Calorie Cycling 101 (Part 3)

Congratulations. If you’ve made it here, you’re already ahead of the curve.

This is Part 3 of a multi‑part series on performance nutrition for hybrid and tactical athletes. If you haven’t read them yet, I strongly suggest starting with:

• Part 1: You're Eating Poverty Carbs; Let's Fix It
• Part 2: How to Calculate Calories and Carbs for Performance

Those two lay the foundation. This article builds on them.

Although you’re now closer to optimizing than 99% of other hybrid/tactical athletes, we’re not done yet.

There are still some key steps involved in fully optimizing carb and calorie intake. This article will discuss best practices for:

• Calorie cycling 

• Manipulations for fat loss and muscle gain

Let’s discuss.

Calorie Cycling

First thing’s first. You may have noticed I’ve been cycling (pun intended) back and forth between carb cycling and calorie cycling. What’s the difference? 

With exceptions, usually not much. 

I mainly use the two interchangeably because calories cycle up and down via carb manipulation. More carbs (and calories) on higher output days. Fewer carbs (and calories) on lower output days. 

Yes, there are caveats—in a more advanced setting, fat and protein manipulations are also in play. For some clients, I not only increase or decrease carbs relative to output, but I often manipulate fat as well. As we’ve learned, fat is essential. But there are cases for a very low fat day, very high carb day (or few days). A classic pre-event carb load is one example, but there are other nuanced reasons high-level coaches use it. To keep things simple, we’ll keep fat and protein constant and solely manipulate carbs in this article. 

For uniformity, we’ll refer to this as calorie cycling from here on:

• Calories cycling up = more carbs

• Calories cycling down = fewer carbs

Calorie cycling for performance involves matching high workload training days with high calorie days, and vice versa. For example, if your program prescribes a 3 hour selection prep ruck on Saturday and a rest day on Sunday, the gap in calorie expenditure on these two days is drastic.

So why not eat more on the day you need it, and less on the day you don’t? 

Exactly.

This applies across the entire training week. Hybrid training guarantees variability. Some days demand more fuel. Others don’t.

Like most nutrition protocols, there are many ways to skin it. Below is the simplest and most versatile method I’ve found.

Step 1: Think Weekly, Not Daily

Transition from a daily calorie mindset to a weekly one.

Your metabolism doesn’t reset every 24 hours. It doesn’t know the difference between calories you ate yesterday and calories you’ll eat today. Calendars are man‑made. Your physiology isn’t.

For example:

If your average daily calorie need is 3000 and you eat exactly that for 2 days, equating to 6000 calories. 

But if you instead were to eat 2000 today and 4000 tomorrow, guess what? Still 6000 calories, and still averages out to 3000 per day. 

Now extend that over a week. So long as the weekly net result matches your calorie needs, not every day needs to be the same.

Using the same avatar from Part 2 who’s consuming 3600 calories/day for maintenance, let’s look at this in action. 

First, we’ll simply multiply his daily intake by 7 to find his weekly calorie requirement.

3600 (calories) x 7 (days/week) = 25200 (weekly calorie needs) 

That’s the number we’ll work with.

Step 2: Define High, Medium, and Low Days

My preferred strategy is to use three calorie tiers based on training demand:

High calorie days

• Two training sessions

• One session > 90 minutes

• Benchmark session (time trial, rep max)

• Race, event or competition 

Medium calorie day

• One training session <90 minutes

• Rest day prior to high day

Low calorie days 

• One easy session <30 minutes

• Complete rest day 

There are nuanced situations in which these days could vary from the above heuristic. 

For example, a high calorie day on a rest day may be warranted if it’s sandwiched between 2 high workload days. This is one of countless hypotheticals—more will be discussed below in the weekly breakdown example.

Example Training Week (SFAS Prep)

Now, we’ll look at his program—more specifically, training intensity and volume fluctuations—to determine which days fit where.  

Let’s pretend he’s prepping for SFAS, and his hypothetical training week looks like:

Mon: 60 minute full body lift + 3 miles worth of 400-800m track repeats 

• High day (benchmark + double session)

Tues: 2 hour cross country ruck march

• High day (>90 minutes)

Wed: Light 75 minute Z1/Z2 cross training sessio

• Medium day (recovery but between hard days)

Thurs: Tempo run w/ 4 miles at tempo effort—6.5 miles total including warmup/cooldown

• Medium day (benchmark but short)

Fri: Full body lift + 30 minutes strongman work

• Medium or High (context dependent; Med if weight loss goal; high if maintenance goal)

Sat: 3 hour ruck march involving running bouts

• High day (non‑negotiable)

Sun: Rest

• Low day (In some cases, a medium day may be warranted—such as when recovery is lagging after a high-volume session. Otherwise, with another high day ahead, low-day calories typically suffice.)

Step 3: Plug and Play Calories

Now, the fun part: determining how to split up high, medium and low day calories. Remember our avatar consumes 3600 per day. 

There’s no single way to do this—you can “plug n’ play” with the #s so long as the sum = weekly maintenance. But here’s a simple heuristic: 

• High days = calorie surplus (> maintenance of 3600). 

• Medium days = calorie maintenance or slight deficit (3600 or down to ~3300)

• Low day(s) = calorie deficit (whatever’s left in the full week’s calorie allotment)

Using our weekly target (25,200 calories):

• 3 High days @ 4,000 = 12,000

• 3 Medium days @ 3,500 = 10,500

Total so far = 22,500

Remaining calories for Low day:

25,200 − 22,500 = 2,700 calories

That’s it.

No magic. Just math.

When (and How) to Bend the Rules

Note that the low and medium day calories in this example are quite similar. Nothing wrong with keeping it as is, but it’s also not wrong to cycle calories up and down by larger margins. If it were me, I’d continue playing around with it to make the gap larger—specifically for a more advanced athlete. Here’s an example scenario:

Let’s imagine that on one of the current medium days there’s an argument for a high day. Perhaps his running is an area of weakness, so he wants to ensure Thursday's tempo run is well-fueled. No big deal. We could simply allocate another 300 calories to that day—equating to 3800—then borrow (subtract) those 300 calories from the low day.

His week would have a medium-high day on Thursdays with 3800 calories, 2 medium days (Wed/Fri) with 3500 calories, 3 high days with 4000 calories, and 1 low day with 2400 calories.

As you can see,  there are no hard and fast rules, so long as the numbers match up. Just because we split days into high, medium and low doesn’t rule out the option for a medium-high (or medium-low) day. Room for experimentation is endless with calorie cycling, and the above is one of many ways to skin it. Once you solve the initial equations using an educated “plug n’ play”, you can fine tune it based on individual needs.

Still with me? Good. Only a bit more math, but this part is critical. 

Solving for Carbs

Once the calorie equations are set, all that’s left to do is manipulate carbs.

Assume constant macros:

• Protein: 200g × 4 cals/g = 800 cals
• Fat: 60g × 9 cals/g = 540 cals

Total = 1,340 calories/day from protein + fat

From here, we “solve for carbs” again. Here’s a visual

Solve for: high day carbs (with each macro # annotated) = 

• 4000 (total hi day cals) - 1340 (protein + fat cals) = 2660 (cals leftover, aka cals from carbs) Divide 2660 by 4 (cals per G carb) = 665G carbs. 

• Every high day = 200P, 60F, 665C (Monday, Tuesday, Saturday)

Solve for: Medium day carbs (no more annotations) 

• 3500 (total med day cals) - 1340 (protein + fat cals) = 2160 (cals from carbs), Divide by 4 = 540

• Every medium day = 200P, 60F, 540G (Wednesday, Friday)

Solve for: Medium-high day carbs 

• 3800 (med-high day cals)  - 1340 (protein + fat cals) = 2460, divide by 4 = 615

• Medium-high day = 200P, 60F, 615C (Thursday)

Solve for: Low day carbs

• 2400 - 1340 = 1060, divide by 4 = 265

• Low day = 200P, 60F, 265C (Sunday) 

*Note: on low days, I typically tell clients to worry less about macros so long as protein is in check and calories are met. For example, if you wanted to have another 20G fat on a low day, so long as you compensate by lowering carbs (by about 45G in this case), you’re good. This isn’t required, but a higher fat day once per week won’t derail your efforts, and can even be healthy assuming it’s quality fat.

And there you have it. Calorie and carb cycling 101. And when I say 101, I mean it. This is a baseline example, and it can get significantly more complex. As a coach who’s done this hundreds of times, my equations and numbers look different from this example. However, unless you’re highly nutrition savvy, I suggest starting here—you’ll see significant improvements if you apply this baseline approach. I guarantee it.

The above example applies to a weight maintenance goal. But luckily, if you’re looking to lose or gain weight, it’s simple. I’ll touch on it briefly before getting into carb source recommendations.

 

Cycling for Fat Loss or Muscle Gain? 

The same framework applies whether the goal is fat loss or muscle gain. The only thing that changes is the weekly calorie target.

• Surplus: add ~200–500 calories per day to the average

• Deficit: subtract ~300–500 calories per day from the average

Once that new daily average is set, multiply it by seven to establish weekly calories, then run the exact same high/medium/low day math outlined above. Nothing else changes.

What shocks a lot of people with this approach is that you could realistically eat in a surplus on some days despite weight loss goals, and a deficit some days despite weight gain goals. They each have their unique benefits, both physiologically (less GI distress in a surplus, better performance and recovery in a deficit) and mentally (break from constant eating in a surplus, less hunger in a deficit).

Calorie cycling can be a fun, exciting and more sustainable way to eat—and it’s not limited to those with performance goals. Many people naturally prefer to eat a little more on certain days of the week (i.e. weekend social events) and less on other days (i.e. a busy, hectic Tuesday). This would be a perfect use-case for it even if your fitness goals are less intense.

This is Calorie Cycling 101.

It can get far more complex, but this baseline alone will outperform what most people are doing. Master this first, and results will follow.

Because the nuances are just about endless when it comes to performance nutrition, there’s still plenty more to cover. As such, Part 4 will break down another key variable: timing, with a special emphasis on peri‑workout nutrition—what to eat before, during, and after training to maximize performance, recovery, and adaptation.

Once complete, you’ll have a comprehensive nutritional toolkit that’ll unlock performances you never thought possible. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for part 4!