The Diet Break.

SueSueDio

I ended up taking a break of three months or so last summer - it wasn't meant to last that long originally but I did, as you mentioned, "get comfortable"! When I eventually decided to get back to a deficit I managed to stick to it reasonably well until my holiday break over Christmas and New Year.

I've found it harder to stay in a deficit since that break, although that might have something to do with the cold weather and just feeling tired, grumpy and chilly all the time! I'm hoping that once the weather improves I'll feel like being more active rather than wanting to hibernate, and I should be able to lose the last few pounds I'd like to. At least I'm maintaining well!

And yeah, as far as I know you should be fine with just increasing to maintenance calorie levels right away, although you may see a temporary bounce in weight when you do. That said, it might depend on the size of your current deficit - I've never been more than 500 cals down, so I don't know if increasing your allowance from a larger deficit would have a more noticeable effect.

Good luck, and enjoy your break!

MelodiousMermaid

SueSueDio wrote: »

I ended up taking a break of three months or so last summer - it wasn't meant to last that long originally but I did, as you mentioned, "get comfortable"! When I eventually decided to get back to a deficit I managed to stick to it reasonably well until my holiday break over Christmas and New Year.

I've found it harder to stay in a deficit since that break, although that might have something to do with the cold weather and just feeling tired, grumpy and chilly all the time! I'm hoping that once the weather improves I'll feel like being more active rather than wanting to hibernate, and I should be able to lose the last few pounds I'd like to. At least I'm maintaining well!

And yeah, as far as I know you should be fine with just increasing to maintenance calorie levels right away, although you may see a temporary bounce in weight when you do. That said, it might depend on the size of your current deficit - I've never been more than 500 cals down, so I don't know if increasing your allowance from a larger deficit would have a more noticeable effect.

Good luck, and enjoy your break!

Thank you for your fast response! So good to hear from someone who has gone through it. With being committed to another challenge, I think the group accountability will be able to kick me back into gear even if I get comfortable. It is new territory for me, as I'm currently at about my lowest adult weight (don't have a definitive number, but believe it was in the current set of 10s that I'm in). Either way, the clothes supply only continues because I have some awesome friends and family who are letting me borrow .

Anyway, back on topic, do you think a "step up system" over the first week (adding back 15% of calorie deficit per day) would alleviate the bounce? I think it could potentially be more of an issue for me, as I've been at around a 750-1000 kcal/day deficit between eating and exercise.

Also, when you went back into deficit, you jumped right in to your 500 kcals right away?

Thanks again for your insight!

YalithKBK

I lost 1-1.5lbs/week for about 8 weeks and then plateaued hard. I was super frustrated. I decided to step back and eat at maintenance for a week, then went back to what I was eating before. After my one week at maintenance, I dropped 5+ lbs in 3 weeks! I also felt refreshed and was actually excited to get back to calorie restricting and (accurately) logging. I will never go without another diet break!

fb47

SideSteel wrote: »

So this isn't new information for some of you, but I find this is one of those things that people neglect to do even if they know about it.

Rather than go into detail about what a diet break is, I'll leave you with this article:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/

Basically, this is a period of time where you're eating at maintenance. How often and how long you should break for will vary a bit, but if I were to make a general recommendation based on my own experiences with multiple people of different demographics, I'd say a maintenance phase of 1 to 2 weeks in length every 6 to 10 weeks of dieting.

Edit: Read the article for reasons WHY to diet break but the really short cliffs are this -- dieting sucks. Some hormones may become a bit disregulated, motivation will dwindle, gym performance can suffer, food focus increases, etc.

My preference with this is to very slightly under-estimate maintenance needs and bring calories up for about a week. If things are going well and especially if weight continues to drop, make another bump to calories for another week.

Surprisingly, I seldom see weight gain as a result of this. In fact, more often than not it's either weight maintenance or a slight reduction in weight. When calories are brought back down to pre-break levels we typically see additional losses even in cases where someone was previously stalled.

I'll note that this isn't necessarily indicative of metabolic benefits of the diet break although it's a possibility. It's also likely that long duration dieting impacts tracking accuracy and diet adherence and so near the tail end of a diet, the difference between what's eaten and what's logged is likely a bit larger (people are eating more than they log) wheres post break that gap is likely a bit smaller.

I will also add this -- I've never had someone I'm coaching take a diet break as planned, and regret the diet break later. I HAVE had people resist the recommendation, thinking they can just willpower through it, only to later regret not taking the diet break.

Anyway, the article I've linked will contain a lot of solid info that I'd suggest checking out. You can also let me know if you have any general questions about this strategy.

I'll note that I pretty much incorporate these as a standard practice in some capacity now, and I'm VERY glad I do.

On my last cutting phase, I didn't do any diet breaks, but I learned my lesson when my weight had stalled and did a reverse diet to maintenance. I experienced more weight loss (probably because I was retaining too much water) which made me think about diet breaks and I made research on it. I will definitely incorporate it next time I go on a cut. I will take one every 2-3 months when I feel my body is slowly adapting to my calories.

Leannep2201

I’m getting ready to do a diet break, first time I’ve done one. I’ve been restricting since the beginning of Jan, have lost around 10kg (about 22lb I think?) and haven’t had any issues- it’s been going well. The reason for the break for me is that I’m going on camp as a leader for 5 days, and camp food is baaaaaad.
I’m planning on taking some of my own food to keep in a cooler, but don’t have access to cooking facilities so it has to be grab and go stuff. So with eating partly camp food and partly my own stuff, and making sure I get in a walk every day, maintenance should be easy. I was planning on doing a week, but might consider 10 days instead.

Feeling a little nervous!

SueSueDio

MelodiousMermaid wrote: »

Anyway, back on topic, do you think a "step up system" over the first week (adding back 15% of calorie deficit per day) would alleviate the bounce? I think it could potentially be more of an issue for me, as I've been at around a 750-1000 kcal/day deficit between eating and exercise.

You could certainly do that, if it would make you feel more comfortable about increasing your calories! I think everyone just has to experiment and find what works best for them as an individual, really.

Also, when you went back into deficit, you jumped right in to your 500 kcals right away?

I've taken several breaks over the couple of years I've been at this lark, and I usually go right back to the deficit I had before the break without easing into it. I do find, though, that because I've "reset" it, I usually lose a few extra calories (about 50-60 each time, depending on how much I'd lost since my last reset).

I was only on the 500-cal deficit for the first year - in January 2017 I went back to that but my allowance was down to slightly more than 1200 by then as I'm sedentary. I struggled to stick to it for a few weeks, and finally decided it wasn't worth the anguish! I changed my goal to lose 1/2lb a week instead of 1lb, and it was much easier to deal with.

Leannep2201 wrote: »

Feeling a little nervous!

Understandable! The very first break I took, I found it very stressful. I think it was because I knew I had a buffer in my deficit while trying to lose, which would absorb any logging errors or overindulging, and when that was taken away I was suddenly terrified that I'd gain back all my lost pounds if I went over my limit!

It took me a little while to convince myself that I'd have to go over it regularly before I'd start regaining, but after I came to terms with that my subsequent breaks have been enjoyable.