Why is the macro cycle daily? Why can’t it be every 3 days, 5 or 7?
I know the world is circadian based, humans too of course.
But why can’t calories, protein, fat (leaving carbs out of this due to glucose effects on keto) be essentially arranged by totals per 3, 5, 7 days – instead of daily?
It just struck me: does anybody know of any research on this??
PJ
I find the circadian theory of food timing interesting. There’s some research into it linked here:
Thanks you guys. So here’s where the back of my brain has been going –
That diet study where the ‘linear’ diet people lost weight but it reduced their RMR; and then the part where they dieted on/off in two week increments, and they lost weight as expected BUT did not reduce their RMR;
to me this implies that
1/ As expected the body did respond to the overall caloric intake within the hormonal state they were in, and lost weight according to deficit; BUT:
2/ the body was apparently less concerned with that deficit when it was not consistent, hence not feeling the ‘need’ to reduce the RMR.
So the first obvious idea from that, which everyone has, is that “non-linear” caloric deficit seems to be a better idea for losing fat but not reducing RMR.
But the second idea (don’t know how obvious it is) to me, is that it suggests the body may be working on a larger timescale than our measly attention span.
Now, a good deal of the issue with people being on eating plans is trying to do everything correctly consistently.
But it turns out doing it consistently is maybe worse than better.
(Except the “it” you’re doing, still needs to be sane, obviously.)
I had already designed a calendar for myself that I started a few days ago, so far it’s only to end of Aug unless I change my mind, but to try a combination of 1MAD, fasting, and 4MAD. And the 1MAD is much higher calorie and higher fat than the 4MAD and more option to variability. This was only based on the “do something non-linearly” idea.
But I was looking at it, and noticed how it falls into 5-day cycles. (1MAD, fast, 1MAD, 4MAD MAD. Repeated. That way I can do the 1MAD early the day before the fast, and late the day after, and end up with 50+ hours in fast, despite that I’m only skipping food on one day.)
And I started wondering: what if instead of trying to obsess on getting such specific numbers of everything into every day, it was more a “add up the whole cycle” and just make it work in that way instead of daily?
Because first off, that would be “non-linear.”
Secondly, that would allow a whole lot more diet variation.
Thirdly, I think that would make it easier to be in a calorie deficit since the reduction could be much greater on some days (if this was the goal).
Thirdly, I just think it would be a boatload easier. (Mind you I have been an obsessive LC/keto tracker for a long time ok, I’m not complaining, I’m merely observing that for the majority of people esp. new to it, paying attention to detail – or staying on plan – is a challenge for them, so this might assist.)
Lastly, it just seems more logical the more I think about it. I mean sure, the body is cyclical on a daily basis, the brain cleans itself out when you sleep and so on. But it’s not like everything “returns to zero in reset” when we sleep, how silly. And how we respond to food or exercise today is often very affected by what we ate or didn’t the day before. Sometimes even more. So clearly, it’s not like every day is a silo of discrete event.
But aside from that one study mentioned, and that was just looking at the linear issue, I haven’t seen anything about macros done in a larger-than-1-day-period.
As for circadian: that certainly matters (thanks I’ll read that! I’ve read a decent chunk on that topic in general). I am always humored that people act like not eating after 6pm is some kind of novel idea and major effort. I was brought up that you just don’t eat after 6pm. Nobody knew why except it fuzzily related to not being fat lol. I think it’s certainly possible for the circadian issues to be totally legit and good advice --but not to contradict the different idea of ‘macro day-grouping’ or whatever it could be more elegantly called.
PJ
@Karim_Wassef did a cyclic fast (more than OMAD) in one of his previous n=1 topics. Not sure how he decided on energy compared to TDEE for that.
My cyclic (~3 day) fasting resulted in maintenance… no significant to a slight increase.
It was fasting until my GKI got under 2 and I’d eat OMAD until it was over 4… then fast again.