Of refeeds and diet breaks
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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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?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".
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.
Yeah, I guess. It's also a matter of degree of dysfunction, I think.
Someone with full blown ED and self-harm tendencies would usually/generally have issues other than just simply a bad relationship with food, while a "dieter" who's learnt about CICO may be totally obsessed with calorie counting because they've become aware of how energy balance works.
I never had a healthy relationship with food since I was a teen so I've never experienced "normal" weight management, only know it through my personal observation of others lol.0 -
CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
Nope, the article Heybales is talking about was about women.1 -
CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
And it's not muscle stored water because of like glucose storage. So muscle mass doesn't matter.
If I recall it was actually men that had less potential - because you know - less hormones to deal with - because we probably couldn't anyway.0 -
CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
And it's not muscle stored water because of like glucose storage. So muscle mass doesn't matter.
If I recall it was actually men that had less potential - because you know - less hormones to deal with - because we probably couldn't anyway.
I've definitely noticed over the past few years that I retain more fluid...0 -
Because it's come up several times in posts, and usually misunderstanding about it anyway in regards to diet.
Sodium - mechanisms.
Just happen to be in my recommended feed today.
While the topic is show prep - he discusses the aspect of cutting sodium to water retention, and what it causes as a backfire basically. Interesting.
https://youtu.be/Hk7Wa8p1kD0 2 -
Day after the refeed. Scale has dropped back to day one of refeed weight. I actually felt lighter and tighter last night post workout as well, was expecting a full on puff. Nope. First surprise, but maybe not to those who have done this before. It looks like I am going to be losing a little more weight than I thought, before the maintenance phase starts. All good.
This process has really helped me see what happens when I overfeed, etc. Although I was a bit nervous before I began this phase, I am no longer as anxious at all. Science works and these guys and gals that have done all this wonderful research are just as much "heroes" and inspiration as the athletes (and us average folk too) that use all this info to get to where they/we are going. Not saying it was a total walk in the park, but heck, it is going to make everything a little less stressful and more, dare I say fun? Thanks Lyle, thanks to the OP and all the people who have posted in this thread.
The only downside has been the nagging headache I have been experiencing the past 2 days. I will be back post diet break in another 2 weeks.7 -
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.
A lot more ladies on the general forum need to read this stuff, as this seems to be what quite a few seem to be experiencing. It is hard to advise them what to do or not to do, when they are so stressed out about not losing weight...this could be a lightbulb moment for some of them...
3 -
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'm new to this thread. What is TOM?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".
I'm new to this thread. What is TOM?
Time Of the Month - she has her period.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".
I'm new to this thread. What is TOM?
Shark week
Aunt flo
the great red express
I'm sure there are more labels for it but TOM means time of the month.4 -
Yes it could be - sometimes the stress is the amount of deficit, and people also don't like to hear lose slower.
I always describe it as we have these personal lines of stress limit for us - when we go over the bad stuff starts.
And all the stresses in life add up to that line.
You could have enough, diet, injury, lack of sleep, ect - that say food choices start being a factor of negative effects.
But under that line, your body has ability to deal with the stress of those food choices.
Or other stresses don't matter as much.
Some stresses we have control over, some we don't. Lighten the ones we can, which could mean amount of deficit isn't good at high level.
5 -
- As counterintuitive as it is: the leaner you are, the less dieting you need to do to continue fat loss with optimal hormone response; therefore, instead of extended periods of refeeds, more frequent, small refeed periods tend to work better.
- Diet breaks are different from refeeds. They are extended periods of maintenance feeding at your new lower weight to practice long-term weight loss habits. No one wants (or should want) to chronically diet forever or be on repetitive bulk/cut cycles. They also have the benefit of providing a psychological reprieve from the deleterious effects of dieting. Again, it's not a free pass to eat all the things, but you do get more wiggle room.
@anubis609
I haven't watched the video yet and haven't read through the rest of this thread yet... But I struggle with listening and reading these things and applying it to myself. For years I lost weight by eating less (while breastfeeding, I've lost weight 4 times in my life: after my original gain and then after each of my 3 kids. I'm back at the weight I seem to always get down to but no further) and exercising (some weights but not compound lifts)- I knew nothing about anything science related haha. Honestly, most of this stuff goes over my head.
I'm not lean. I'm probably around 30% bf. I lost ~25 pounds earlier this year, then stalled. I believe I was just trying to cut my calories too much and could no longer adhere to it. I did do a maintenance break in September.
Am I supposed to refeeds 2 days a week even though I'm not lean and have no plans on a sub 22-24% body fat or competing? How do I set my deficit up on the other days without dropping too low? What should my macros be? Would 6 weeks of deficit, 2 weeks of maintenance be a good cycle plan?0 -
- As counterintuitive as it is: the leaner you are, the less dieting you need to do to continue fat loss with optimal hormone response; therefore, instead of extended periods of refeeds, more frequent, small refeed periods tend to work better.
- Diet breaks are different from refeeds. They are extended periods of maintenance feeding at your new lower weight to practice long-term weight loss habits. No one wants (or should want) to chronically diet forever or be on repetitive bulk/cut cycles. They also have the benefit of providing a psychological reprieve from the deleterious effects of dieting. Again, it's not a free pass to eat all the things, but you do get more wiggle room.
@anubis609
I haven't watched the video yet and haven't read through the rest of this thread yet... But I struggle with listening and reading these things and applying it to myself. For years I lost weight by eating less (while breastfeeding, I've lost weight 4 times in my life: after my original gain and then after each of my 3 kids. I'm back at the weight I seem to always get down to but no further) and exercising (some weights but not compound lifts)- I knew nothing about anything science related haha. Honestly, most of this stuff goes over my head.
I'm not lean. I'm probably around 30% bf. I lost ~25 pounds earlier this year, then stalled. I believe I was just trying to cut my calories too much and could no longer adhere to it. I did do a maintenance break in September.
Am I supposed to refeeds 2 days a week even though I'm not lean and have no plans on a sub 22-24% body fat or competing? How do I set my deficit up on the other days without dropping too low? What should my macros be? Would 6 weeks of deficit, 2 weeks of maintenance be a good cycle plan?
@Luna3386 - Without you needing to go to deep into the science, I'm going to keep it simple. If you have fat to lose, aim for fat loss with a reasonable deficit and train to support your diet. Have a day or two in the week to have a maintenance day (maintenance based on your weight), and yes you can be on that style of deficit planning for 6 weeks and maintain your new lower weight for about 2 weeks and do it again.
Mind you, your deficit calories do not need to be very low in the first place. Aggressive dieting has its place, but for lifelong sanity and health, you do not need to diet aggressively.
After you've set your calories, you set protein to ~1g/lb of bodyweight. Carbs and fat are going to be pure preference for your food choices. You can either have higher carbs and lower fat, or you can have higher fat and lower carbs, or you can have a little bit of both. No matter what, those macros are going to fit into your calculated deficit.
Everything I've just said is the synopsis of this humorous but accurately written article by Aadam Ali. It's not science deep and it's not written for people in the industry. It's for everyone: http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/7 -
CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
IKR?
TIL that bouncing around in a truck can really mess with a Fitbit and that cortisol is nutso.
Speaking of truck bouncing, Jayde, do you know how to log that in Fitbit?0 -
CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
And it's not muscle stored water because of like glucose storage. So muscle mass doesn't matter.
If I recall it was actually men that had less potential - because you know - less hormones to deal with - because we probably couldn't anyway.
Since hormones are a factor, would the potential be less for women after menopause?
....asking for a friend.6 -
@Luna3386 - Without you needing to go to deep into the science, I'm going to keep it simple. If you have fat to lose, aim for fat loss with a reasonable deficit and train to support your diet. Have a day or two in the week to have a maintenance day (maintenance based on your weight), and yes you can be on that style of deficit planning for 6 weeks and maintain your new lower weight for about 2 weeks and do it again.
Mind you, your deficit calories do not need to be very low in the first place. Aggressive dieting has its place, but for lifelong sanity and health, you do not need to diet aggressively.
After you've set your calories, you set protein to ~1g/lb of bodyweight. Carbs and fat are going to be pure preference for your food choices. You can either have higher carbs and lower fat, or you can have higher fat and lower carbs, or you can have a little bit of both. No matter what, those macros are going to fit into your calculated deficit.
Everything I've just said is the synopsis of this humorous but accurately written article by Aadam Ali. It's not science deep and it's not written for people in the industry. It's for everyone: http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/
Thanks @anubis609
I'm really trying to do this the right way. No more babies for me so I have no reason to gain weight in the future, and I don't plan on it.
I've used that website to calculate my calories and macros: higher carb because too much fat gives me awful digestive issues and stomach pains. I'm assuming refeeds days would still increase calories by increasing carbs even if my fats are at the lowest end (25%). I didn't see where to calculate maintenance so I added ~300 in carbs to those days. And I'm guessing diet breaks will increase all of my macros, not just carbs.
I think I'm at the point where I can't diet aggressively, at least not during this school year where I already feel burnt out. Which leads me to my problem: a lack of patience.
And since a higher percentage of body fat is resting right on my midsection it makes me feel larger than I really am. Just have to keep my focus on myself and not focus on others.
Too bad mfp doesn't have an option to easily switch between calorie/macro ranges for these refeeds.0 -
- As counterintuitive as it is: the leaner you are, the less dieting you need to do to continue fat loss with optimal hormone response; therefore, instead of extended periods of refeeds, more frequent, small refeed periods tend to work better.
- Diet breaks are different from refeeds. They are extended periods of maintenance feeding at your new lower weight to practice long-term weight loss habits. No one wants (or should want) to chronically diet forever or be on repetitive bulk/cut cycles. They also have the benefit of providing a psychological reprieve from the deleterious effects of dieting. Again, it's not a free pass to eat all the things, but you do get more wiggle room.
@anubis609
I haven't watched the video yet and haven't read through the rest of this thread yet... But I struggle with listening and reading these things and applying it to myself. For years I lost weight by eating less (while breastfeeding, I've lost weight 4 times in my life: after my original gain and then after each of my 3 kids. I'm back at the weight I seem to always get down to but no further) and exercising (some weights but not compound lifts)- I knew nothing about anything science related haha. Honestly, most of this stuff goes over my head.
I'm not lean. I'm probably around 30% bf. I lost ~25 pounds earlier this year, then stalled. I believe I was just trying to cut my calories too much and could no longer adhere to it. I did do a maintenance break in September.
Am I supposed to refeeds 2 days a week even though I'm not lean and have no plans on a sub 22-24% body fat or competing? How do I set my deficit up on the other days without dropping too low? What should my macros be? Would 6 weeks of deficit, 2 weeks of maintenance be a good cycle plan?
@Luna3386 - Without you needing to go to deep into the science, I'm going to keep it simple. If you have fat to lose, aim for fat loss with a reasonable deficit and train to support your diet. Have a day or two in the week to have a maintenance day (maintenance based on your weight), and yes you can be on that style of deficit planning for 6 weeks and maintain your new lower weight for about 2 weeks and do it again.
Mind you, your deficit calories do not need to be very low in the first place. Aggressive dieting has its place, but for lifelong sanity and health, you do not need to diet aggressively.
After you've set your calories, you set protein to ~1g/lb of bodyweight. Carbs and fat are going to be pure preference for your food choices. You can either have higher carbs and lower fat, or you can have higher fat and lower carbs, or you can have a little bit of both. No matter what, those macros are going to fit into your calculated deficit.
Everything I've just said is the synopsis of this humorous but accurately written article by Aadam Ali. It's not science deep and it's not written for people in the industry. It's for everyone: http://physiqonomics.com/fat-loss/
Why are you repeating what I keep telling people?
Oh, wait a second... maybe I am repeating what YOU have been saying!
--I quoted your post verbatim on my MFP wall <with attribution> 4 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
And it's not muscle stored water because of like glucose storage. So muscle mass doesn't matter.
If I recall it was actually men that had less potential - because you know - less hormones to deal with - because we probably couldn't anyway.
Since hormones are a factor, would the potential be less for women after menopause?
....asking for a friend.
Somewhat it appears. This is one side reference to the fact that not everything changes just because some hormones are gone or a lot less (or more).
Not sure why the link for specific time, doesn't start at specific time - which is 1 hr 28 sec
https://youtu.be/6846ZTBu08k?t=1h28s
3 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »CynthiasChoice 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.
20 pounds? That just sounds insane. Surely that's for a large man with enormous muscle mass?
And it's not muscle stored water because of like glucose storage. So muscle mass doesn't matter.
If I recall it was actually men that had less potential - because you know - less hormones to deal with - because we probably couldn't anyway.
Since hormones are a factor, would the potential be less for women after menopause?
....asking for a friend.
Somewhat it appears. This is one side reference to the fact that not everything changes just because some hormones are gone or a lot less (or more).
Not sure why the link for specific time, doesn't start at specific time - which is 1 hr 28 sechttps://youtu.be/6846ZTBu08k?t=1h28s
Ha! I had listened to that podcast and that part specifically and had totally forgotten about it. I have some issues with memory, though. Thanks for the reminder.1
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