Close Encounter with a Binge-Inducing Cleanse

I think any diet that restricts your intake so severely that the only thing you can think about is bathing in cheeseburgers is probably a bad idea.

I didn't know this when I began my first cleanse Monday morning.


After a weekend of indulging in fruity cocktails and sweet potato fries, I thought it was a good idea to try out a cleanse that I had been wanting to do for a while. Now this cleanse wasn't as hardcore as the lemon juice-maple syrup-cayenne pepper crazy concoction, but it did restrict your calories to about 800 a day.

I thought I could handle it, and actually did pretty well the first day. But the second day, the insanity set in.

I was like a person lost in the desert hallucinating about hostess cupcakes. By the end of day two I was speeding down Olympic like a carjacker on "COPS" to drown my delirium in a pint of Penguins froyo.

So yeah, I now think cleanses are a bad idea. But to my surprise, when I stepped on the scale Wednesday morning, I was pleasantly greeted by a lower than normal weight.

"How can this be?" I questioned. "I had enough low-carb frozen yogurt to feed an entire Weight Watchers group!"

I did some research and I found an explanation for my shrinkage. It's called Calorie Cycling.

I read about this randomly a few months ago and I think it explains why I could make it through one day of practical starvation and yet fall so hard the next, without sacrificing the numbers on the scale.

Cycling is the notion that you can eat whatever you want if you balance it out with extremely low calorie days. One day you drop your calories to a low intake level, the next you get to have a bagel for breakfast (but keep it whole grain people, we're not animals :).

This was originally founded by body builders trying to lower their fat percentage. Instead of calories they regulate carb intake and trade off between high carb, low carb, and no carb days. This apparently helps maintain and even build lean muscles while dropping pesky fat pounds.

This website provides a good overview of why calorie cycling works.

It explains how your body will adjust to the status quo, or "homeostasis," when you cut calories for extended periods of time and eventually stop dropping weight. It also talks about the problem with cutting too many calories over a long period, which sends your body into starvation mode, and slows the metabolism. The scientific term is "catabolism."

I've always sort of abided by this type of diet. I usually try to eat extremely clean Monday through Friday and then indulge a little on the weekend. However, this new routine has fascinated me and I think I will try alternating days and calorie counts and see what results may come.

I love this plan because you get to have your cake, and eat it too. Literally :)