Of refeeds and diet breaks
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Did it again. Had a hungry day yesterday. Ate some potato chips, logged them. Still had room for the pizza I had planned for dinner and managed a small deficit for the day while still hitting protein targets.
I will be happy once the chips aren't in the house any more, though. I do have to say that. My son wanted them. They are a weakness of mine. I'm glad I'm giving in in a somewhat controlled fashion, though.
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So did the thread ever get nominated for sticky-dom and did we end up with any new nuggets out of the women's book?
We were nominated months ago, my guess is it isn't gonna happen.
Have not had time to even think about reading the Women's Book (still think he should have gone with Fifty Shades of Hormones
). 3 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »So did the thread ever get nominated for sticky-dom and did we end up with any new nuggets out of the women's book?
We were nominated months ago, my guess is it isn't gonna happen.
Have not had time to even think about reading the Women's Book (still think he should have gone with Fifty Shades of Hormones ).
How does one vote for sticky dom? For example...I haven't voted!
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »So did the thread ever get nominated for sticky-dom and did we end up with any new nuggets out of the women's book?
We were nominated months ago, my guess is it isn't gonna happen.
Have not had time to even think about reading the Women's Book (still think he should have gone with Fifty Shades of Hormones ).
How does one vote for sticky dom? For example...I haven't voted!
You don't vote, just nominate. Since there are several other nominations on the list, dating back months, I'm not taking it personally Our thread is awesome. http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10260479/nominate-posts-for-announcement-status-stickies#latest
In other news, my signed copy of the Women's Book arrived today!!!!!!! Still don't have time to read it...5 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
I will be happy once the chips aren't in the house any more, though. I do have to say that. My son wanted them. They are a weakness of mine. I'm glad I'm giving in in a somewhat controlled fashion, though.
Chips are one of my favorite food groups in this whole world! Counting out 13 chips sucks, but I do it...
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GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
I will be happy once the chips aren't in the house any more, though. I do have to say that. My son wanted them. They are a weakness of mine. I'm glad I'm giving in in a somewhat controlled fashion, though.
Chips are one of my favorite food groups in this whole world! Counting out 13 chips sucks, but I do it...
Yep, I end up destroying half a family sized bag if I don't pay attention. Measuring them out by weight is sometimes even more disappointing because they don't match the chip count, depending on the brand and if the chips aren't uniformly cut lol.5 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »1
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I started reading this thread way late so I’m nowhere near caught up on the discussion but just wanted to report:
I started my first diet break on Sunday. It’s only Thursday and, while I feel like it’s easy from the standpoint of I have enough calories that I don’t struggle to stay under and if I’m low for the day I just have some Oreos before bed, I feel like this is so much more mentally taxing than eating at a deficit.
I find myself longing for the two weeks to be over (I seriously have more than another week to go?!?!) so I can get back to a deficit and start losing again.12 -
I think I’m also pretty anxious to see how accurate I’ve been in gauging maintenance.4
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Carlos_421 wrote: »I think I’m also pretty anxious to see how accurate I’ve been in gauging maintenance.
I felt like you the first week of my diet break. Then the second week I got pretty comfortable (and happy with the extra calories!) So much so that I extended it another 3 days through the weekend
I was pleasantly surprised that my results seemed to bear out both my calculated maintenance and my logging were fairly accurate (or offset each other enough that in the end it didn't matter).4 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »I started reading this thread way late so I’m nowhere near caught up on the discussion but just wanted to report:
I started my first diet break on Sunday. It’s only Thursday and, while I feel like it’s easy from the standpoint of I have enough calories that I don’t struggle to stay under and if I’m low for the day I just have some Oreos before bed, I feel like this is so much more mentally taxing than eating at a deficit.
I find myself longing for the two weeks to be over (I seriously have more than another week to go?!?!) so I can get back to a deficit and start losing again.
I always find my diet breaks a little more of a challenge mentally. I thinks it's because after 10 or 12 weeks in deficit, you adapt and now you have to adapt again to something different.6 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »I started reading this thread way late so I’m nowhere near caught up on the discussion but just wanted to report:
I started my first diet break on Sunday. It’s only Thursday and, while I feel like it’s easy from the standpoint of I have enough calories that I don’t struggle to stay under and if I’m low for the day I just have some Oreos before bed, I feel like this is so much more mentally taxing than eating at a deficit.
I find myself longing for the two weeks to be over (I seriously have more than another week to go?!?!) so I can get back to a deficit and start losing again.
In a way, maintenance can be much more difficult than eating at a deficit because there's a balance on both sides of incoming and outgoing energy. Try not to overthink it. However you've determined your maintenance, eat around that much. Some days will be higher, others might be lower. The scale will fluctuate and will bounce around up or down too. As long as it's within a range of maintenance weight (after the initial bump up in weight going into the diet break), then it's fine.
The diet break serves a dual purpose of relieving you from being in a constant deficit and teaching you how to maintain a sustainable weight/body fat level in the long-term. It takes a bit of mental fortitude and practice to feel comfortable, so each subsequent diet break will be a bit easier, assuming you want to continue another round of dieting. The easiest way is to eat the same food you would on a diet, just eat more of it and maybe an extra treat or something to top it off.
We all want to be aesthetically pleasing (read: look good naked), but trying to shoot for the bottom of body fat comes with its own set of problems. That said, I have no idea what your bf% is or your level of experience, but being around optimal levels is usually the best of both worlds. You'd be lean enough to not be at risk for most metabolic issues and still be comfortable walking around without a shirt.6 -
I agree with eating what you eat on a deficit just more of it. It's easier to get back to your deficit after the diet break than if you just go all willy nilly.
My experience anyway. 4 -
Been lazily planning my treats for my diet break (thanks Sainsbury's). I plan to start my diet break a week on Monday, and I'm ready for it! 8 weeks at deficit is much more doable for me by the looks of things. The planning aspect has been great, when I've really fancied something it's gone on my diet break list, and half of those things are now off the list (apparently Creme eggs are no longer Dairy Milk, how dare they).
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Carlos_421 wrote: »I started reading this thread way late so I’m nowhere near caught up on the discussion but just wanted to report:
I started my first diet break on Sunday. It’s only Thursday and, while I feel like it’s easy from the standpoint of I have enough calories that I don’t struggle to stay under and if I’m low for the day I just have some Oreos before bed, I feel like this is so much more mentally taxing than eating at a deficit.
I find myself longing for the two weeks to be over (I seriously have more than another week to go?!?!) so I can get back to a deficit and start losing again.
*waves hi to Carlos!!*3 -
Terebynthia wrote: »Been lazily planning my treats for my diet break (thanks Sainsbury's). I plan to start my diet break a week on Monday, and I'm ready for it! 8 weeks at deficit is much more doable for me by the looks of things. The planning aspect has been great, when I've really fancied something it's gone on my diet break list, and half of those things are now off the list (apparently Creme eggs are no longer Dairy Milk, how dare they).
I gave up Creme Eggs (along with many people) when they stopped making them in NZ. Those UK ones are just wrong.2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Terebynthia wrote: »Been lazily planning my treats for my diet break (thanks Sainsbury's). I plan to start my diet break a week on Monday, and I'm ready for it! 8 weeks at deficit is much more doable for me by the looks of things. The planning aspect has been great, when I've really fancied something it's gone on my diet break list, and half of those things are now off the list (apparently Creme eggs are no longer Dairy Milk, how dare they).
I gave up Creme Eggs (along with many people) when they stopped making them in NZ. Those UK ones are just wrong.
Agreed! They're disappointingly ordinary now.0 -
Need some advice from you lovely people.
At of the beginning of the year after reading this thread, I restarted diet/refeed days. I did great for about a month, lost 4 kg.
Then, I got sick. And then, it was lunar new year in this part of town, which means ungodly amounts of social eating, visiting, sitting around for like 10 days. I gained 2 of the 4 kg back (figured some of it was water weight).
I finally got back on a deficit this week, planning to do a refeed after 7 days of dieting (since that's when glycogen stores get depleted), and then continue on to a refeed day every 5th and 7th day of the week (as I was doing regularly that first month).
First four days, I was hungry, cranky, but whatever, eating less sucks. I managed it (1.500 cals for a gal that maintains at 2,090).
Yesterday, I was on track for meeting my goal basically all day, and then things happened that made me very emotional and angry with myself. So I binged. Brownies, beans, oranges, anything I could get my hands on until my stomach hurt.
Long story short: yesterday I emotionally and in an unplanned way, ate over cals.
Here's the question: do I start my 7 day count all over again? Or do I consider it a "refeed" day? Except because of the binge, I don't feel I got the mental and emotional break from dieting that refeeds usually give me (and that help with lowering stress). Instead I'm more stressed.
Do I ignore it and stay with the plan to have a refeed in two days?....But at that point am I even on a diet, considering it would push me further from having a deficit at all this week?
Would love to hear your ideas about where to go from here.6 -
It’s a refreshing day. It’ll be healthier for you mentally. Do something that makes you feel good the next day: exercise, get outside, meditate, journal. Tomorrow is a new day. Focus on that and planning better ways to handle similar situations if they should arise.1
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