Of refeeds and diet breaks

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Replies

  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    I always say I'm going to reverse diet...might actually hold at goal instead of bouncing up a kg if I did that...
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    I always say I'm going to reverse diet...might actually hold at goal instead of bouncing up a kg if I did that...

    I'm going to see what my calorie margin is by that point. If it's only 250, what's the point? If its fairly significant like it is now (trust me, I eat M & M's to make it a 500 calorie deficit daily), well then I can take my time, reverse diet, and maybe lose a few buffer pounds.

    I thought (don't have time to watch the video right now, it's my bed time) that the idea of the need to reverse diet was pretty much debunked except if you needed to do such a thing so as not to see the scale jump due to glycogen replenishment. It was my understanding that all settles out eventually on its own.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.

    So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.

    Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.

    Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.

    All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.

    The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.

  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    I kind of figure doing a diet break only a kg or so from goal I should be sweet. Not like that extra kg is going to have a huge impact on my energy needs! I may do a week at a 250 deficit (and if I hit goal by Christmas, it may be necessary after Christmas Day anyway :p ). We'll see. The real difference for me is actually going to be in continuing to log. That's my other 'I say I'm going to do it' thing, but I just end up not (and can actually maintain just fine not logging, so long as I'm mindful). But since I have strength/recomp goals, I want to make sure nutrition is on point, so logging shall continue.
  • maybyn
    maybyn Posts: 233 Member
    edited November 2017
    @GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.

    Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.

    @psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!
  • bioklutz
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.

    So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.

    Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.

    Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.

    All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.

    The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.

    I have done both. For some reason jumping right into maintenance leads me to be intensely hungry and I seem to lose control a little bit. It usually lasts about a week or so before I get it out of my system.

    If I ease into maintenance, adding calories back in slowly while monitoring my weight I am able to maintain control of my eating.

    It is actually something I had thought about. Why am I HANGRIER jumping right into maintenance? I am sure it is partially psychological but there is probably some physiological explanation for it too.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    maybyn wrote: »
    @GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.

    Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.

    @psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!

    For general health reasons and maintaining body composition, you may want to keep the CO and increase CI. Not that it has to be done this way, but being active, in and of itself, has components to optimizing nutrient partitioning and substrate storage.

    You can maybe find a balance between the two, where you decrease the volume of activity but maintaining some just to avoid complete sedentary status, and increasing a little of the intake to maintain a relatively enjoyably active lifestyle.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    I've had to remind myself this evening to not be an idiot and try to achieve a full week's deficit this week. So I had some chocolate :). Late phase luteal, and the hunger is kicking in. One more day of deficit to go.
  • CynthiasChoice
    CynthiasChoice Posts: 1,047 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    nexangelus wrote: »
    Post refeed (3days) and diet break (14 days) results:

    Start weight 26th October was 169.2 (weight is in lbs)
    Post glycogen depletion weight was 166.6
    3/11 168.4
    4/11 167.2
    It then bounced up and down 1 pound for 5 days
    10/11 168.6
    11/11 167.8
    12/11 167
    13/11 167
    14/11 166.4
    15/11 166.2
    16/11 166.2 (pre-maintenance phase weight)

    So 3lb drop in 3 weeks.

    Average calorie intake was 2200 (maybe a bit higher as forgot to log some things, oops!). Refeed cals were 2600ish so you don't have to scroll back.

    I cut out extra cardio (I usually walk for an hour in the evenings, around 4 miles) during these 3 weeks.

    Today (Thursday 16/11) I am bumping cals up to 2490 (estimated maintenance, I think I will still lose a little on this amount, but we will see) for 2 - 4 weeks. Then bumping them up to 2720 for 6 - 8 weeks.

    Will be adding back my daily evening walk as this helps relaxation before bed today until the end of January.

    I can check in again after the 2 - 4 week maintenance period (for the curious). Not sure if anyone wants to hear about gains/losses post surplus...? I know there are maintenance and bulking forums but I am not at goal yet and the bodybuilding style posts are quite intimidating...anyhow. There it is...

    We want to hear it all!!

    I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?
  • nexangelus
    nexangelus Posts: 2,080 Member
    edited November 2017
    CynthiasChoice wrote: »
    I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?

    Yes. I was in deficit pre glycogen depletion (which I did for 3 days starting the 26th Oct) then did a 3 day refeed at the 2600 cal mark and as per Lyle's instructions I took my estimated maintenance cals minus around 150 cals ( I was eating 2300 plus on some days) allowing for the body's adjustments to calories (cannot recall the scientific term). Yes I lost 3 lbs during this time, which has shown me that my estimated maintenance cals might be higher than I thought, or the refeed just helped speed up some more fat loss as had been on around 1900 - 2200 cals during deficit and had been doing more cardio (an hour extra per day walking)

    I am going into a surplus until the end of January (trying to build some more muscle mass) after a couple of weeks at full maintenance cals. I am them going to head into a deficit again in Feb 2018 to get to goal around July/August next year. So I am not going back to a deficit I am heading into a surplus, which kinda ties into the reverse dieting topic. I have had it happen before - I lost a full 5 pounds (again one a week) at maintenance cals after a 3 month deficit once...

  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    edited November 2017
    nexangelus wrote: »
    CynthiasChoice wrote: »
    I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?

    Yes. I was in deficit pre glycogen depletion (which I did for 3 days starting the 26th Oct) then did a 3 day refeed at the 2600 cal mark and as per Lyle's instructions I took my estimated maintenance cals minus around 150 cals ( I was eating 2300 plus on some days) allowing for the body's adjustments to calories (cannot recall the scientific term). Yes I lost 3 lbs during this time, which has shown me that my estimated maintenance cals might be higher than I thought, or the refeed just helped speed up some more fat loss as had been on around 1900 - 2200 cals during deficit and had been doing more cardio (an hour extra per day walking)

    I am going into a surplus until the end of January (trying to build some more muscle mass) after a couple of weeks at full maintenance cals. I am them going to head into a deficit again in Feb 2018 to get to goal around July/August next year. So I am not going back to a deficit I am heading into a surplus, which kinda ties into the reverse dieting topic. I have had it happen before - I lost a full 5 pounds (again one a week) at maintenance cals after a 3 month deficit once...

    Maintenance calories can be fine tuned .. if you’re still losing weight at your calculated number, then increase kcals. Or increase the multiplier to allow for activity levels.

    I think you have a solid plan, but I do want to just hone in on the 1 month surplus for muscle gain. Completely my own opinion, so take it as just some food for thought.

    Any appreciable muscle mass you gain (I can’t recall aforementioned strength training volume) in a month, may be negated by a 6 month deficit following that. I’m not sure what your protein macros might be, but in a deficit protein needs increase to reduce lbm loss.

    And if you’re already at a composition and training experience level well into the intermediate stages of lifting, lbm gains are going to be staggeringly slow so the surplus may need to be extended beyond a month.

    Otherwise, if you still have body fat to lose and/or are at a novice level of weight training experience, hold maintenance calories while lifting heavy weight in an increasing linear progression, and to retain as much muscle mass as possible, keep progressively lifting heavier as you slowly reintroduce your deficit and keep protein levels appropriate to your lbm / aim for ~0.7g/lb of bodyweight / eat 0.8-1.2g/lb of target goal weight (old school bodybuilding method of protein calculation).
  • nexangelus
    nexangelus Posts: 2,080 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Maintenance calories can be fine tuned .. if you’re still losing weight at your calculated number, then increase kcals. Or increase the multiplier to allow for activity levels.

    I think you have a solid plan, but I do want to just hone in on the 1 month surplus for muscle gain. Completely my own opinion, so take it as just some food for thought.

    Any appreciable muscle mass you gain (I can’t recall aforementioned strength training volume) in a month, may be negated by a 6 month deficit following that. I’m not sure what your protein macros might be, but in a deficit protein needs increase to reduce lbm loss.

    And if you’re already at a composition and training experience level well into the intermediate stages of lifting, lbm gains are going to be staggeringly slow so the surplus may need to be extended beyond a month.

    Otherwise, if you still have body fat to lose and/or are at a novice level of weight training experience, hold maintenance calories while lifting heavy weight in an increasing linear progression, and to retain as much muscle mass as possible, keep progressively lifting heavier as you slowly reintroduce your deficit and keep protein levels appropriate to your lbm / aim for ~0.7g/lb of bodyweight / eat 0.8-1.2g/lb of target goal weight (old school bodybuilding method of protein calculation).

    Third time lucky (on phone at work grrr)...

    I eat between 136 and 200g of protein per day, have been doing this since May this year.

    Surplus total of 2720 cals (might have to increase to 2970 for a bit we will see) is for 8 - 9 weeks. Maintenance is 2 weeks.

    I have never lifted heavy in surplus or maintenance, apart from once for about 6 months in 2013. Trying it to see how strong I can get and how it improves the lifting. If anything I will just get some new pbs and prs. Any recomp will be a bonus.

    Yeah being female, 43, intermediate lifter, menopausal mean this will be a challenge but I am determined to have food as my friend (not in that comfort eating binge come don't give a toss way). This is really helping even if the focus may be a tad too sharp at times....

    Thanks @anubis609 for the shedloads of insight and head nodding moments! As well as this whole darn thread : )

  • bioklutz
    bioklutz Posts: 1,365 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    bioklutz wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.

    So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.

    Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.

    Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.

    All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.

    The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.

    I have done both. For some reason jumping right into maintenance leads me to be intensely hungry and I seem to lose control a little bit. It usually lasts about a week or so before I get it out of my system.

    If I ease into maintenance, adding calories back in slowly while monitoring my weight I am able to maintain control of my eating.

    It is actually something I had thought about. Why am I HANGRIER jumping right into maintenance? I am sure it is partially psychological but there is probably some physiological explanation for it too.

    Oh, I pondered this somewhere way back in this thread. My thought was that it's perhaps a response to your body 'sensing' that there's food available again - 'quick, eat now while you have the chance!' kind of thing. No idea if that's remotely grounded in science, but it would make sense that you would be spurred on to keep finding food when it became available after a shortage, rather than just sitting around the campfire rubbing your belly.

    Makes sense! :)
  • bmeadows380
    bmeadows380 Posts: 2,981 Member
    edited November 2017
    The first 2 days after I started a diet break, my weight popped up to 282, then on day 3, settled down to 280.9 lbs from my absolute lowest point of 276.7 (which I think wasn't accurate in and of itself and was truly around 278ish). There were other factors there, such as eating out at a restaurant known for high sodium amounts, and other issues, but I've been steady on the 280.9 lbs all week.

    Would it be safe to say that the extra 2-4 lbs is water due to the extra carbs? That's what I'm hoping for, anyway, and was assuming earlier in the week (to keep myself grounded instead of panicking at the weight increase).
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    Muscles don't hold that much total glucose with water to cause that big a jump - but you are eating more, hence more food in stomach at any one time that is making it's way out undigested.
    In those endurance trained where muscles are really trying to increase them, you might have 2000 cal total through whole body. Every 500 is about 1 lb. And you never came from a total deleted state, merely topping off.

    Other reasons for water weight gain too.

    Just do the math if you think any bit of it is fat to reassure yourself.

    You'd have to be eating 250 OVER true TDEE to slowly gain 1 lb over 2 weeks.
    So even if you started out with a suppressed TDEE that slowly increased because body saw food coming in, up to potential TDEE - do you really think it was 250 over true TDEE at that point?

    And if lifting during that time - body knows what to do with the extra calories.
  • Luna3386
    Luna3386 Posts: 888 Member
    JoLightensUp wrote: »
    Thanks @CynthiasChoice, @Leeg5656 and @maybyn for the updates! It's great to read about others' experiences.

    I'm a week into my two-week diet break. I plan to give another update at around a week after I go back to deficit.

    I'll just say that I am soooo glad I took the break. I would never have thought to do this on my own...I would have just kept pushing on. My weight is up about a kilo (about 2.5 pounds) and seems to have settled there. I am a bit under the calories I was shooting for; I'm averaging around 1750 net instead of 1900. I feel content on these calories - the first few days I felt I was feasting! - and I'm unsure whether I should deliberately add things just to get my average up to 1900 or just keep plodding on as I am. Any thoughts on this?

    On another point - and this will probably sound silly to many - but I never really understood deficit and maintenance calories before I started using MFP. When I tried to lose weight by counting calories previously, the program I was using also gave me 1200 calories. I actually thought I would need to stay on those calories to lose and maintain. My thinking went like this: okay, this is how a 59kg person eats, so they give me these calories to get down to that weight and then I have to keep eating at 1200 to maintain otherwise I'll put all the weight back on. I also didn't understand water weight fluctuations and put too much emphasis on short-term changes in the scale.

    Now that I have weeks of data from MFP, I realise that 1200 creates a bit too much deficit for me anyway. But because I had misunderstood the process in my previous attempts, I thought that I was doomed to long-term failure if I didn't consistently reach 1200 forever and ever.

    Eventually I would reach a point where I would think, "This is pretty hard; I don't know that I can keep eating like this for the rest of my life!", and gradually go back to my snacky habits to curb my hunger.

    I feel I've got a better chance at getting to goal and maintaining now that I have a bit more understanding.

    The diet break really does give me the feeling of a break too. And I've only been losing for 4 months! I can see how it would help people who are looking at having years in deficit. By making it a deliberate part of the process, it's giving me a feeling of "controlled freedom", so to speak. I don't feel like I am going off the rails at all; it just feels like a continuation of what I've been doing already, except with more food to enjoy. :)

    Same for me. 1200 is barely sustainable for me in a deficit and I'm a short female. Some people I think kind of put themselves in this position: if they are chronic dieters, or have only eaten at those levels for so many years, or refuse to try to eat more out of fear. I think that's the helpful things about diet breaks and refeeds, even if we aren't bikini competitors, it gives us the flexibility to practice maintenance and know we can manipulate numbers somewhat.
  • SpanishFusion
    SpanishFusion Posts: 261 Member
    JoLightensUp wrote: »
    Thanks @CynthiasChoice, @Leeg5656 and @maybyn for the updates! It's great to read about others' experiences.

    I'm a week into my two-week diet break. I plan to give another update at around a week after I go back to deficit.

    I'll just say that I am soooo glad I took the break. I would never have thought to do this on my own...I would have just kept pushing on. My weight is up about a kilo (about 2.5 pounds) and seems to have settled there. I am a bit under the calories I was shooting for; I'm averaging around 1750 net instead of 1900. I feel content on these calories - the first few days I felt I was feasting! - and I'm unsure whether I should deliberately add things just to get my average up to 1900 or just keep plodding on as I am. Any thoughts on this?

    On another point - and this will probably sound silly to many - but I never really understood deficit and maintenance calories before I started using MFP. When I tried to lose weight by counting calories previously, the program I was using also gave me 1200 calories. I actually thought I would need to stay on those calories to lose and maintain. My thinking went like this: okay, this is how a 59kg person eats, so they give me these calories to get down to that weight and then I have to keep eating at 1200 to maintain otherwise I'll put all the weight back on. I also didn't understand water weight fluctuations and put too much emphasis on short-term changes in the scale.

    Now that I have weeks of data from MFP, I realise that 1200 creates a bit too much deficit for me anyway. But because I had misunderstood the process in my previous attempts, I thought that I was doomed to long-term failure if I didn't consistently reach 1200 forever and ever.

    Eventually I would reach a point where I would think, "This is pretty hard; I don't know that I can keep eating like this for the rest of my life!", and gradually go back to my snacky habits to curb my hunger.

    I feel I've got a better chance at getting to goal and maintaining now that I have a bit more understanding.

    The diet break really does give me the feeling of a break too. And I've only been losing for 4 months! I can see how it would help people who are looking at having years in deficit. By making it a deliberate part of the process, it's giving me a feeling of "controlled freedom", so to speak. I don't feel like I am going off the rails at all; it just feels like a continuation of what I've been doing already, except with more food to enjoy. :)

    I agree with everything you just said and it mirrors my thought process of what dieting was about. My deficit is at 1200 also to loose between 1.0 - 1.5 calories per week. When I did my DB, I set my maintenance a 1750. I gained 2# the first week and kept it there the second week, but 3 days at eating at deficit again, it is gone. Good luck to you!
  • maybyn
    maybyn Posts: 233 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    @GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.

    Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.

    @psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!

    For general health reasons and maintaining body composition, you may want to keep the CO and increase CI. Not that it has to be done this way, but being active, in and of itself, has components to optimizing nutrient partitioning and substrate storage.

    You can maybe find a balance between the two, where you decrease the volume of activity but maintaining some just to avoid complete sedentary status, and increasing a little of the intake to maintain a relatively enjoyably active lifestyle.

    I do a bulk/cut cycle based around intense training for my ultra and a couple of other races. I cannot sustain such intensity all year round (because it takes a lot of time and I want to do other sports as well). When it reduces, I maintain CI (which at peak will be quite high (above 3k)) and lower it as and when hunger reduces but only to a level I'm comfortable with and compensate with doing more resistance training because I'm now in surplus and will start gaining weight.

    Based on what I've learnt from this thread though, I've been doing it wrong so I need to think about it more.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    nexangelus wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Maintenance calories can be fine tuned .. if you’re still losing weight at your calculated number, then increase kcals. Or increase the multiplier to allow for activity levels.

    I think you have a solid plan, but I do want to just hone in on the 1 month surplus for muscle gain. Completely my own opinion, so take it as just some food for thought.

    Any appreciable muscle mass you gain (I can’t recall aforementioned strength training volume) in a month, may be negated by a 6 month deficit following that. I’m not sure what your protein macros might be, but in a deficit protein needs increase to reduce lbm loss.

    And if you’re already at a composition and training experience level well into the intermediate stages of lifting, lbm gains are going to be staggeringly slow so the surplus may need to be extended beyond a month.

    Otherwise, if you still have body fat to lose and/or are at a novice level of weight training experience, hold maintenance calories while lifting heavy weight in an increasing linear progression, and to retain as much muscle mass as possible, keep progressively lifting heavier as you slowly reintroduce your deficit and keep protein levels appropriate to your lbm / aim for ~0.7g/lb of bodyweight / eat 0.8-1.2g/lb of target goal weight (old school bodybuilding method of protein calculation).

    Third time lucky (on phone at work grrr)...

    I eat between 136 and 200g of protein per day, have been doing this since May this year.

    Surplus total of 2720 cals (might have to increase to 2970 for a bit we will see) is for 8 - 9 weeks. Maintenance is 2 weeks.

    I have never lifted heavy in surplus or maintenance, apart from once for about 6 months in 2013. Trying it to see how strong I can get and how it improves the lifting. If anything I will just get some new pbs and prs. Any recomp will be a bonus.

    Yeah being female, 43, intermediate lifter, menopausal mean this will be a challenge but I am determined to have food as my friend (not in that comfort eating binge come don't give a toss way). This is really helping even if the focus may be a tad too sharp at times....

    Thanks @anubis609 for the shedloads of insight and head nodding moments! As well as this whole darn thread : )

    You're welcome! I've only contributed what I can but any credit to starting the thread belongs to @Nony_Mouse :D

    Lifting heavy/heavier during surplus/maintenance periods are actually optimal to use those extra calories for their main purpose > to build muscle. Otherwise, there's no real metabolic reason to be in a surplus aside from reversing the effects of a cut for hormonal, psychological, and satiety purposes; or medically assisting ED patients. Working with peri or post menopausal women, strength training in general serves a greater purpose than just achieving a certain body composition. Around this time, hormonal shifts trend toward a more androgenic state of metabolism and with the decreased estrogen/increased testosterone, body fat storage becomes more centralized around the midsection, and bone health becomes much more important to salvage, strengthen, and/or maintain.

    I'll include Lyle's summary response to Alan Aragon's Research Review (https://alanaragon.com/aarr/ for those interested)

    4qou11hej2h6.png
    maybyn wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    @GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.

    Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.

    @psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!

    For general health reasons and maintaining body composition, you may want to keep the CO and increase CI. Not that it has to be done this way, but being active, in and of itself, has components to optimizing nutrient partitioning and substrate storage.

    You can maybe find a balance between the two, where you decrease the volume of activity but maintaining some just to avoid complete sedentary status, and increasing a little of the intake to maintain a relatively enjoyably active lifestyle.

    I do a bulk/cut cycle based around intense training for my ultra and a couple of other races. I cannot sustain such intensity all year round (because it takes a lot of time and I want to do other sports as well). When it reduces, I maintain CI (which at peak will be quite high (above 3k)) and lower it as and when hunger reduces but only to a level I'm comfortable with and compensate with doing more resistance training because I'm now in surplus and will start gaining weight.

    Based on what I've learnt from this thread though, I've been doing it wrong so I need to think about it more.

    Ah yes, then I wouldn't recommend you to endurance train so intensely either. That also isn't sustainable for anyone. Though, if at peak training your intake is >3k then, take the high end of your training deload average and absolutely include resistance training.

    I'm sure by now I sound like I have a bias to resistance/strength training, and I do lol, but more along the vein that it provides the most benefit when compared to aerobic activity.

    Energy balance is going to be a moving target for the most part. It hardly ever plays out to precise math (or maths for the UK friends). Don't be afraid to play around with the numbers in either direction as your body responds, taking into account age/mood/hormonal pattern/overall wellness, but in general, it's better to overshoot calorie intake estimate and taper down from there instead of the opposite.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    ZOMG, Trendweight has me at goal!! It's my old goal, I hadn't changed it yet cos I just kinda sorta wanted to see it say I was there at least once. So yay!! That was nice, because I already have my PMS bloat on, plus a little water weight from training maybe. I will now go change that by 2 kg and it can joyfully tell me how many more weeks it's going to take...

    Congrats! If you've hit your old goal during the phase of water retention, I'm going to assume that the extra 2kg isn't too far away lol.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    ZOMG, Trendweight has me at goal!! It's my old goal, I hadn't changed it yet cos I just kinda sorta wanted to see it say I was there at least once. So yay!! That was nice, because I already have my PMS bloat on, plus a little water weight from training maybe. I will now go change that by 2 kg and it can joyfully tell me how many more weeks it's going to take...

    Congrats! If you've hit your old goal during the phase of water retention, I'm going to assume that the extra 2kg isn't too far away lol.

    Yeah, it's probably more like a kg away I'd say. Previous low (scale weight) at the end of last week was 1.4 kg off goal. So weight for the first few days of diet break are going to be pretty meaningless - probably have a little more PMS bloat to put on, strength training tomorrow, full day (6-7 hours) hike on Sunday, carb-loading for that tomorrow, lots of carbs while hiking...yeah, the waters will be muddy!!

    Funnily, with doing refeeds, I am way less frustrated by scale swings than I was previously, even though they are much more dramatic. I know that my lows tend to show ~a week after ovulation and ~a week after start of TOM once hormonal water and refeed weight has wooshed off, which has so far coincided with day before/day of refeed, though that's shifting due to my not 28 day cycle.

    And thus, the psychological benefit of refeeds to promote the idea of what happens when transitioning to maintenance calories from a deficit :wink: It's a great way to get people used to the concept of controlled freedom / mindful eating / flexible dieting and learn about their own bodies in the process.

    We're not slaves to a number on scale... which reminds me of the thread last night that @VintageFeline also responded to. I didn't have the energy to go ham sandwich troll but I probably expended a good dozen calories from cringing lmao.

    Heh.

    Nony will tell you, I am about ready to go ham on my scale because I am weeks into not seeing an appreciable loss (though did have a sort of whoosh yesterday at last) but at the same time, all I have to do is look at my diary and see there is no possible way I have at worst maintained. There's a deficit but I am working with a new device with new numbers so things are a bit grey right now. Add in, as I have previously talked about, I retain water like nothing else and it really can just take seemingly forever to work out what's happening. So I have to just wait it out. If I didn't I'd be eating about 500 gross calories by this point.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    ZOMG, Trendweight has me at goal!! It's my old goal, I hadn't changed it yet cos I just kinda sorta wanted to see it say I was there at least once. So yay!! That was nice, because I already have my PMS bloat on, plus a little water weight from training maybe. I will now go change that by 2 kg and it can joyfully tell me how many more weeks it's going to take...

    Congrats! If you've hit your old goal during the phase of water retention, I'm going to assume that the extra 2kg isn't too far away lol.

    Yeah, it's probably more like a kg away I'd say. Previous low (scale weight) at the end of last week was 1.4 kg off goal. So weight for the first few days of diet break are going to be pretty meaningless - probably have a little more PMS bloat to put on, strength training tomorrow, full day (6-7 hours) hike on Sunday, carb-loading for that tomorrow, lots of carbs while hiking...yeah, the waters will be muddy!!

    Funnily, with doing refeeds, I am way less frustrated by scale swings than I was previously, even though they are much more dramatic. I know that my lows tend to show ~a week after ovulation and ~a week after start of TOM once hormonal water and refeed weight has wooshed off, which has so far coincided with day before/day of refeed, though that's shifting due to my not 28 day cycle.

    And thus, the psychological benefit of refeeds to promote the idea of what happens when transitioning to maintenance calories from a deficit :wink: It's a great way to get people used to the concept of controlled freedom / mindful eating / flexible dieting and learn about their own bodies in the process.

    We're not slaves to a number on scale... which reminds me of the thread last night that @VintageFeline also responded to. I didn't have the energy to go ham sandwich troll but I probably expended a good dozen calories from cringing lmao.

    Yeah, it's just interesting because it's not like I didn't know and understand exactly why the scale was saying whatever it was, I just seem to have gotten better at going 'meh, fat loss is under there somewhere'. Truth be told too, those weeks when hormonal weight isn't an issue, the scale drop from Monday to Friday/Saturday is pretty substantial, and I think gives me my wee 'fix' in a way that slow, incremental drops don't, even though in terms of overall loss, it's exactly the same.

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