How to take a maintenance break

walking2running

I've been trying to lose weight since December. I've been pretty good, even incorporating some higher-calorie days/meals and still being under goal for the week. But, I've had to be mindful of my weekly goal and I feel anxiety after consuming higher calorie things and knowing that I have to cut back somewhere else to compensate. Mostly, because I don't trust myself to get back on track and it's a constant struggle (psychologically).

I want to take a break and eat at maintenance for a week. I am hoping it will give me that second wind. How difficult is it to go back to eating lower calories after consuming higher calories?

Has anyone successfully incorporated maintenance breaks along the way? Did you set a deadline for when to go back to eating lower calories? Did they help or hinder?

richardgavel

How big is your deficit right now? One thing to be aware of is you will gain weight due to your glycogen stores getting topped off. It will drop again when you go deficit again.

thereshegoesagain

I took many breaks during my 3 years and still going journey. I've lost over 90 pounds in that time and down to my last 5 pounds or so to reach my final goal.
I've taken several vacations and have never logged while on them and would pretty much eat and drink whatever I wanted. I would always gain about 5 pounds, but found it fairly easy to get back on track as soon as I returned home. I've also taken breaks of a week or two while at home, kind of a "prepare for maintenance" thing.
I'm hoping my taking it slow with the breaks will make my true maintenance an easier transition.

brower47

I take regular breaks of a month or two after consistent loss efforts that last 1-2 months. I get burned out eating at deficits and need the breaks. It's worked well for me. I'm down over 50 lbs since starting 4 years ago.

Machka9

I stuck with my diet for 16 weeks and lost 15 kg which dropped me to my first goal weight.

Then I took a 1-month break while travelling and during that time I decided to keep going.

I took 1 week to ease into it again, then stuck with it for another 16 weeks, and lost 11 kg which got me down to a weight I haven't seen since about 2005.

And I've more or less maintained since then.

For me, the break worked because it happened after I accomplished my first goal and during a transition period while I decided what to do next.

Returning to the diet wasn't difficult because I had seen such good results before, so why not try for another 16 weeks and see what results I could get by doing that!

walking2running

For the past 4.5 months, my goal was 1200 calories, plus eating back a portion of my exercise calories.

arditarose

If 1200 was aggressive for you and you were losing 2 lbs or 1 lb per week when you only need to lose a little weight...then yeah, you need a maintenance break. And no it's not that hard to get back to a deficit afterward. It is actually quite refreshing.