Stay or Change?

crewbprice

Well I am about 1 week in at eating what I believe is close to my maintaince calories. I have been dieting for awhile (since March), and I recently changed to maintaince because I was constantly hungry for a short while. I was eating around 2200 calories, with my maintaince set at 2600, although depending what calculator you look at, is from 2600-3100. So I have been eating around 2600.

I weighed 203.6 last week, and now I am 203.0. The hunger feeling is completely gone. I am guessing my maintaince calories is higher than what I'm eating, but my question I am pondering is whether I need a full reset based upon these results. I am going to eat at this level for another week, but then I was thinking about maybe dropping to 2450 and stay there for a bit.

Is it worthwhile to do a full reset? I know you should if you have had a severe deficit for a long time, but I don't think that is the case with me, as I always have eaten above my basal metabolic amount.

My weight loss had been about 45 pounds, which averaged over the past 8 months came to around a 700 calorie deficit per day.

KickboxDiva

My thoughts are that a reset is in order when you've been long term dieting and you are sure you are at a true plateau. ( knowing that you are doing what needs to be done still ) and your weight loss has stalled for a while. Maybe a month, I'm not sure how long the official time should be. ( It had been over 6 months of no loss for me, eating low cal and high energy output.). If that's not the case then a diet break of 2-4 weeks can be good to bring your calories back up, restore will power, and restore cortisol levels. Increased calories help repair muscles and grow muscle which helps in a lower body fat ratio. Dieting in a "wave" is good. I started over 200lbs and that can take a long time. It's hard to diet for long term without a planned break here and there. Planned breaks can offset falling off the bandwagon. I wish I had know about that option years ago. I could have avoided feeling like a failure when I got burned out.

heybales

Curious if you are basing idea you don't need a reset because your hunger pangs went away.

How long during the period of eating 2200 since March have you been hungry like recently?

So does that mean a lack of hunger then meant you were eating at maintenance - or rather that you can't always trust hunger cues?

Even with great knowledge of all the reasons why hunger cues can be screwed up and not accurately reflect needing to eat or not eat, people can still be fooled by their body.

Ditto's to advice above too.

crewbprice

Thanks for the advice, I am not currently at a plateau, but my weight loss has decreased even though I continuously adjust my calories down after every 2 lbs lost. I think based on contents above I should more be doing a diet break right now. Although I am doing a diet break, I am still trending down in weight, so perhaps my tdee is higher than originally expected.

I typically don't trust my hunger cues and try to increase water intake when they happen, eating small amounts of food if necessary. When I first started losing weight, they were daily, but after a month or so they went away as my body adjusted to losing weight. Only with past couple of weeks or so they came back in a major way. But the fact that they dissipated rapidly after bumping up my calories, they had to be at least some what related to my calorie intake.