Of refeeds and diet breaks
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Courtesy of @fernt21 who run into this "calorie shifting" (=3 day re-feeds) paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4018593/
Awesome
(cos just hitting the button wasn't enough). 2 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early
Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
So true. Based on my actual RMR testing, I'm at 1866 a day just with my walk to and from work. If I actually am able to work out? Closer to 2300.
It was a little bit of fun -- or at least reassuring -- to see that I'm one of those outliers who burns more than the Apple Watch says.2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
Hell, 3k is nothing.
Pfft, hush, big man!
0 -
JaydedMiss wrote: »It occured to me i may need a bit more thn the diet break (just finished 2 weeks after 18 months cutting) I didnt do it properly i pretty much kept uncontrollably reaching for sweet treats. My focus was purely on upping calories since i already eat alot of carbs and honestly upping calories is a scary enough step. I think I have a sugar "addiction"-I know leave the wording alone lol-
I backtracked back to when i began to feel the intense hunger and need to eat constantly (1.5ish months ago) and its been getting worse the more i gave in and tried indulging my growing sweet tooth with stevia and treats hoping itd help lol.
Been getting even worse to the point i literally CANT stop reaching for snacks. Its been horrid. Just now made the connection in my mind. I was crowding out vegetables and higher calorie proper meals to make room for more sugary stuff. Because thats all i want in the entire world lol.
Im going to continue a higher caloric intake- But only allow breakfast to be something sweet- With no stevia! And maybe some berries in a smoothie if i want or something later.
Hopefully the additional calories of properly nutritious not sweet foods and decrease of stevia will get this under control.
I totally understand. Totally. I've made up my mind countless times in the past to get control of my cravings for sweets. I would be successful for a while - and I'd feel surprisingly happy and emotionally strong (why did I keep getting surprised??!) Then I would have an off day and just crumble. After a day of high carb/high sugar consumption my resolve would melt away and then I'd slip back into weeks or months of being a slave to my cravings again.
When I started my current diet, I was afraid to hope that this time would be any different, but early on, I realized that it was that fear and my lack of confidence that was my biggest enemy. I started practicing saying positive things to myself and just flat out banishing thoughts of future failure. We've all heard this advise a zillion times, but even so, when I owned it, it felt like some kind of miraculous epiphany to me.
So that was mentally huge. The other huge revelation was a physical. My dietitian asked me to try eating plain Greek yogurt for breakfast with a few berries and nuts. Low carb and a nice dose of protein and fat. She promised that avoiding grains and sugars early in the day would set me up for success the rest of the day because my blood sugar would be more stable. She was right. She was also right when she advised to eat veggies first and hit my protein and fat goal at each meal before even thinking about carbs. It really works for me.
Sorry to be so long winded! When I read your post it was like looking at myself a year ago and I wanted to reach out and try to rescue you! And believe me, I say that with much humility.
The first few days are always hard. Looonnnggg and hard. You think the suffering will never end! But it does, and when you stick with it you end up feeling so happy not to be in the clutches of the cravings any more. I'm sure you already know that, but a little encouragement right now might help? Best wishes!1 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.4 -
JaydedMiss wrote: »atleast i dont think lol. says i burn 3k+ on some work days when i know a ton of steps added but its average says 2070ish so im thinking the fact i didnt gain or lose and was eating just a bit above what fitbit average says i was okay as far as calories, Why i think it may be the stevia ....ill miss you sugar
Normal driving no - bouncing around in a truck can add much more impact making it think you've gone much more distance - therefore calories.
Go create an activity record for a known time that you have been bouncing around - it'll show you the stats for that block of time - steps, distance, and calories.
I've seen the records of some - 200-300 cal for an hour of sitting in a bus, not even the driver - that's bad - but understandable.
Hence the workout of driving to 0 it out.0 -
Courtesy of @fernt21 who run into this "calorie shifting" (=3 day re-feeds) paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4018593/
Very nice.
Just wish (don't we always wish they'd done things a little differently) that since they acknowledged that the metabolic changes are a small result in RMR and also in daily activity, they'd found a way to easily measure the daily activity aspect of it between the groups as the interventions went on and into the followup checkups.
Obviously the results speak somewhat to the fact that while the RMR dropped around 100 cal more in the CD group, the extra fat loss of the CSD group must therefore be explained by increased calorie burn during the daily activity part of the TDEE.
Of course 100 extra calories a day still isn't anything to shake a stick at, but very curious as the participants went past the intervention and back to whatever eating style - where did daily activity move.
Still interesting method of doing it, with still some great health marker improvements.3 -
CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.7 -
CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.
I figure if I, and you @heybales, and others, keep saying it and linking the thread, it's got to get through to the general populace eventually!! I was really happy to see a couple of people linking to this today actually. Warmed the cockles of my stoney wee heart 6 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.
I figure if I, and you @heybales, and others, keep saying it and linking the thread, it's got to get through to the general populace eventually!! I was really happy to see a couple of people linking to this today actually. Warmed the cockles of my stoney wee heart
I saw that mountain you went up! You have no "wee" heart girl, you got a big 'ole heart! 4 -
Day 3 of refeed. Whew, I never thought I would be relieved to be going back to my usual carb levels and food amount. I have also had a bit of a headache and irritability going on (that might be a cold on the way or the excess carbs, I dunno yet). No hunger as such, other than being out late last evening and did not want to wait until gone 9 p.m. to get the last meal in. Defo no cravings for more sugar or carbs, have been feeling really full. Expected gain, what I lost in glyco depletion is being replenished. Looking forward to gym tonight...5
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nexangelus wrote: »Day 3 of refeed. Whew, I never thought I would be relieved to be going back to my usual carb levels and food amount. I have also had a bit of a headache and irritability going on (that might be a cold on the way or the excess carbs, I dunno yet). No hunger as such, other than being out late last evening and did not want to wait until gone 9 p.m. to get the last meal in. Defo no cravings for more sugar or carbs, have been feeling really full. Expected gain, what I lost in glyco depletion is being replenished. Looking forward to gym tonight...
Haha, yeah, that was so me after the first one too!1 -
Post eat all the things workouts are the best.3
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CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.
OMG. I've never seen an actual *number* associated with the cortisol-related retention before. That's ... enlightening.
I've stepped back from the refeeding for a bit -- I'm dealing with cyclical fun at the moment, and my dietitian gently nudged me to only work on one variable at the time, so we're tackling the sodium-or-lack-thereof issue, but I will be very interested to see what happens when I get back into the swing of it; she'd cautioned me that fixing the sodium problem would be rocky, and I wouldn't like what the scale would say, so there's that... (I'm eating more than I was, but not at a full maintenance level. There are just too many things messing with my head at the moment to make dealing with any upswings on a scale doable.)0 -
collectingblues wrote: »CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.
OMG. I've never seen an actual *number* associated with the cortisol-related retention before. That's ... enlightening.
I've stepped back from the refeeding for a bit -- I'm dealing with cyclical fun at the moment, and my dietitian gently nudged me to only work on one variable at the time, so we're tackling the sodium-or-lack-thereof issue, but I will be very interested to see what happens when I get back into the swing of it; she'd cautioned me that fixing the sodium problem would be rocky, and I wouldn't like what the scale would say, so there's that... (I'm eating more than I was, but not at a full maintenance level. There are just too many things messing with my head at the moment to make dealing with any upswings on a scale doable.)
Then constantly remind yourself that the number on the scale, which no one sees unless you are inviting them up to see you weigh naked in the morning - is meaningless by itself with no perspective.
Really.
At least add in waist measurement on non-bloated days to add some meaning regarding fat.
And only weigh on valid days to minimize known water weight fluctuations.
And the water gain from healthy levels of sodium being eaten now is spread throughout the body, even when seen on the scale. Just like the minor gain from glucose stores being topped off finally.
The upwards 20 lbs came from great Lyle article talking about stress over diet causing water weight gain even while fat is lost, then stress over no scale dropping increases it more and more, and how potential 20 weeks, 5 months, of no scale movement because of slow water weight gain - even while measurements are dropping - would certainly stress many out.2 -
collectingblues wrote: »CynthiasChoice wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
I'm not expert at this, but as someone who just did a diet break for the first time, I can share that perspective.
Before I began my diet break, I actually went back a few months and calculated my calorie averages and weight loss so that I would feel confident with estimating my TDEE. Then I compared my number to MFP's and another diet website's suggestion and saw that mine fell in the middle. In practice, I ranged from the lower to the upper number, but the 14 day average was kinda accidentally-on-purpose my number.
Because of what happened on the scale during and right after the diet break, I'm thinking I wasn't eating enough calories. I had the glycogen weight gain after 5 days, but then lost that weight on day 14, followed by a 2.5 lb loss in 6 days. That doesn't seem to add up.
Next time I do a diet break, I'm going to ease into and out of it. My first day eating at maintenance, I thought I would pop. So next time I'll increase only 300 calories the first day, then go full on for another 13 days. Afterwards, first day back on diet, I'll do the same thing so I don't feel like I'm starving to death. I'll plan to eat only 250 calories less that first day. Since getting the cortisol under control is one of the goals, it seems to make sense to take things easy.
While you may gain water attached to more stored glycogen - that's limited to about 4 lbs total weight in all the muscles of average person - and you weren't likely walking around totally depleted of muscle glycogen stores anyway - so aren't going to gain that.
But the water retained from cortisol because of a stressed out body - from being in a deep diet - that can rack on up to 20 lbs.
So water weight gained - body unstressed - more water weight lost - very expected.
It's why people that say they ate more and lost weight are usually talked down that it must have been for some other reason - like better logging by eating more (?).
The problem of extremes is just too much in the forums.
The myths of starvation mode are asked about after missing a meal or no weight loss for months (extreme) - people claim there is no mode at all (extreme) and throw the baby out with the bathwater - and just claim you must keep eating lower and lower to eventually lose (extreme), and no wonder adherence falls into binges (extreme).
Just hope people searching for topics come across this one.
OMG. I've never seen an actual *number* associated with the cortisol-related retention before. That's ... enlightening.
I've stepped back from the refeeding for a bit -- I'm dealing with cyclical fun at the moment, and my dietitian gently nudged me to only work on one variable at the time, so we're tackling the sodium-or-lack-thereof issue, but I will be very interested to see what happens when I get back into the swing of it; she'd cautioned me that fixing the sodium problem would be rocky, and I wouldn't like what the scale would say, so there's that... (I'm eating more than I was, but not at a full maintenance level. There are just too many things messing with my head at the moment to make dealing with any upswings on a scale doable.)
Then constantly remind yourself that the number on the scale, which no one sees unless you are inviting them up to see you weigh naked in the morning - is meaningless by itself with no perspective.
Really.
At least add in waist measurement on non-bloated days to add some meaning regarding fat.
And only weigh on valid days to minimize known water weight fluctuations.
And the water gain from healthy levels of sodium being eaten now is spread throughout the body, even when seen on the scale. Just like the minor gain from glucose stores being topped off finally.
The upwards 20 lbs came from great Lyle article talking about stress over diet causing water weight gain even while fat is lost, then stress over no scale dropping increases it more and more, and how potential 20 weeks, 5 months, of no scale movement because of slow water weight gain - even while measurements are dropping - would certainly stress many out.
Cognitively, I know all of this.
Eating disorder recovery is a beast, though -- that's where my brain spins out. I am not at a point where I can a) trust that it'll all work, and throw away the scales, and b) accept that it's OK to see a gain. Because I am not OK with gains. To me, a gain means failure, and that it's just going to keep spiraling up and up and up. (And this is why I am in therapy.)
Hence the dietitian wanting one variable at a time -- so that I can see that OK, it's not the end of the world, and that then we know what is causing the trigger on the scale.4 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Yep, sounds right to me too
And yeah, 1900 sounds a lot, it's not really (think, you were eating more than that to gain weight ). If you feel you're struggling to get to that, we can give you suggestions, but basically this is licence to have some of those things you may have cut out because they didn't fit your cals. Try to eat how you think you would like to once you're at goal weight.
Thanks Nony.
I only ate 1615 yesterday, but I think I didn't eat enough for breakfast and lunch and then stuffed myself for dinner but still didn't make it. I'm making adjustments for today. The scale said up 1.5# this morning, but I'm not concerned. I know that can mean anything. It goes up and down all week and then usually settles in.
I did my calories and weight loss for just this month. I came up with: I lost 5# in 28 days and my average calories were 1129 in those 28 days. So I'm shooting for 1750 calories.
I'll check back in on Monday.2 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Hi! I'm new to this thread. Thank you Nony and Cynthia for inviting me. Today I am starting my first ever planned diet break. I'm ready but a little nervous for some reason. I think it comes at a good time, because this past week (13th of eating at a deficit) my weight loss this morning was a puny .2#. I have a question. I've been eating at 1200 cal per day (short girl). MFP says to maintain eat 1750. Two other websites say around 1650 and two more say around 1940. What should I aim for?
Welcome aboard @Leeg5656! I agree with aiming higher rather than lower for estimated TDEE. For the diet break to work properly you really need to be hitting maintenance cals. If you're over by 100 a day, worse case scenario you're going to gain less than 1/2 a lb. And remember to include activity in your calculation.
@VintageFeline, no no, she really does mean 13 weeks. We netted this one early Ooooh, data from someone incorporating diet breaks from the start!
Let's see if I have this calculation correct: In 13 weeks, I've lost 20#, so an average around 1.5# / week. I estimate that I've been eating around 1150/day average (based on my last 2 weeks. I don't really feel like going back thru the last 90 days), but I shoot for just a few calories under 1200. So I've been eating at a 5,250 calorie per week deficit. /7 = 750. So I should try for 1150+750= 1,900.
Is that right? That scares me. It sounds like too much.
Was 1150 gross? Definitely a good idea to refeed!
But yep, sounds about right, you had a daily deficit of around 750 calories, possibly a bit less if we account for some water whoosh.
And trust me, once you're into the swing of it, 1900 is nothing.
Thank you Vintage!0 -
An update - it's been exactly 2 weeks since Day 1 of refeed.
It's been kinda successful although I did binge in the middle (as in huge sugar binge of 4500 cals for 2 days straight). This was mainly why I don't do calorie cycling - I had the tendency to binge if I was not consistent.
(Incidentally, I find it really sad that so many of us on this forum has some form of dysfunctional relationship with food).
So anyhow, average calories were 2171 cals/day for the 2 weeks. In total, I lost 1.1 lbs for the 2 weeks, obviously with wildly fluctuating daily weights due to TOM and the binges.
I have to say that I did not experience hunger at all and when I was hungry, I ate. In this respect, I think the refeeds were highly successful because I've always previously been hungry when on a "diet".7 -
An update - it's been exactly 2 weeks since Day 1 of refeed.
It's been kinda successful although I did binge in the middle (as in huge sugar binge of 4500 cals for 2 days straight). This was mainly why I don't do calorie cycling - I had the tendency to binge if I was not consistent.
(Incidentally, I find it really sad that so many of us on this forum has some form of dysfunctional relationship with food).
So anyhow, average calories were 2171 cals/day for the 2 weeks. In total, I lost 1.1 lbs for the 2 weeks, obviously with wildly fluctuating daily weights due to TOM and the binges.
I have to say that I did not experience hunger at all and when I was hungry, I ate. In this respect, I think the refeeds were highly successful because I've always previously been hungry when on a "diet".
I personally think anyone on any diet ever has had some fashion of dysfunction with their food. It's not necessarily a bad thing, just an observational thing from my perspective. Some people never had a problem with food until they became aware of it. Kind of like overcomplicating the simplicity of: Eat when you're hungry, but not too much. If you're gaining some fat, move a bit more or eat a bit less. If you're losing too fast, eat a bit more. If you're fine where you are, keep doing what you're doing.
I mean it's really cool that we delve deeper into the science of body composition, but a lot of times most normally functional people miss the forest for the trees.7
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