Of refeeds and diet breaks

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Replies

  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    Oh, protein powder, mine aren't sweetened, and the plain is literally plain.
  • HDBKLM
    HDBKLM Posts: 466 Member
    Thanks to everybody for the plain powder info.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    @JerSchmare If you'd rather read.
    https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/

    I thought there was one on refeeds too but not coming up with it. It may be back in the first few pages.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    JerSchmare wrote: »
    I will NEVER watch this. Can someone summarize?

    Oh and @JerSchmare, if you've been at a deficit for a while, diet break is where you should start anyway. This explains all: https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/

    And yes, handy synopsis on p.6. There's a more recent one, but I forget which page.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    mmapags wrote: »
    @JerSchmare If you'd rather read.
    https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/

    I thought there was one on refeeds too but not coming up with it. It may be back in the first few pages.

    Dammit!!

    Nope, no article on refeeds, we discuss them at length in the first several pages, but as I said, diet break is what Jer probably needs first, unless he's already done that.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    @JerSchmare If you'd rather read.
    https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/

    I thought there was one on refeeds too but not coming up with it. It may be back in the first few pages.

    Dammit!!

    Nope, no article on refeeds, we discuss them at length in the first several pages, but as I said, diet break is what Jer probably needs first, unless he's already done that.

    Agreed.
  • alteredsteve175
    alteredsteve175 Posts: 2,726 Member
    ZoneFive wrote: »
    ACV. With, uh, witch hazel/coffee/green tea/mud. And plastic wrap.

    "You're killin' me, Smalls". That whole thread was hilarious!

  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    Takes me an absolute age to get rid of water weight, nothing I have tried has any significant impact. Sigh.

    Yeah, I was actually thinking of you when that realisation hit. I was all, 'I know it's water, but what if it doesn't come off and I stay a blimp' ('cept with water instead of helium or whatever, no floating skywards for me!) :'(

    That's pretty much where I am right now. Because ... yeah. Wits end, because surely water weight cannot hang around for this long.

    My dietitian says it can six months to a year for things to completely settle out. There are no words to describe the face I made at her (the words out of my mouth at her were along the lines of "Oh hell no."). She said with a client she had where it took a year, she was impressed that they managed to not kill each other during that time.
  • GottaBurnEmAll
    GottaBurnEmAll Posts: 7,722 Member
    collectingblues wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    Takes me an absolute age to get rid of water weight, nothing I have tried has any significant impact. Sigh.

    Yeah, I was actually thinking of you when that realisation hit. I was all, 'I know it's water, but what if it doesn't come off and I stay a blimp' ('cept with water instead of helium or whatever, no floating skywards for me!) :'(

    That's pretty much where I am right now. Because ... yeah. Wits end, because surely water weight cannot hang around for this long.

    My dietitian says it can six months to a year for things to completely settle out. There are no words to describe the face I made at her (the words out of my mouth at her were along the lines of "Oh hell no."). She said with a client she had where it took a year, she was impressed that they managed to not kill each other during that time.

    OMG, six months? That's really a long game.
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »
    collectingblues wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    Takes me an absolute age to get rid of water weight, nothing I have tried has any significant impact. Sigh.

    Yeah, I was actually thinking of you when that realisation hit. I was all, 'I know it's water, but what if it doesn't come off and I stay a blimp' ('cept with water instead of helium or whatever, no floating skywards for me!) :'(

    That's pretty much where I am right now. Because ... yeah. Wits end, because surely water weight cannot hang around for this long.

    My dietitian says it can six months to a year for things to completely settle out. There are no words to describe the face I made at her (the words out of my mouth at her were along the lines of "Oh hell no."). She said with a client she had where it took a year, she was impressed that they managed to not kill each other during that time.

    OMG, six months? That's really a long game.

    Hence my look at her of "WTF?!"
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    I hate those days where despite following my protein targets, I am simply hungry All Stupid Day long.

    I get the feeling that this is one of those "I'm going to hit TDEE whether or not I actually want to" sort of days. Because this is ridiculous.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    collectingblues wrote: »
    I hate those days where despite following my protein targets, I am simply hungry All Stupid Day long.

    I get the feeling that this is one of those "I'm going to hit TDEE whether or not I actually want to" sort of days. Because this is ridiculous.

    Listen to your body, m'dear :)
  • collectingblues
    collectingblues Posts: 2,541 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    collectingblues wrote: »
    I hate those days where despite following my protein targets, I am simply hungry All Stupid Day long.

    I get the feeling that this is one of those "I'm going to hit TDEE whether or not I actually want to" sort of days. Because this is ridiculous.

    Listen to your body, m'dear :)

    Oh, I'm feeding it. I am not amused -- and every fiber of my brain is shouting "You'll never get the weight off at this rate!" -- but I am begrudgingly giving in.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    collectingblues wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    collectingblues wrote: »
    I hate those days where despite following my protein targets, I am simply hungry All Stupid Day long.

    I get the feeling that this is one of those "I'm going to hit TDEE whether or not I actually want to" sort of days. Because this is ridiculous.

    Listen to your body, m'dear :)

    Oh, I'm feeding it. I am not amused -- and every fiber of my brain is shouting "You'll never get the weight off at this rate!" -- but I am begrudgingly giving in.

    Same, same.

    I had to fight big time to (almost, missed by 89 cals) hit TDEE yesterday. But a big part of that was the nausea that came along for the ride with the afternoon flare.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    ZOMG, between my two lots of sleep, Fitbit says I got 9 hours 40! I sure as hell don't feel like it.

    Not really capable of coherent thought (or spelling), barely into first coffee. Need to make breakfast so I can get pred in. Day 5, yes it will be both doses.

    Oh, and just like weight loss is not linear, neither is pred-induced water gain it seems, same as yesterday. Small blessings. I did take extra magnesium last night, but that was more for sleep. I also put a lavender and I forget what else oil blend on my wrists and pillow, and had some Rescue Remedy sleep formula. And I patch-tested some manuka honey on my thigh yesterday evening too. Go on, woo away.

    Oh, funnily enough, AVC is actually meant to work for eczema, like legit, supported. Refuse to try it on principle.

    Jesus, do you apply the ACV topically? Because that would hurt like a mofo.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    VintageFeline wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    ZOMG, between my two lots of sleep, Fitbit says I got 9 hours 40! I sure as hell don't feel like it.

    Not really capable of coherent thought (or spelling), barely into first coffee. Need to make breakfast so I can get pred in. Day 5, yes it will be both doses.

    Oh, and just like weight loss is not linear, neither is pred-induced water gain it seems, same as yesterday. Small blessings. I did take extra magnesium last night, but that was more for sleep. I also put a lavender and I forget what else oil blend on my wrists and pillow, and had some Rescue Remedy sleep formula. And I patch-tested some manuka honey on my thigh yesterday evening too. Go on, woo away.

    Oh, funnily enough, AVC is actually meant to work for eczema, like legit, supported. Refuse to try it on principle.

    Jesus, do you apply the ACV topically? Because that would hurt like a mofo.

    Exactly. *kitten* that. It's like the suggestion I saw to put mentholated stuff on for cooling. Um, no.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    edited December 2017
    Okay, I didn't log yesterday's weigh in, and am still in two minds about bothering while I'm on the pred, because of the skewing and the ridiculous amount of time Trendweight will take to catch up again once it starts to drop off.

    Do I, don't I? @PAV8888, you're the resident trend expert, what say you?
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    Yeah, I've been really diligent about it since first diet break, even massive ovulation/pms spikes, for science and data, but this is kinda different. I'm writing it down, so I can always retro-log.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,299 Member
    Your call as to how much it might upset or not upset your mental hamsters ;-)

    Short answer is that any spike you record will be slow to uptick and slow to downtick and will show you extra weight in your trending weight even after the water weight goes down.

  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
    It's not so much upsetting the mental hamsters (over it), as it is useless data that doesn't mean anything. I like having the hormonal swings recorded because that's actually useful for predicting when things are happening.

    In other news, a baked potato with chilli beans for lunch in heat, ugh, what was I thinking??? Oh, that's right, potassium.

    It's meant to rain Monday week. Like proper, torrential initially (yeah, that's just gonna run off), followed by the rest of the day of moderate to heavy. I will believe it when I see it. River might flood though, which is always cool to go look at.
  • skinnyjingbb
    skinnyjingbb Posts: 127 Member
    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    anubis609 wrote: »
    bioklutz wrote: »
    psuLemon wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    @Nony_Mouse, @anubis609, thank you for your kind words. They help tremendously. I've actually booked a session with a therapist just last week after my really bad episode. It took me seeing what others were going through in this thread and other threads here that prompted me to do it, something I would never have done previously. Fingers crossed!
    psuLemon wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    A small update from me - so much so for the accuracy of my numbers.

    Quite an embarrassing confession to make but in the midst of all the conversions from kg to pounds (which I do for this forum and a couple of others), I had my calculations set up as 3500 cals = 1kg, not 1 pound. So my rate of loss the past 4 months was double what it should have been if the 3500 cals = 1 pound rule was taken.

    For the science-y people in or reading this thread who may be interested, here are my numbers. And for those who may be scared to up their calories, so many great testimonials already from others who have posted but here's mine. While my monthly numbers do not match projected scale drops each month likely due to water weight, TOM, binging vs whoosh effect etc etc but taken overall, the numbers match (apart from the fact that I need to look at the CO part carefully now since my garmin may not be as accurate as I thought).
    d3jher5d9sva.png

    (ETA: October was the start of the Refeed approach)

    I'm officially on a diet break now (aka maintenance) and will be on this till probably around March next year.

    So you ate almost 1000 calories more and still lost weight.

    Dont let the main forums now, they will freak the hell out.


    Sorry if that has been pointed out, 4 pages behind lol

    :) IKR!

    It was this thread that helped me decide to stick to upping cals and going maintenance (refeed) with a higher deficit. I think it was the whoosh effect which I mentioned right at the beginning (first few pages) of this thread AND not to mention, my training got sooo much better too. That was when I thought Holy hell, something's working here!

    Next mission - finding how high I can go with calories!!

    I actually almost want to make this a separate thread. Because the whole concept of eat more to lose more *kitten* blows peoples minds. I know I did it (went from 1800 to 2300 calories). Too many people just think in linear fashion that they can't fathom increase in EE driven by increase in calories (i.e., spontaneous changes in NEAT or increase in TEA).

    I was actually thinking about this the other day. I have found that there is kinda of a calorie sweet spot for me. If I eat 1300/1400 I can not sustain that. I am STARVING. I can eat 1500 for a short period of time. After about 2 weeks I am cranky and my energy is very low. I start to conserve. I am move around a lot less, I don't fidget. If I eat around 1650 I seem to lose about the same amount as I would @ 1500. My energy levels are much better and I move around more.

    Exactly. Not to mention TEF also plays a part in increased calorie intake, protein having the greatest effect, followed by carbs; fat is almost negligible but contributes to circulating FFAs and storage if consumed along with overfeeding. Interestingly, you basically become a human oven when you overfeed, especially protein. So even at higher calculated calorie intake, the body ticks up in metabolic processes to digest it, resulting in increased NEAT for most people.

    And see, this is a catch 22 for me, because the last thing I want is to be hotter!!

    Breakfast finally eaten at almost midday (I did have some yoghurt first thing to take my pred), 60g of protein down the hatch so far.

    Is sesame an EFA? My pizza bases are sprouted seed, not sure if there's flax in there as well. Meh, I'll just pour some flax oil on that sucker!!

    I got blueberries as well as strawberries at market this morning @anubis609 :) . And watermelon plants!! Must get some strawberry plants to put in too. This all involves me creating a garden bed somewhere, which is going to have to be an evening activity of course :\ I have a wee bed at the edge of the deck that some strawberries can go in, just have to weed it. Watermelon garden will require turfing some grass and enriching the soil. AKA using ma muscles!

    Oh and my friend who is here kindly doing some weed whacking for me confirmed that he too thinks the mystery bush in my back garden may be a blueberry!! No signs of fruit on it atm though :(

    There are only so many ways I can spin this into something completely unsavory for public consumption, but now that I've put that all in everyone's minds, you're welcome :lol:

    I'd trade you weather for a while. It's colder and dry af here. And score for the berries! Gimme.

    I'm not sure what the conversion rate of flax based omegas is to bioavailable DHA/EPA but better than none at all :wink:

    skinnyjingbb wrote: »
    Just saw this thread when I read else where about break up big weight loss into stages. I was 190lbs 40 days ago and now lost 17lbs by keeping to 1000 to 1200 calorie per day. My goal weight is 140lbs, so I am thinking to take a break after 160lbs maintain it for a month or so, eating about 1500 calorie per day so my body won't go into starvation mod. For now, I do have cheat meal so basically I would have one 1500 day a week.
    Does any one have similar experience and have any suggestions? Do you think a break is a good idea?

    Oh boy. I'm glad you've found this thread, and while it's a trudge, there are some links and podcasts in the early pages that might help you better understand how the body reacts to large deficits for an extended period of time.

    Firstly, starvation mode is a myth. Adaptive thermogenesis is the correct term that correlates with the body down regulating hormones and activity to match the amount of limited energy coming in. It will adapt in both directions and it will adapt at homeostasis.

    Secondly, what you refer to as "cheat meals" is what we refer to as a structured refeed. It's a purposeful overfeeding period to bring hormonal response back up as high as it can get temporarily before it drops back down.

    Thirdly, as you become leaner, your body will fight back harder to try and maintain its fat stores from depleting. Any weight lost will come from muscle if not eating enough protein and strength training to prevent muscle wasting, leading to the unwanted status of "skinny fat."

    Like @Nony_Mouse stated, these numbers and weights are out of context to your question, but at the very least, even calculating your BMR at minimum 1730kcal is the rough estimate, and even if we were to take absolute sedentary status as a multiplier, 173 x 0.9 = 1557kcal/day is about the minimum your body could still be losing body fat, assuming protein was accounted for to reduce loss of lean mass.

    Trying to slam calories as low as humanly possible is not sustainable long term, and thinking you can maintain at levels of BMR are only encouraging an eating disorder or an unhealthy association to scale weight and food intake.

    Without knowing anything else about you, no one can really give any real advice, though if you've been on a continuous deficit this entire time, take a couple weeks from dieting and eat at your new calculated maintenance at your current weight. Take the time to figure out your protein needs (roughly ~1g per pound of your ideal/goal weight, but that need increases when in a deficit), then choose to focus on either higher carb or higher fat, or a balance of both (depends on your preference).

    If you haven't taken a liking to any activity yet, then my recommendation will be to include some form of resistance training and progressively increase the challenge over time.

    Thank you for all your reply, I am little less than 5'3 and 30 yr female, so 1200 is the suggestion I got for goal of 2 lbs a week. I do want to clarify that my daily calorie log on mfp is around 1000 to 1200 except for cheat day, but I mostly eyeball the portion size and I am Asian, so a lot of food don't have accurate nutrition info, I used mfp before and find I probably under estimate sometime. The fast weight loss is most water weight In the first week, after that is 1.5 to 2 lbs per week. I am doing lower carb, no sweets or bread or rice etc, but still eat lots of veg and some fruit, even occasional small piece of dark chocolate. I used online calculator saying based on my profile I need about 1600 per day to maintain. So that's why I was thinking 1500 as maintainance level. I just started do light cardio 20-30 min around 3 times a week but a bit worried about eating back exercise calorie.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    I just want to commend @GottaBurnEmAll for the insight. It’s definitely a mental barrier to see and recognize what we may have done in the past vs what we choose to do now. But it’s exemplary of my suggestion to navigate through recognized triggers. We can either deny them for what they are (usually results in past behavior) or accept them and control what we do with them (new modified behavior).

    It’s also a really good example of how to recognize signaling when your body is asking for its own refeed. Because we can reason with ourselves and white knuckle through the signal, it represses the initial urge only to come back later. Again, it’s all an undulating wavelength that we go through. There are moments of hedonic signaling for whatever reason (stress, reward, recovery, repletion, etc., expressed as ravenous hunger) and moments of homeostatic satiety, usually signified as days where we just aren’t generally hungry.

    There’s no right way to eat or perfect meal timing to follow. We can entrain circadian feeding just like we can train ghrelin to stimulate hunger at specific times. We can also learn to restrict or overfeed beyond signaling. The body will play along within limits and it will respond accordingly. It almost becomes philosophical because the body is that adaptive to stimuli. Trying to quantify an astronomical amount of cellular processes to a definable number representing a snapshot in time is a ball ache to say the least.

    @Maxxitt’s post probably the best representative of “it just works” and without delving too deep into the nitty gritty. And that’s perfect.

    I know just enough to be dangerous but I thrive in the somewhat explainable insanity of it all. And like that, I can get off my impromptu Saturday soapbox and assemble my squat stands.

    Today’s post brought to you by caffeine. And hypomania :D

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