Does alternating beween cutting/maintaining calories work for weight loss?

[raziel1989]

I used a lot of calculators and it says i burn about 3000 kcal/day.

There are 4 days in the week where i am outside for most of the day and dont think about food, so i only wanna eat 500 calories on those days. I tried this once and ate around 6pm and was stuffed for the rest of the day.

The other 3 days i am home a lot and thinking of just eating 2500 calories

[SuffolkPunch]

It works - but no better than maintaining the same average deficit as far as we know.

There are adaptations to losing weight but they don't get turned around immediately just by reverting to maintenance for the timescales you are talking about.

If you take the view that you can't "hack" fat loss, you will never be far off base and will focus your efforts on things that actually matter - i.e. maintaining a consistent deficit over time.

[Tommy W.]

Your fatloss will be determined by your WEEKLY CALORIE CONSUMPTION. Best to not have big daily differences

[spradish]

That averages to just over 1350 per day. It's unlikely that you can maintain that long term. I would think about what you can do to make dieting sustainable, as eating that little will likely not fall into that category.

[XinXom]

It works while its not recommended as a drinker and someone who goes out to eat and on vacations etc I will try and do extra "move more" when I eat over maintenance as well as eat significantly less on the day after i overeat to balance my week. While i know this is not the best practice there are just to many times during the year where I'm going to be eating too much for me not to do a little damage control. On the upside when you eat way to much I tend to not really be hungry the next day anyway so common sense listening to your body helps in this regard if I'm not hungry I don't force myself to eat.