Of refeeds and diet breaks
Replies
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Thanks @richln and @anubis609! I knew there was a sciencey reason!
Anubis, the podcasts on women's stuff cover the whole pesky menstrual cycle stuff really well. The Abbey Orr one I posted up thread is the most recent, so best we have until the book hits the shelves.
Oh yeah, I asked for the name of the thread to be changed to reflect the conversation around diet breaks too
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Thanks @richln and @anubis609! I knew there was a sciencey reason!
Anubis, the podcasts on women's stuff cover the whole pesky menstrual cycle stuff really well. The Abbey Orr one I posted up thread is the most recent, so best we have until the book hits the shelves.
Oh yeah, I asked for the name of the thread to be changed to reflect the conversation around diet breaks too
I think I found the most recent Lyle-esque, non-Lyle article that I've read from Aadam Ali (Physiqonomics).. who also is a follower of Lyle, not surprisingly. Hopefully it helps provide a bit more insight.
http://www.performanceproject.co.uk/understanding-menstrual-cycle-fat-loss-goals/3 -
This thread is full of information!
So... I watched the whole video (in fact, I can credit this thread with me having the first time EVER listening to a podcast - I had to google "how to listen to a podcast on iphone" hahaha).
I get mostly what he's saying but one thing stood out to me. Lyle's main focus (it seems) is geared towards those individuals who are either in or going into competitive/non-competitive bodybuilding or weightlifting or are keen to go down that path (even for the little women he keeps mentioning).
So how does all these relate to endurance sports athletes?
Also, when you all talk about "lean", how lean is lean? I've seen a number of guidelines on BF% online and I know Lyle talks about BF% and refeed structures, what kind of leanness should we be focusing on?
FYI, I follow Matt Fitzgerald's racing weight formula for knowing what weight and BF I should be.
In the context of body recomposition, people are going to be following standard cycles of a deficit or surplus to lose or gain mass, respectively. Physique athletes are used as the general example since they've inconsequentially been the primary image of what pushing the human body's limit to retain/build lean muscle mass while shedding subcutaneous fat. His primary focus being women is relative to his women's book that is currently being edited for publishing, though it's also because women are predominantly more prone to dieting and disrupting hormone regulation - even if it's true for all people, amenorrhea is a symptom that requires troubleshooting the diet.
Regardless of the sport, lean body mass vs fat mass is going to play a part in how well the body accommodates nutrient partitioning. Generally the leaner you are, the better your body will be at partitioning incoming food to their appropriate places. What defines lean is "subjectively objective" in the sense that you don't need to be completely shredded, but you shouldn't be overfat either. I can't think of anything off hand to counter the thought of refeeding, but endurance sport athletes are arguably much more glycolytic anyway depending on the pace of the run, but underfeeding and overtraining can completely affect performance and hormone response, so Lyle's suggested refeed schedule can still apply to address that issue.
Thanks @anubis609
I was wondering why he was talking so much about women!
I was also listening to his nutrition partitioning podcast just then and really glad I did before I read your reply. "Underfeeding and overtraining" - yes, that's my typical story the past 5 years. Lyle in fact also talked about this in that podcast.
Thanks again for all the info sharing.
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@maybyn, some text articles on the underfeeding/over-training thing:
https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/
https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/too-much-cardio-followup.html/
ETA: he talks a little about endurance athletes in the Abbey Orr podcast, part one.4 -
You're welcome @maybyn. It's probably obvious where I get a lot of my sourced information lol but venturing off into the land of research articles and biochemistry, and they all tend to verify the same pathways and function, so it becomes regurgitated information quoted by the last person who last talked/wrote about it to me.
In the grand scheme of things, if you might classify yourself under the category of "chronic dieting cardio master" perhaps try a day or two at or just a bit above maintenance and see how you feel.
Alternatively, since you might be able to afford a classic carb-up given your sport, I vaguely remember Lyle stating in another podcast or article where endurance athletes were actually super-compensated at roughly 6-7g of carbs per pound of body weight (12-15g carb/kg) just to accommodate their heavy training cycle. It's a massive amount of carbs that you actually can afford without really affecting net body composition.
*g/lb or g/kg may be at lean body weight, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it sounds much more realistic if at lbm1 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Thanks @richln and @anubis609! I knew there was a sciencey reason!
Anubis, the podcasts on women's stuff cover the whole pesky menstrual cycle stuff really well. The Abbey Orr one I posted up thread is the most recent, so best we have until the book hits the shelves.
Oh yeah, I asked for the name of the thread to be changed to reflect the conversation around diet breaks too
I think I found the most recent Lyle-esque, non-Lyle article that I've read from Aadam Ali (Physiqonomics).. who also is a follower of Lyle, not surprisingly. Hopefully it helps provide a bit more insight.
http://www.performanceproject.co.uk/understanding-menstrual-cycle-fat-loss-goals/
^^this is indeed an excellent summary of womanly weight loss issues for those who don't have the time or inclination to listen to an hour long podcast (NB the podcasts obviously do go into more detail, and cover stuff like the effects of various birth control methods, PCOS, etc). 2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »@maybyn, some text articles on the underfeeding/over-training thing:
https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/
https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/too-much-cardio-followup.html/
ETA: he talks a little about endurance athletes in the Abbey Orr podcast, part one.
Thanks @Nony_Mouse. I'll read them and get on the Abbey Orr podcast too.
I am aware of the first article as has been posted in MFP a number of times before but not the second one, not that I actually followed the advice as I started out at 1400 cals/day!!!You're welcome @maybyn. It's probably obvious where I get a lot of my sourced information lol but venturing off into the land of research articles and biochemistry, and they all tend to verify the same pathways and function, so it becomes regurgitated information quoted by the last person who last talked/wrote about it to me.
In the grand scheme of things, if you might classify yourself under the category of "chronic dieting cardio master" perhaps try a day or two at or just a bit above maintenance and see how you feel.
Alternatively, since you might be able to afford a classic carb-up given your sport, I vaguely remember Lyle stating in another podcast or article where endurance athletes were actually super-compensated at roughly 6-7g of carbs per pound of body weight (12-15g carb/kg) just to accommodate their heavy training cycle. It's a massive amount of carbs that you actually can afford without really affecting net body composition.
*g/lb or g/kg may be at lean body weight, I can't remember off the top of my head, but it sounds much more realistic if at lbm
Haha, yes, I agree with that classification. Like I said above, I know about the tension between high deficits and too much activity but being theoretically aware does not automatically mean following good advice, as you know!
The difference between the last 4 years and this year is that I didn't do well in my recent ultra (not that I'm competitive or anything of this sort of course, but I have been improving timings every year until this year where I crashed out (DNF) because of just not feeling as good as usual). So... I thought I'd start training earlier in preparation for next year and do a cut earlier. I usually gain around 8-10 lbs and train and diet down at the same time but again, it has been more difficult than usual in terms of performance hence going back to maintenance so quickly.
I think the refeed may help (among other things).
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Also, just to add:
Lyle did mention in his nutrition partitioning podcast about the 6-7g of carbs for endurance athletes. I do typical carb loading before events and I think I might investigate going above maintenance when I ramp up training (at the moment, I'm only doing around 70km/week but will go up to 150km/week by March or so).
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Also, just to add:
Lyle did mention in his nutrition partitioning podcast about the 6-7g of carbs for endurance athletes. I do typical carb loading before events and I think I might investigate going above maintenance when I ramp up training (at the moment, I'm only doing around 70km/week but will go up to 150km/week by March or so).
I haven't checked that one out yet. Tonight's dinner time listening perhaps!2 -
Listened to the nutrition partitioning podcast, I thought of you when he mentioned neurotic endurance athletes, @maybyn
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Listened to the nutrition partitioning podcast, I thought of you when he mentioned neurotic endurance athletes, @maybyn
Haha, I was thinking that too! But then again, I'm nowhere near as neurotic as those elite athletes who do crazy, extreme things to get down to their correct weight each season!
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Listened to the nutrition partitioning podcast, I thought of you when he mentioned neurotic endurance athletes, @maybyn
Haha, I was thinking that too! But then again, I'm nowhere near as neurotic as those elite athletes who do crazy, extreme things to get down to their correct weight each season!
I'm nowhere near elite, but I can guarantee I carry as much neuroticism in my diet and training
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »Listened to the nutrition partitioning podcast, I thought of you when he mentioned neurotic endurance athletes, @maybyn
Haha, I was thinking that too! But then again, I'm nowhere near as neurotic as those elite athletes who do crazy, extreme things to get down to their correct weight each season!
I'm nowhere near elite, but I can guarantee I carry as much neuroticism in my diet and training
I prefer to think of myself as diligent (though more with diet than training, I need to up my game on that front!).4 -
And I am only neurotic around this time of the year when I start training.
My natural weight is about 10 pounds higher so I have to cut each time. Otherwise, I also prefer to think myself as diligent like you, Nony!2 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »Listened to the nutrition partitioning podcast, I thought of you when he mentioned neurotic endurance athletes, @maybyn
Haha, I was thinking that too! But then again, I'm nowhere near as neurotic as those elite athletes who do crazy, extreme things to get down to their correct weight each season!
I'm nowhere near elite, but I can guarantee I carry as much neuroticism in my diet and training
I prefer to think of myself as diligent (though more with diet than training, I need to up my game on that front!).And I am only neurotic around this time of the year when I start training.
My natural weight is about 10 pounds higher so I have to cut each time. Otherwise, I also prefer to think myself as diligent like you, Nony!
Lol certainly no one *should* be neurotic. I just know I am.. or at least have a very real tendency to venture back down that path. Let's say I'm "dedicated to a flaw."2 -
I just upgraded my fitness tracker. And it got me thinking as the adjustments are higher than my previous tracker (which I know lowballed me for some stuff). I may have inadvertently slowed my losses due to under-eating a little bit, making compliance at times tricky, lowering NEAT, tanking leptin and sending cortisol skyrocketing. And the off "binge" day wasn't doing anything when you consider it didn't help leptin and the upregulation of metabolism to deal with the shock significant increase in calories.
So if nothing else this, in combination with new watch, has made me look at what I'm doing a lot more in depth and also shows that you can know all of the things and still make things harder for yourself!8 -
VintageFeline wrote: »I just upgraded my fitness tracker. And it got me thinking as the adjustments are higher than my previous tracker (which I know lowballed me for some stuff). I may have inadvertently slowed my losses due to under-eating a little bit, making compliance at times tricky, lowering NEAT, tanking leptin and sending cortisol skyrocketing. And the off "binge" day wasn't doing anything when you consider it didn't help leptin and the upregulation of metabolism to deal with the shock significant increase in calories.
So if nothing else this, in combination with new watch, has made me look at what I'm doing a lot more in depth and also shows that you can know all of the things and still make things harder for yourself!
I think this hits on why many people from observation think the undereating too much causes fat gain. (one of the starvation mode myths)
It's the lowered TDEE, those few binge days in there, each of which is easily in surplus at that time and is indeed fat gain.
So they look at averages over a period of time, and it seems to show an extreme deficit the whole time, and yet they have more fat or same at some point (by whatever inaccurate method is likely used).
This is such a refreshing topic thread, hope it's a sticky by now since the title was improved.
Other day I found an older folder just out of high school ('87, pre-internet) with cut out or copied articles in it for reference, one of them was a study showing the metabolic adaption - they didn't test in study but article suggested every 10 lb loss taking a diet break for 2-4 weeks, even back then ahead of their time.7 -
Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?0 -
VintageFeline wrote: »I just upgraded my fitness tracker. And it got me thinking as the adjustments are higher than my previous tracker (which I know lowballed me for some stuff). I may have inadvertently slowed my losses due to under-eating a little bit, making compliance at times tricky, lowering NEAT, tanking leptin and sending cortisol skyrocketing. And the off "binge" day wasn't doing anything when you consider it didn't help leptin and the upregulation of metabolism to deal with the shock significant increase in calories.
So if nothing else this, in combination with new watch, has made me look at what I'm doing a lot more in depth and also shows that you can know all of the things and still make things harder for yourself!
I think this hits on why many people from observation think the undereating too much causes fat gain. (one of the starvation mode myths)
It's the lowered TDEE, those few binge days in there, each of which is easily in surplus at that time and is indeed fat gain.
So they look at averages over a period of time, and it seems to show an extreme deficit the whole time, and yet they have more fat or same at some point (by whatever inaccurate method is likely used).
This is such a refreshing topic thread, hope it's a sticky by now since the title was improved.
Other day I found an older folder just out of high school ('87, pre-internet) with cut out or copied articles in it for reference, one of them was a study showing the metabolic adaption - they didn't test in study but article suggested every 10 lb loss taking a diet break for 2-4 weeks, even back then ahead of their time.
Perfectly explained regarding the starvation mode myth. People are notoriously inaccurate with their caloric intake, which isn't always the fault of the dieter, but typically in a lot of weight loss studies, the researchers will rely on food recall questionnaires/diaries/etc. and that skews data. So when someone either is ashamed to say they had a binge day or two, or they literally have no idea how many calories they ate, so a number is thrown in for good measure.
From one of Lyle's books back in 1998, note the importance of weight training and the mention of metabolic adaptation to slow down:
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rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
Drink lots of water and ignore it
eat at maintenance for a day
eat a couple of hundred cals more...
Whichever you feel most appropriate?4 -
rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
If I am hungry on a given day, I eat more. It doesn't happen often and 1 day occasionally isn't going to derail anything. I've also found an eating protocol involving IF and a macro mix where it hardly ever happens.3 -
rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
FYI, I tried Day 1 of a refeed yesterday.
I had aimed for maintenance but went over maintenance by 500 cals with 60c/30p/10f macros (so 2700 cals for the day) because I was hungry and did this as a deliberate choice.
Did not seem to harm my progress at all because I was down by 0.22 pounds today.
Caveat:
- It might also have something to do with me being more relaxed in the last 2 weeks since I upped my cals to a 300 deficit (all the cortisol, leptin and stuff...)
- It might also be my maintenance being higher than what I thought it was because I've been losing way faster than what I should have been on a 300 cal deficit (again, cortisol high/leptin low?? during the period when I was eating what I thought were my maintenance cals before)
I'm not even going to pretend that I know anything!!4 -
I proudly admit that most of this stuff - at the moment - went so far over my head that I did not even feel the breeze. But, be dang confident that I will 'edumacate myself' so that I might participate (outside of this silly post) in conversations like this and actually offer something of value (other than maybe a knowing smile earned from my self deprecating humor!).6
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CWShultz27105 wrote: »I proudly admit that most of this stuff - at the moment - went so far over my head that I did not even feel the breeze. But, be dang confident that I will 'edumacate myself' so that I might participate (outside of this silly post) in conversations like this and actually offer something of value (other than maybe a knowing smile earned from my self deprecating humor!).
I'll warn you, it's a very long, very deep, very windy rabbit hole once you start venturing down it. But very interesting.5 -
rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
FYI, I tried Day 1 of a refeed yesterday.
I had aimed for maintenance but went over maintenance by 500 cals with 60c/30p/10f macros (so 2700 cals for the day) because I was hungry and did this as a deliberate choice.
Did not seem to harm my progress at all because I was down by 0.22 pounds today.
Caveat:
- It might also have something to do with me being more relaxed in the last 2 weeks since I upped my cals to a 300 deficit (all the cortisol, leptin and stuff...)
- It might also be my maintenance being higher than what I thought it was because I've been losing way faster than what I should have been on a 300 cal deficit (again, cortisol high/leptin low?? during the period when I was eating what I thought were my maintenance cals before)
I'm not even going to pretend that I know anything!!
The first thing to note is you can't make any assessments of progress impact overnight. The second, your maintenance is almost certainly higher if you are losing faster than intended, hormones be damned. Particularly if you did have raised cortisol and experienced a whoosh when this reduced, it would suggest you were perhaps losing even faster with it masked on the scale.
I had a third point but my brain lost it.5 -
Never seen this before but I also have my diet arranged like this.2
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VintageFeline wrote: »rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
FYI, I tried Day 1 of a refeed yesterday.
I had aimed for maintenance but went over maintenance by 500 cals with 60c/30p/10f macros (so 2700 cals for the day) because I was hungry and did this as a deliberate choice.
Did not seem to harm my progress at all because I was down by 0.22 pounds today.
Caveat:
- It might also have something to do with me being more relaxed in the last 2 weeks since I upped my cals to a 300 deficit (all the cortisol, leptin and stuff...)
- It might also be my maintenance being higher than what I thought it was because I've been losing way faster than what I should have been on a 300 cal deficit (again, cortisol high/leptin low?? during the period when I was eating what I thought were my maintenance cals before)
I'm not even going to pretend that I know anything!!
The first thing to note is you can't make any assessments of progress impact overnight. The second, your maintenance is almost certainly higher if you are losing faster than intended, hormones be damned. Particularly if you did have raised cortisol and experienced a whoosh when this reduced, it would suggest you were perhaps losing even faster with it masked on the scale.
I had a third point but my brain lost it.
Third point, one day at maintenance (or above) is not enough to bring leptin back up, not even a little. That's not a refeed, in the sense that we are using it here. May have helped in other ways (psychological, which would have it's own effect on cortisol).
That's all my brain has right now. Maybe @VintageFeline and I should combine our brains for the day to produce full answers.4 -
So I had dinner and was still a bit hungry, so I had 100g of Fage 0% Fat Greek Yoghurt with a teaspoon of sugar for 20g of carbs and 11g protein
it appears to have done the trick
should note I walked for 90 minutes between breakfast and lunch carrying a large heavy rucksack, not sure if that has anything to do with it
I mean yesterday I did X-trainer HIIT and heavy legs weights session... and I wasn't hungry all day
gah no idea what's going on0 -
rickinnercirclebet wrote: »So I had dinner and was still a bit hungry, so I had 100g of Fage 0% Fat Greek Yoghurt with a teaspoon of sugar for 20g of carbs and 11g protein
it appears to have done the trick
should note I walked for 90 minutes between breakfast and lunch carry a large heavy rucksack, not sure if that has anything to do with it
I mean yesterday I did X-trainer HIIT and heavy legs weights session... and I wasn't hungry all day
gah no idea what's going on
Sounds like over thinking... it's one day...4 -
rickinnercirclebet wrote: »Today for the first time in my 91 days logging, I'm really hungry
I've had my usual breakfast lunch and snack but have been hungry all day despite eating.
will see what happens after dinner which is about 630 cals but I'm dreading being hungry afterwards
any thoughts?
FYI, I tried Day 1 of a refeed yesterday.
I had aimed for maintenance but went over maintenance by 500 cals with 60c/30p/10f macros (so 2700 cals for the day) because I was hungry and did this as a deliberate choice.
Did not seem to harm my progress at all because I was down by 0.22 pounds today.
Caveat:
- It might also have something to do with me being more relaxed in the last 2 weeks since I upped my cals to a 300 deficit (all the cortisol, leptin and stuff...)
- It might also be my maintenance being higher than what I thought it was because I've been losing way faster than what I should have been on a 300 cal deficit (again, cortisol high/leptin low?? during the period when I was eating what I thought were my maintenance cals before)
I'm not even going to pretend that I know anything!!
Part of the thing with free meals, refeeds, and diet breaks is that unbeknownst to logic, is that cortisol (being a primary responder to stress), actually goes down when we relax - whether that trigger to relax is to go enjoy special occasions, celebrate something, deliberately say "ah screw it all to hell, I'm not even gonna track food today" etc., and the magical whoosh happens.
In these cases, don't even question it. Just revel in the fact you had a relaxed day of eating, you lost weight, and you have a renewed outlook on dieting
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