Is 'calorie cycling' the new fat-burning

secret?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/wellbeing/diet/is-calorie-cycling-the-new-fat-burning-secret/

Mark Lauren is behind a new approach to

fat loss: calorie cycling

 Anna Magee

12 JANUARY 2016 • 5:18PM

Anyone who has ever tried to shape up will be familiar with the scenario. Read about
new diet. Try new diet. Lose weight. Plateau. Get bored. Get unmotivated. Get totally
over it. Start eating again. Gain more weight. Repeat. For Mark Lauren, a military
physical training specialist and former US Special Forces Operative, that’s one of the
problems with diets. They make you plateau and that eventually cues de-motivation and
weight gain. The second is that on most of them, there’s not enough food to keep your
metabolic fire burning.

Guess what? You get to eat carbs again. Cereal; rice; bread even.
Anna Magee

In his new book, Body Fuel (out on January 21st), Lauren introduces a new concept that
isn’t simply a rehashed paleo, vegan or other fashionable diet. It’s a new approach to fat
loss that will probably involve at times eating more food than you’re used to - regular,
normal food available from supermarkets - and varying your calorie intake week to
week. It focuses on performance instead of appearance (though it can make you lose 8-
10 pounds in six weeks). And guess what? You get to eat carbs again. Cereal; rice; bread
even.

Tested on the military

On September 6 2001 Lauren, having been in the US Air Force, was selected as an
instructor preparing military trainees for the extreme physical demands of the US
specials operations community. During subsequent years, he was deployed to
Afghanistan for two years and Iraq for six months and was also assigned the task of
preparing soldiers for extreme combat.

We focused on building a programme for strength, conditioning and fuelling

the body for performance, instead of breaking people.
Mark Lauren

‘At the time it was all about eating as much as you can and whatever you want, going for
extreme long runs, forging guys through fire and training so hard that people were
passing out,’ says Lauren. ‘But there was no method to the training so people were
getting exhausted.’ As a military training instructor, Lauren changed the focus and built
structure and method into the trainees’ programmes. The result? The trainees’ bodies
became fitter, their endurance and energy improved and they lost fat. It’s where his
Body Fuel plan was born.

Performance - the new focus

‘We didn’t really care what the trainees looked like,’ remembers Lauren. ‘We focused on
building a programme for strength, conditioning and fuelling the body for performance,
instead of breaking people. But as a by-product, they lost fat and trimmed down.’ It was
a great platform to test the diet, he remembers. ‘I could control what the trainees were
eating and their exercise and that helped me refine the programme.’
 Lauren recommends a 10-minute body weight workout every
day
Too many diets focus on making bodies look a certain way, Lauren says, and they forget
that bodies have to do things. ‘On this programme exercise is important so you need to
fuel the body correctly for energy and to be able to not only perform that exercise but
also for concentration and focus in everyday life. No-one is going to stay on a diet that
makes them feel hungry and awful. Focus on what your body can do and on how it feels
and the by-product will be weight loss.’

A smart view of carbs

Carbs are back on the menu and instead of seeing them as good or bad, Lauren labels
them as slow-fuel and fast-fuel, based on their Glycaemic Load (GL). GL is a numerical
ranking system for carbs that relates to the amount of carb in a certain serving of food
and how fast or slow the carbohydrate from that food is released into the bloodstream.
‘The lower the GL of a food, the better it is for weight control and overall health.’ On
this plan, slow-fuel carbs are low-GL foods, digested slowly - anything with a GL of 1-6 -
so all greens and just about all vegetables and they can be eaten with abandon.

Calorie cycling is how you trick your metabolism into working its hardest for
you now and long into the future, helping combat weight loss plateaus for life
Mark Lauren

Fast-fuel carbs on the other hand are anything with a GL of 7 or higher such as grains,
pulses, potatoes, bread, rice, fruit, fruit juice and so on. ‘Fast fuels need to be selected
carefully and eaten at the right time such as upon waking and 30-45 minutes after your
workouts to replenish lost glycogen [stored glucose] in your muscles,' says Lauren. 'If
you don’t do that, your body will start breaking down lean muscle for fuel - the trouble
with no-carb regimes - and muscle is essential to fuel metabolism.’

Calorie cycling
Calorie cycling is what Lauren calls ‘the secret weapon’ of the Body Fuel plan and
involves changing the amount of calories and fast-fuel carbs you take in over a six week
period. ‘This is how you trick your metabolism into working its hardest for you now and
long into the future, helping combat weight loss plateaus for life.’ By changing the
amount of calories you take in week to week, you recharge your metabolism - a process
that naturally leads to more body-firming muscle and less unsightly fat than if you were
to follow a calorie-steady regimen for weeks on end.

The Body Fuel six week plan consists of three eating ‘blocks’ with differing
amounts of carbs and calories.
Anna Magee

Hybrids of calorie cycling are being increasingly used in athlete circles to help weight
loss without muscle wastage. One study, published in theJournal of the International
Society of Sports Nutrition, found women on the programme lost an average of seven
pounds without losing muscle and without a drop in their Resting Energy Expenditure
(REE - the number of calories you burn at rest). During their six weeks dieting, the
women on the trial ‘cycled’ between three weeks on a high calorie energy intake of 2200
calories a day and three on a low energy intake of 12-1500 calories a day.

Blocking: the fat burning secret

The Body Fuel six week plan consists of three eating ‘blocks’ with differing amounts of
carbs and calories. On the first (actually called Block 3), which is the most liberal and
lasts three weeks, you can have four fast-fuel carbs daily, each the size of your fist,
chosen from bread, pasta, potatoes, rice and fruit. On the second block (Block 2), which
lasts two weeks, you get to eat two fast-fuel carbs a day and on the final phase (Block 1),
which lasts a week, you cut your carbs down to just one a day.
 The diet even allows grilled ribeye steak -
in weeks 1-3
The diet’s success, says Lauren, is down to the fact that it doesn’t restrict carbohydrates
and calories for too long, keeping the body tricked into constantly burning fat by fuelling
it with different amounts at different times which helps maintain metabolism in a way
other diets don’t. Indeed, in 2014 researchers in Iran compared people on a typical
calorie restricted plan and on calorie cycling and those on the latter suffered no
reduction in their REE, while the calorie restricted dieters had a drop in theirs.

What you can eat

There are seven food groups that make up the Body Fuel plan: meats, fish, eggs,
vegetables, fruits, grains and pulses, nuts and seeds. In fact, while dedicating a whole
chapter to protein for vegetarians (protein at every meal is a must on the plan) the diet
allows meat-eaters decent-sized daily servings of quality red meats and even bacon. It
also allows three meals and two snacks each day, which, according to Lauren, also helps
keep metabolism raised. Off the menu is dairy, which Lauren believes contributes to
weight gain; artificial sweeteners and most sugars; junk and fast food.

When it comes to alcohol and sugary treats, by all means replace one of your fast-fuel
carbs with it whenever you wish but ‘observe how your body feels,’ Lauren advises.
‘There is no good food or bad food but once you start noticing the way a food affects
your performance and the way you feel, you might decide to eat less of it.’ The good
news is that you can eat in a calorie cycling fashion all your life, says Lauren, and many
of his clients might time theirs to enter a restrictive phase just before a big event and a
liberal phase whilst on holidays.

Ten minutes of exercise a day

Any plan that claims to raise metabolism will of course have to include exercise. But
thankfully, Lauren favours smart over hard fitness. Lauren is also the creator of
bestselling book You Are Your Own Gym, which focuses on body weight exercise; that is,
moves that use no weights or machines for resistance, only the body. Likewise, the
workouts in Body Fuel all take only ten minutes, are designed to be done daily and use
the body as the weight. ‘You have basic movements of squatting, lunging, hip-hinging,
pushing and pulling, which train all the muscles in the body in ten minutes,’ says
Lauren.

Lauren demonstrates a body weight move

Each move is a compound movement, which means it won’t be a squat alone but a squat
with a jump out, or a lunge with a twist. ‘These moves mean you use your body the way
it’s supposed to be used and means they burn more calories than if you were sitting in a
machine or using dumbbells doing bicep curls that isolate only one muscle.’

The Calorie Cycling Diet: a how-to

• Protein at every meal

• Three meals a day and two snacks

• Avoid processed foods and dairy

• Ten minutes exercise a day based on ‘own body weight’ resistance moves

• Keep alcohol to a limit

• Drink at least two litres of water a day

• Vary your carb and calorie intake over the six weeks by ‘blocking’ (see below) in order
to keep metabolism raised

• Keep sugar and alcohol to a minimum as treats and be aware of how your body
responds to them
• Keep a steady intake of healthy fats in your diet including avocado, nuts and seeds,
they’re also key to fat-burning

The six week calorie cycling plan has three phases, each called blocks. Here’s a typical
day’s eating on each block:

BLOCK 3 - WEEKS 1-3: liberal phase

Breakfast: Two scrambled eggs, one serving instant oatmeal, one teaspoon honey

Lunch: One grilled chicken breast, one serving brown rice, one mixed salad, 1-2
tablespoons low-fat dressing

Dinner: Grilled ribeye steak, baked potato, steamed green beans, steak sauce

Snack 1: Asparagus wrapped in sliced turkey

Snack 2: Berry, oat and almond smoothie

BLOCK 2 - WEEKS 4-5: medium phase

Breakfast: Two slices back bacon, one serving cereal such as Corn Flakes or high-fibre
cereal, 240ml almond milk

Lunch: Grilled or tinned tuna (250 grams), one slice sprouted-grain bread, tomato slices
and alfalfa sprouts to top the sandwich, 1-2 tablespoons low-fat mayonnaise for the tuna

Dinner: Roast turkey breast, steamed broccoli and cauliflower, herbs and spices

Snack 1: One hard-boiled egg, handful of raw almonds

Snack 2: Celery with almond butter

BLOCK 1- WEEK 6: restrictive phase

Breakfast: Two poached eggs, half a grapefruit with cinnamon

Lunch: Boiled shrimp with sliced cucumbers and salad, 1-2 tablespoons low-fat dressing

Dinner: Baked white fish, baked aubergine slices and mixed salad, no-sugar-added
tomato sauce for the aubergine, 1-2 tablespoons low-fat salad dressing.

Snack 1: Tinned crab with lemon on half an avocado

Snack 2: Vegetable juice, half a grilled chicken breast

Body Fuel by Mark Lauren is published by Vermilion (priced £12.99) and
out on 21 January, 2016. To order your copy for £10.99 plus p&p call 0844
871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk