low calories for several days leads to the body triggering starvation mode responses due to hormonal influences (mainly leptin, insulin, testosterone, human growth hormone). These hormonal responses result in side-effects that can include weightloss plateaus, slow metabolism, and one of the worst: weight gain rebound.

With a calorie cyclic diet however, a person avoids these common pitfalls. One of the biggest advantages is that your metabolism does not slow down significantly to warrant a plateau due to fluctuating low/ medium/ high days, therefore preventing you from metabolic adaptation to low calorie intake.

For low calorie days, there is a reduction of carb intake, which when combined with exercise forces your body to resort to using its internal energy sources (glycogen stores and eventually burning fat stores) for fuel. Eventually, the body's glycogen and fat stores are depleted to low levels and require replenishing. When this stage is reached, the body begins to enter a form of starvation mode to preserve the body.

That's where high calorie days come in. On high calorie days, an individual can increase their calorie and carb intake to replenish their glycogen (energy) levels. From this steady calorie increase, your hormonal balance is restored to optimum levels that are once again conducive to fat loss, therefore avoiding starvation responses. Psychologically, you will also feel relieved and full after eating a few days under calorie restriction. Hence, the high-calorie days can be called refeed days.

Calorie cycling is also flexible. You can make it work for you and your own schedule. And that flexibility is exactly what we put to use for the Christmas Season.

Making Calorie Cycling Work For You For Christmas

One of the first things I would recommend for future Christmases is that the 3-5 days before the holiday is you perform calorie restriction. This way you're starting the holiday with less than your normal weight, thereby creating a buffer. Not only that, but after 5 days of being in a calorie deficit, you can refeed on Christmas to replenish your exhausted glycogen stores and thus avoid fat and weight rebound.

After the 25th, try going on another calorie deficit for the 27th-31st until New Year's Day. Set New Year's Day as a refeed day.

After January 01st, you can contiune a normal calorie cycle until you reach an acceptable fat loss target. From there, you can perhaps level off and maintain your weight and fat levels.

Let's look at things from the perspective of a timeline, using a plan I created from back in 2012:

Day 01, 21st Dec: Low Calorie

Day 02, 22nd Dec: Low Calorie

Day 03, 23rd Dec: Low Calorie

Day 04, 24th Dec: Medium Calorie

Day 05, 25th Dec: High Calorie (Refeed)

Day 06, 26th Dec: Medium Calorie

Day 07, 27th Dec: Medium Calorie

Day 08, 28th Dec: Low Calorie

Day 09, 29th Dec: Low Calorie

Day 10, 30th Dec: Low Calorie

Day 11, 31th Dec: Medium Calorie

Day 12, 01st Jan: High Calorie (Refeed)

And here are the results:

Normal Weight on Average: 190 lbs

Weight Gained after Christmas Day: 7 lbs (Greediness!)

Possible weight Gain without Calorie Restriction prior to Christmas = (190 + 7) lbs = 197 lbs

Actual weight Gain with Calorie Restriction prior to Christmas = (185 + 7) lbs = 192 lbs

If you look at it, it clearly shows that going on a calorie deficit for the 3-5 days before Christmas helped me lose 5 lbs AND regulate and maintain my average weight after Christmas Day, allowing me to put on only 2 lbs. Had I not done a calorie cycle, I would have put on a full 7 lbs. Taking off 7 lbs is a lot of work afterwards, so I saved myself the efforts.


PLEASE NOTE: High Calorie / Refeed days don't have to be EXTREMELY HIGH in calorie intake, but just enough to be higher than low calorie days. You will naturally learn how to vary the food amounts you eat daily. (Of course, it being Christmas, you'll find me indulging and eating a lot.)

The flexibility of calorie cycling makes it a simplistic but effective way for fat loss. And one of the best things is that it is effective outside the Christmas season. You can even plan your high calorie days around days where there are social activities and events (so you don't have to eat a salad when you're out dining on a Saturday night!), and even apply them on your hardcore workout days for muscle growth (but ensure that high calories include lots of protein post-workout for greater effect).

Thanks for reading my article!