Do you take diet breaks?
elga_thres
Posts: 117 Member
Hi, everyone! I just read an article about how to avoid or fix metabolic damage (here's the link: http://www.burnthefat.com/metabolic_damage.html). There is one thing that makes me even more curious:
"Take Diet breaks: Avoid prolonged periods in aggressive caloric deficits. If you have a lot of fat to lose and it’s going to take more than 3 months to hit your long term fat loss goal, don’t do it all in one stretch. Take a week at maintenance calories after 12 weeks of restricted dieting. This – raising your calories - is the most counter-intuitive of all the metabolism-rebuilding strategies but it’s one of the most important. Even better: the bodybuilder's method of cycling fat loss phases with muscle building phases, ensures that not only are you not in constant deficit, you spend significant time in calorie surplus."
What do you think? Do you take diet breaks? I'm really worried about overestimating my maintenance level and the calories burned when I workout. I really appreciate your help. ☺
P.S. I think "diet" here means eating calorie deficit, not our eating habit.
"Take Diet breaks: Avoid prolonged periods in aggressive caloric deficits. If you have a lot of fat to lose and it’s going to take more than 3 months to hit your long term fat loss goal, don’t do it all in one stretch. Take a week at maintenance calories after 12 weeks of restricted dieting. This – raising your calories - is the most counter-intuitive of all the metabolism-rebuilding strategies but it’s one of the most important. Even better: the bodybuilder's method of cycling fat loss phases with muscle building phases, ensures that not only are you not in constant deficit, you spend significant time in calorie surplus."
What do you think? Do you take diet breaks? I'm really worried about overestimating my maintenance level and the calories burned when I workout. I really appreciate your help. ☺
P.S. I think "diet" here means eating calorie deficit, not our eating habit.
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Replies
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I do this but I cycle differently. I eat at maintenance the first week of the month, the next week I create a 10% deficit, then 20% the next week, then 25% the week after. After week 4, I go right back up to maintenance and do it all over again. I need to do something different now because I'm within 20 lbs of goal and it's not working anymore, but I lost my first 50 lbs this way. My husband is doing the same with success.0
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I don't see how I eat as a 'diet'. I just see it as eating to be healthy and live. I don't micromanage my food. My body doesn't know what a week or a month is. I'm not sure what you mean by a "restricted diet". Are you on a special diet for medical reasons?0
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I take diet breaks to keep my sanity. I don't eat boring food while cutting calories but I eat a lot of the same food and that can get old (fast!).
http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/ - this website is a good one, in my opinion, for finding your TDEE so you can use that to guesstimate your maintenance calorie goal. I usually just round my TDEE down and use that number. For example; if my TDEE says 1732 I'm going to use 1700. If I do that for a week and find I've gained my next maintenance week I'll use 1600.
Personally I exercise but don't eat back those calories, when maintaining or cutting - but everyone is different so you'll have to test it out and see what works for you.0 -
Yes, absolutely.0
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I take a logging break every 6 months. It's fantastic and keeps me in line.0
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Idk if that's what I did. I ate what I wanted on Xmas, my bday, and wedding anniversary. January this year, I took a few weeks to try to find my maintenance TDEE. I also have days where I can't deal with eating small portions of foods I really want so I overeat on them to bring my sanity level back up.0
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I think what the author means by restricted diet is eating at aggressive deficit ( I cited from the article). I'm not on special diet either, just trying to make better choices when it comes to food (although I cheat one in awhile) and eating at 15% or 20% deficit.I don't see how I eat as a 'diet'. I just see it as eating to be healthy and live. I don't micromanage my food. My body doesn't know what a week or a month is. I'm not sure what you mean by a "restricted diet". Are you on a special diet for medical reasons?
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Sounds like a good idea to make me feel less hungry or deprived. Thanks! ☺madhatter2013 wrote: »I do this but I cycle differently. I eat at maintenance the first week of the month, the next week I create a 10% deficit, then 20% the next week, then 25% the week after. After week 4, I go right back up to maintenance and do it all over again. I need to do something different now because I'm within 20 lbs of goal and it's not working anymore, but I lost my first 50 lbs this way. My husband is doing the same with success.
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I will check that out. Yeah, I think I just have to experiment. Thanks! ☺I take diet breaks to keep my sanity. I don't eat boring food while cutting calories but I eat a lot of the same food and that can get old (fast!).
http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/ - this website is a good one, in my opinion, for finding your TDEE so you can use that to guesstimate your maintenance calorie goal. I usually just round my TDEE down and use that number. For example; if my TDEE says 1732 I'm going to use 1700. If I do that for a week and find I've gained my next maintenance week I'll use 1600.
Personally I exercise but don't eat back those calories, when maintaining or cutting - but everyone is different so you'll have to test it out and see what works for you.
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No, I don't "take diet breaks", because I'm not on a diet.
I've made permanent changes in how / what I eat, so I can maintain health & lower weight.
I eat what I want, in reasonable quantities, all the time.
(Except oreos... those I can't eat in reasonable quantities.)
.
:sigh:elga_thres wrote:I just read an article about how to avoid or fix metabolic damage
http://www.burnthefat.com/metabolic_damage.html
We need to have a discussion about reliable / trustworthy sources of information, ESPECIALLY if you're going
to be basing health-related decisions on it.
A commercial site, selling you a product, is NOT a reliable source.
They might link to reliable sources (peer-reviewed studies published in journals), just like wikipedia (which also
is itself not a reliable source).
If they're expecting you to rely on their word, it's probably not a reliable source.
Are the people writing the information qualified / educated in any way for the topic? If not, be wary.
Reliable, unbiased sources are those which do not have a financial stake in your decision,
and those which provide references.
Here's PubMed, from the US National Institutes of Health, where you can search for scientific studies on any
health-related topic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
WebMD is generally good, written by professionals, often linking to further information.
http://www.webmd.com/
And here's the main NIH site. If you hover over "health information" toward the left of the top bar, a menu
pops up which includes a search box. Much of this is more consumer-friendly than PubMed.
http://www.nih.gov/
.
I lost about 80 lb in just over a year, generally eating 200-300 cal/day below my BMR. (That's the amount I'd needAvoid prolonged periods in aggressive caloric deficits
to stay alive if I were in a coma.) Usually didn't eat back exercise calories.
My doctors are all quite pleased with my health, in all ways, and there has never been any suggestion that I've
done any damage of any sort.
According to this calculator, I lost more than 80 lb of fat, but put on several pounds of muscle. I think that's
measurement error, and am happy simply to have maintained the muscle I had.
http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Navy
Also, 1 week of eating at maintenance isn't going to change your metabolism.
It will slow as you lose weight, simply because you have less body to run.
But it takes a long time of eating well below your BMR to damage your metabolism. Think concentration camp
victims, famine in Africa, anorexia.
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Useful information. Definitely read sexypants.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10012907/logging-accuracy-consistency-and-youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819925/the-basics-dont-complicate-it/p1
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/872212/youre-probably-eating-more-than-you-think/p1
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p10 -
I took a two-week break late April/early May when I went on vacation. I'll probably do the same late September/early October for my birthday. Sometimes I just want to not worry about fitting something into my calories0
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I keep these links in my profile. I am a huge proponent of diet breaks.
Diet breaks
* http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/
* http://strengthunbound.com/when-to-take-a-diet-break/0 -
I see, I think "diet" here means eating at deficit (yep, I also had the same reaction as yours at first, but then I thought he meant eating at deficit). Thank you for the links, I will check them out. ☺No, I don't "take diet breaks", because I'm not on a diet.
I've made permanent changes in how / what I eat, so I can maintain health & lower weight.
I eat what I want, in reasonable quantities, all the time.
(Except oreos... those I can't eat in reasonable quantities.)
.
:sigh:elga_thres wrote:I just read an article about how to avoid or fix metabolic damage
http://www.burnthefat.com/metabolic_damage.html
We need to have a discussion about reliable / trustworthy sources of information, ESPECIALLY if you're going
to be basing health-related decisions on it.
A commercial site, selling you a product, is NOT a reliable source.
They might link to reliable sources (peer-reviewed studies published in journals), just like wikipedia (which also
is itself not a reliable source).
If they're expecting you to rely on their word, it's probably not a reliable source.
Are the people writing the information qualified / educated in any way for the topic? If not, be wary.
Reliable, unbiased sources are those which do not have a financial stake in your decision,
and those which provide references.
Here's PubMed, from the US National Institutes of Health, where you can search for scientific studies on any
health-related topic.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
WebMD is generally good, written by professionals, often linking to further information.
http://www.webmd.com/
And here's the main NIH site. If you hover over "health information" toward the left of the top bar, a menu
pops up which includes a search box. Much of this is more consumer-friendly than PubMed.
http://www.nih.gov/
.
I lost about 80 lb in just over a year, generally eating 200-300 cal/day below my BMR. (That's the amount I'd needAvoid prolonged periods in aggressive caloric deficits
to stay alive if I were in a coma.) Usually didn't eat back exercise calories.
My doctors are all quite pleased with my health, in all ways, and there has never been any suggestion that I've
done any damage of any sort.
According to this calculator, I lost more than 80 lb of fat, but put on several pounds of muscle. I think that's
measurement error, and am happy simply to have maintained the muscle I had.
http://fitness.bizcalcs.com/Calculator.asp?Calc=Body-Fat-Navy
Also, 1 week of eating at maintenance isn't going to change your metabolism.
It will slow as you lose weight, simply because you have less body to run.
But it takes a long time of eating well below your BMR to damage your metabolism. Think concentration camp
victims, famine in Africa, anorexia.
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For how long?Liftng4Lis wrote: »I take a logging break every 6 months. It's fantastic and keeps me in line.
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After a long, long time of losing (about 2 years), I hit a plateau and took a long break. Six months. When I went back to it, I began losing again.
The break did my body good and it did my mind good, too. I was SO SICK of weighing every little but of food, logging food...all the obsessiveness of calorie counting and weight loss. Especially when I wasn't losing!
I didn't change what I ate. I didn't really even eat bigger portions. I just ate more bread, think. I didn't think about food as it applies to weight. I just ate. It was nice!
I'm a big fan of the break.0 -
I don't do breaks. I do "idgaf" (I don't give a f) days. I get one day a month and I don't allow myself to avoid it or delay it. It's usually a weekend day, so I can munch with hubby or friends. I do it, whether I think I should or not. I will occasionally add another, especially if I'm ill. On these days, I eat right, but I don't freak if my protein is low or my carbs are a little high. I don't stress over my calories or my fluid intake.
I eat acceptable amounts. It's not a break and it's not cheating. It's just eating and accepting that being human, I might not be able to eat like a machine every day of my life.
When I've hit a plateau, I go into plateau eating mode. That means I up my carbs a little, keep exercise the same, allow my calories to go an additional 200 per day (which still puts me at a deficit), and wait until the plateau passes. That's not a break either; that's giving my body time to adjust to the lower weight and accept it's not going to die of starvation, then we'll go back to busting it. This is just practicing patience.0 -
I don't do breaks, I do caloric cycling. Like 3 or 4 days a week I'll eat 1400, and then 1800 the other 3 days. It works for me because I also do low carb, so those 3 high calorie days are awesome for me! And I can basically eat whatever I want on the high calorie days, so long as I stay withing my daily goal. It's worked great for me so far0
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I'm also more flexible on those occasions (the type of food).Idk if that's what I did. I ate what I wanted on Xmas, my bday, and wedding anniversary. January this year, I took a few weeks to try to find my maintenance TDEE. I also have days where I can't deal with eating small portions of foods I really want so I overeat on them to bring my sanity level back up.
0 -
Did you gain weight during the long break?After a long, long time of losing (about 2 years), I hit a plateau and took a long break. Six months. When I went back to it, I began losing again.
The break did my body good and it did my mind good, too. I was SO SICK of weighing every little but of food, logging food...all the obsessiveness of calorie counting and weight loss. Especially when I wasn't losing!
I didn't change what I ate. I didn't really even eat bigger portions. I just ate more bread, think. I didn't think about food as it applies to weight. I just ate. It was nice!
I'm a big fan of the break.
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elga_thres wrote: »Hi, everyone! I just read an article about how to avoid or fix metabolic damage (here's the link: http://www.burnthefat.com/metabolic_damage.html). There is one thing that makes me even more curious:
"Take Diet breaks: Avoid prolonged periods in aggressive caloric deficits. If you have a lot of fat to lose and it’s going to take more than 3 months to hit your long term fat loss goal, don’t do it all in one stretch. Take a week at maintenance calories after 12 weeks of restricted dieting. This – raising your calories - is the most counter-intuitive of all the metabolism-rebuilding strategies but it’s one of the most important. Even better: the bodybuilder's method of cycling fat loss phases with muscle building phases, ensures that not only are you not in constant deficit, you spend significant time in calorie surplus."
What do you think? Do you take diet breaks? I'm really worried about overestimating my maintenance level and the calories burned when I workout. I really appreciate your help. ☺
P.S. I think "diet" here means eating calorie deficit, not our eating habit.
I have been on maintenance for about a year and a half now. When I was dieting, I pretty much stuck tot he program and stayed in my deficit 99 percent of the time. It took about 8 or 9 months to lose 40 pounds, then the rest came off over a few months while I was adjusting to maintenance.
During maintenance, I have experimented more. I plan out a lot. If I know I will eat over, I will adjust my weekly calorie count to compensate. I might eat 1700 net on a few days just to have those extra 600 to play with on the weekend. So far I've been staying within maintenance and holding my weight within normal fluctuations. That's what I want.
As for the site above, that place is a spam site, and they're trying to sell their product. That damned pop-up box prompting me to download their free fat blah blah blah report is really annoying too.0 -
Thank you for sharing your experiences! ☺I don't do breaks. I do "idgaf" (I don't give a f) days. I get one day a month and I don't allow myself to avoid it or delay it. It's usually a weekend day, so I can munch with hubby or friends. I do it, whether I think I should or not. I will occasionally add another, especially if I'm ill. On these days, I eat right, but I don't freak if my protein is low or my carbs are a little high. I don't stress over my calories or my fluid intake.
I eat acceptable amounts. It's not a break and it's not cheating. It's just eating and accepting that being human, I might not be able to eat like a machine every day of my life.
When I've hit a plateau, I go into plateau eating mode. That means I up my carbs a little, keep exercise the same, allow my calories to go an additional 200 per day (which still puts me at a deficit), and wait until the plateau passes. That's not a break either; that's giving my body time to adjust to the lower weight and accept it's not going to die of starvation, then we'll go back to busting it. This is just practicing patience.LunaInverse wrote: »I don't do breaks, I do caloric cycling. Like 3 or 4 days a week I'll eat 1400, and then 1800 the other 3 days. It works for me because I also do low carb, so those 3 high calorie days are awesome for me! And I can basically eat whatever I want on the high calorie days, so long as I stay withing my daily goal. It's worked great for me so far
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I am not on a restrictive diet so I don't need to break.0
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i take logging breaks, not necessarily diet breaks. Every once in awhile i find it helps me refocus. For example, this month i am focusing on being more consistent at the gym and am taking a logging break.0
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I spent the last 6 months training for a marathon and restricting calories to drop 20lbs. after the marathon in mid june I started eating at maintanence until ust last week. I also took 4 weeks off of running and working out and just enjoyed vacationing with family. It was a well needed break and i was able to not gain during that month or so. Last week i started restricting down again and went back to working out in order to lose another 15 before november when I hit the beaches in Hawaii for another vacation. then i will probably eat at maintanence again over the holidays and see where I am come the new year.
I have never been in a hurry to lose the weight (70 pounds over 2.5 years) and i enjoy eating out and celebrating with food. I found that taking so called "breaks" allows me to feel very much in control of what I eat, and keeps my mind happy0 -
I was very tightly weighing and logging my food for about three-ish weeks then I went on vacation to DC for a week. While I was there, I didn't log or weigh anything. It made me so uncomfortable all the time!
I depend on my calorie count and logging to tell me when I'm done eating. I can't just wing it and gorging myself just makes me uncomfortable and uneasy.
I might take breaks when I have been doing this for a while and I feel comfortable that I can "eyeball" portions better without eating way too much. But I don't want my inexperience to take away from all that I've done for myself.0 -
elga_thres wrote: »Did you gain weight during the long break?After a long, long time of losing (about 2 years), I hit a plateau and took a long break. Six months. When I went back to it, I began losing again.
The break did my body good and it did my mind good, too. I was SO SICK of weighing every little but of food, logging food...all the obsessiveness of calorie counting and weight loss. Especially when I wasn't losing!
I didn't change what I ate. I didn't really even eat bigger portions. I just ate more bread, think. I didn't think about food as it applies to weight. I just ate. It was nice!
I'm a big fan of the break.
I was three or four pounds up when I got back on the scale. But I kind of fluctuate with the same three pounds all the time (I'm up two from yesterday with no overeating), so it's not a huge deal. Honestly, though, I wasn't even trying to maintain. I truly didn't care. I was OVER it in a big way. I knew I'd go back to it, though, and that was key. Had there been a chance that I'd pig out or never go back, it would've been a different story.
I was still eating well. I ate my fruits, veggies, whole grains, no-fat dairy and lean, white meats. I just didn't pay any attention to weight or food as it related to weight. These foods aren't something I'm going to stop eating later. This is what I eat now. I expect to eat it for life.
...and I made ciabatta and focaccia breads a few times. I did go overboard on breads a bit. I knew I was doing it and chose to do it.
It worked out very well for me, but may not be the right thing for everyone.
If I hit another plateau, I will totally do it again.0 -
I understood what you meant as a break from eating at a deficit.
I started losing in late January 2014, and took a break in December 2014 (I'd lost about 85 lbs). I was getting close to maintenance, ready for a break, and besides December is tough (my birthday is then too), so I decided it would be a good time to practice maintenance. After that I lost again in January and February and then started a lengthy break (partly deciding if I wanted to lose more) and only recently restarted trying to lose/eating at a deficit. During the lengthy deficit it was partly mental and partly getting comfortable with maintenance, trying out logging and not, focusing on exercise, a variety of things.
I am generally in favor of the concept. I especially think it takes some time to get used to weight loss and can be helpful to practice maintenance.
I don't eat differently in terms of food choice when I'm losing and when I'm not, but of course you have more calories at maintenance.0 -
I haven't taken a break, but I've also never had an aggressive deficit. I've only created a 250 calorie deficit so there's really no need for a break. I could totally see how someone with a 1000 calorie deficit may want to lower that amount.0
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Pretty much naturally every month with PMS because I'm starving anyway. But honestly? That NEVER happened before I went on vacations and took a diet break for a week. I was doing just fine with my deficit and lost consistently. It's been a year now and I haven't lost a pound since (I had 2 to go to meet my goal).
So yeah... I really don't recommend it, personally.0
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