Of refeeds and diet breaks

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  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    @mmapags - I really like the idea of a diet break. Or a gym break. In fact, I think that concept should be entitled "But, we were on a break!". For some reason, that phrase sounds really familiar to me (not that I ever watched Friends on TV....no, sir! Never). Most people have never heard of that concept....or believe that it is valid. Kinda like telling a person who is 5'3" @ 200lbs but is eating 700 Calories a day that "Girl, you need to eat a heck of a lot more food"......you get the "you are telling a fat person to eat more....and, a whole lot more at that?" response. But it is absolutely the right thing to do.

    And, I do not know, @sardelsa , if you saw the video from Lyle McDonald on this topic? Likely the one that @mmapags is referencing.

    She has mentioned that she had skimmed it. But, yeah, I get you. Both Gym breaks and Diet breaks are beneficial but counter intuitive and some people have trouble wrapping their brain around it.
  • CynthiasChoice
    CynthiasChoice Posts: 1,047 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Oh, and another thing - after 5 days on a diet break, I'm sleeping again! I knew something was off with me because I've always been blessed in regards to sleep. My head hits the pillow and within 5 minutes I'm out. Not true though for the last several months. At bedtime, my mind just wouldn't turn off, and there's no particular issue in my life to explain that sort of restlessness. High cortisol would explain it though.

    I've gotten some great sleep the last two nights. I hope it's a sign that my hormones are balancing, and not just carb crash.

    Yep, that's hormones rebalancing :)

    I was meaning to ask how you are finding the extra carbs. From memory, you keep them low to help with cravings? Any problems there?

    Good memory! I'm postmenopausal and inactive due to bilateral knee injuries and a shoulder injury, so my TDEE is low. It's been my experience that keeping carbs and sugars down helps me keep cravings at bay, so yes, that has been a concern this past week and something I'm keeping an eye on. I've had a few episodes of angst and wanting to dive into a binge even when I didn't feel hungry. I caved yesterday. After eating too much sugar (BBQ sauce and a pear) at lunch, I then polished off a full pint of Halo Top mid afternoon. UGH! I ended up close to my macros by end of day, but I was disappointed in myself. It usually just takes a cup of tea or tall glass of water and a distraction to head off overeating.

    I need some practice with balancing thoughts of "I can have more now" with "I need to take care of myself." I will start keeping data on times and circumstances of cravings so I know what to do next diet break. With 40 more pounds to lose, I'll be at this another year or more. Actually... the rest of my life! Reading some maintenance threads might also be a good idea.

    So happy to see so much activity on this thread! See, I didn't steal your thunder!!
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    mmapags wrote: »
    @mmapags - I really like the idea of a diet break. Or a gym break. In fact, I think that concept should be entitled "But, we were on a break!". For some reason, that phrase sounds really familiar to me (not that I ever watched Friends on TV....no, sir! Never). Most people have never heard of that concept....or believe that it is valid. Kinda like telling a person who is 5'3" @ 200lbs but is eating 700 Calories a day that "Girl, you need to eat a heck of a lot more food"......you get the "you are telling a fat person to eat more....and, a whole lot more at that?" response. But it is absolutely the right thing to do.

    And, I do not know, @sardelsa , if you saw the video from Lyle McDonald on this topic? Likely the one that @mmapags is referencing.

    She has mentioned that she had skimmed it. But, yeah, I get you. Both Gym breaks and Diet breaks are beneficial but counter intuitive and some people have trouble wrapping their brain around it.

    Yea I have been watching bits and pieces, hopefully I can watch the whole thing at some point start to finish. I know he does mention women and the benefits, and how the cals are usually pretty low and they tend to be more glycogen depleted. See me, well, my cutting calories are higher than most in the first place so I had no issues there. But I did find refeeds helped my gym performance (energy to do high volume and strength increases), hormones seemed fine (I didn't lose my cycle), and adherence was great, I typically don't have binging tendencies so it is hard to say if the refeeds helped that or it was just how I am.

    And yea it is a hard thing to wrap your head around when you have a specific goal. Especially for me, I didn't want to delay getting into my bulk, and I kept thinking.. "I'm going to be upping the cals soon when I bulk anyways, so just hang in there". But ya, I think I am going to try more diet breaks this time around especially if I want to do a more aggressive deficit (which I wasn't able to do this past cut).
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    edited October 2017
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    Im attempting a longer refeed now. Im so lost xD Scary stuff. I wanted to focus on spreading my meals out more, Since i struggle to need to eat pretty constantly now. But im guessing not worth trying to overlap eating more and spreading out. So ill just focus on eating more anyway. I already eat very high carb. Just want to fix this damn appetite LOL.

    Iv known all along i needed a refeed but i ignored it and chugged on, 110 pounds down im now 125 pounds and starving non stop no matter what i do i cant stop thinking of food every hour xD No matter the macros. Whoops :p Hopefully upping calories a bit will help (ill try my hardest to match fitbit but it worries me lol) Seems to up my calories im upping my sodium, alot. Weird lol.

    Really hope it helps the starving things only been since i got pretty lean
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    jesslla wrote: »
    Yesterday was my first of fourteen days of my first purposeful diet break, and it was harder than I expected. I know I obviously ate enough to gain 150 pounds, but I'm so used to eating at a deficit that eating more than that is unexpectedly hard.

    It's only 500 or so extra calories, but I was so full last night after I got all my normal deficit calories in. And I may have overestimated my popcorn calories, so I might have not gotten alllllllll my calories in. Oops.

    Today I had some calorie dense cookies, so it'll be easier. ;) I'll be eating a lot of peanut butter for the next two weeks!

    It is an adjustment. No doubt. The more you do it, the better you get at it though. You got this!
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
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    sardelsa wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    sardelsa wrote: »
    Interesting. This past cut I did a calorie cycle where I would bring the cals up a bit more on lifting days and especially on weekends. I don't know if I was doing it right because while most of the extra cals came from carbs, fats usually went up too. Not sure if he addresses this in the video as I only skimmed trough it briefly, but how do you know if you are doing refeeds correctly? Did it really matter? I only really felt drained at the end (of 16 weeks) at which point I just headed into maintenance. I didn't do any formal diet breaks during that time. I am not a competitor or anything, so I did not get that lean, but I would say lean enough that these high cal days were necessary!

    You were intuitively doing pretty close to the right thing. IIRC, Lyle recommends raising carbs but keep fats the same or lower during the short refeed windows. But, you didn't hurt yourself any. You are pretty lean, so it was a smart thing to do.

    The one thing I'd consider on your next cut is a 2 week full diet break every 6 to 8 weeks. It's help make your cut more efficient and probably have you feeling so drained at the end. 16 weeks is a long grind without a break both mentally and physiologically!

    Yes definitely, while I made it through, looking back I probably would have benefit from a good diet break weeks before reaching that breaking point. I kept thinking "but what's the point, I'm so close to the end...." (however, I underestimated how far I really was from the end) now I know better and see the benefit. Each bulk/cut I learn a little bit more, do things a little differently, become a little more successful.

    This was me too, I was aiming to lose a mighty 3.5 kg, but then I watched some of Lyle's podcasts specifically on women, and was like 'oh, actually...'. So my diet break was at Week 6. I definitely recommend checking some of those out. The ones with Abbey Orr are the most recent, so have his latest thoughts from the book he's writing (actually editing now!): https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/podcasts/epic-podcast-with-abbey-orr-of-first-base-fitness.html/

    Oh and yeah, you're lean! Way more so than me.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    edited October 2017
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    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    Im attempting a refeed now. Im so lost xD Scary stuff

    Lol. If attempting a traditional refeed, keep it simple: eat 4-5g of carbs per pound of body weight. Leave your protein and fat where it is.

    Example: if you currently weigh 115lbs and your macros are something like 100p/45f/100c, then your refeed carb macros would range from 460 - 575g. If you can't hit that many carbs, then that's fine. That's just an example of the traditional refeed.

    Otherwise, just bump up carbs (and maybe a little fat) until you are at maintenance calories.

    EDIT: I just saw your edited post... if you're already at high carb, what's your protein currently at? If hunger is an issue, bumping up protein instead of carbs usually addresses it due to its satiety index.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
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    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    Im attempting a refeed now. Im so lost xD Scary stuff. I wanted to focus on spreading my meals out more, Since i struggle to need to eat pretty constantly now. But im guessing not worth trying to overlap eating more and spreading out. So ill just focus on eating more anyway. I already eat very high carb. Just want to fix this damn appetite LOL.

    Iv known all along i needed a refeed but i ignored it and chugged on, 110 pounds down im now 125 pounds and starving non stop no matter what i do i cant stop thinking of food every hour xD No matter the macros. Whoops :p Hopefully upping calories a bit will help (ill try my hardest to match fitbit but it worries me lol)

    I really think you'd benefit more from a full diet break, Jayde. You've been at this a long time and it will really help to get your hormones in check and bring your appetite in line. Then maybe regular refeeds going forward.
  • Nony_Mouse
    Nony_Mouse Posts: 5,646 Member
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    Thanks for the cliff notes @anubis609 :)

    I was slightly worried when I saw my notification bell with all those replies. I admit my instant reaction was 'damn it, who broke my thread and turned it into an argument???'. Once again, pleasantly surprised :)
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
    edited October 2017
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    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    Thanks @Nony_Mouse!

    I was on a deficit for 5 weeks at 50% carbs, then went on a 4 weeks maintenance (not by choice but because as you said, my performance was just tanking and going back to maintenance helped with hunger). Now, I'm back to a deficit again and upped to 60%. I really like the idea of a regular weekly refeed.

    And yeah, I was looking for a quick answer :blush:... sorry!

    I'll forgive you this time @maybyn ;)

    Refeed is awesome, though be warned, if you're like me and tend towards higher fat (I'm generally around 70-80g, but can easily be as high 100g), keeping that down around 50g is hard work! Whether a 'by the book' refeed is necessary, or just having weekends at maintenance is enough is the question! One I'm pretty sure will be answered in Lyle's forthcoming book for us wimmin folks.

    This thread is fabulous - thanks for posting the video, even if it's blocked on my work computer and I keep forgetting to fire it up at home. I have read through the links though. I've been very curious about the effect of maintenance weekends personally, as I've been eating at or above maintenance probably 1 day out of 3 or 4 since I started losing (usually but not always weekends), and at least 9.5 months and 32 pounds in have not felt any negative effects of being in an overall deficit. Certainly I'm not losing as fast as I could, but it's been steady enough that I'm quite happy and feel optimistic going into year two. After reading the link on https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/ I feel extra bad for folks who are really impatient to lose/stressed out about water gains/worried a single day over goal will ruin everything.

    Being in an overall deficit is what drives fat loss. Full stop. How you achieve a net deficit is a personal choice.

    As a summary of 5 pages worth of info:

    - As soon as you're in a deficit, hormonal changes happen for everyone, though there is a delayed response before you even feel it. Caveat: if you have a lot of weight to lose, you may not feel those effects until you're leaner.

    - The concept of refeeds are to address downregulated hormonal responses, primarily leptin, which responds to levels of body fat, but carbs trigger an upregulation of leptin faster than fat can; due to the nature of delayed response, smaller refeed schedules probably aren't doing much; therefore, longer refeed schedules actually bumped up leptin levels as close to baseline as possible (it's never true baseline until you're no longer on a diet). Caveat: glycogen depletion allows for higher carb intake without actual fat gain and somewhat "tricks" fat cells into thinking there is permanent energy storage happening to signal leptin - it is not a free for all pass to eat all the things.

    - 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.

    - If after the diet break period, you still need (or want) to lose more body fat, then continue another round of dieting. If you no longer need (or want) to lose body fat and you are at a satisfactory level of personal health, comfort, happiness, etc., congrats, you've won the dieting game and can continue maintaining *your new lower weight* AKA don't get fat again.

    - Not discussed in this particular podcast, but the general advice among the fitness and nutrition science community is
    1) don't get fat in the first place if you're lean,
    2) if you are starting from being overweight, don't regain what you've lost,
    3) the more overweight you were at your starting point, the easier it is to rebound AKA you gain fat faster than your naturally leaner counterparts - it sucks but it's true,
    4) continually gaining and losing large amounts of body fat is more detrimental than losing it once and maintaining, and finally,
    5) there is a range of optimal body fat % for the human body (extremely variable due to demographic), where having both, too much and too little, are harmful.

    Just as an additional observation, it's good to be mindful of your intake whether you're tracking calories/macros/micros/etc., but don't get neurotic about it, which is why the concept of flexible dieting exists, such as following something like the 80/20 rule. If you are recovering from an ED or some other dysfunctional relationship with food, recognize your triggers and be aware if you are falling into old patterns and/or developing new ones that detract from the goal of an acceptable form of general health, mental and physical.

    I did read all five pages before commenting (I realize I only mentioned the links, my apologies), and I certainly didn't mean my comment to sound like I wasn't trusting CICO. I really am enjoying reading the discussion - apparently I sounded a bit more like a moron chiming in there than I meant to! But I'm sure the summary would be quite awesome for newcomers to the thread, as there is a lot of information there.

    ETA: The part I meant to respond to was the idea of diet breaks "providing a psychological reprieve from the deleterious effects of dieting" as you very nicely put it. I just meant to observe that from my single data point, eating at or above maintenance on a regular basis has seemed to negate those psychological effects.
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
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    Lol no problem @Nony_Mouse .. I saw all the responses and thought maybe the refresher could come in handy.. though it seems like it'll quickly get lost too
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
    edited October 2017
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    anubis609 wrote: »
    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    Im attempting a refeed now. Im so lost xD Scary stuff

    Lol. If attempting a traditional refeed, keep it simple: eat 4-5g of carbs per pound of body weight. Leave your protein and fat where it is.

    Example: if you currently weigh 115lbs and your macros are something like 100p/45f/100c, then your refeed carb macros would range from 460 - 575g. If you can't hit that many carbs, then that's fine. That's just an example of the traditional refeed.

    Otherwise, just bump up carbs (and maybe a little fat) until you are at maintenance calories.

    EDIT: I just saw your edited post... if you're already at high carb, what's your protein currently at? If hunger is an issue, bumping up protein instead of carbs usually addresses it due to its satiety index.

    ignore my high carb i guess 500-600 carbs sounds insane to me id have to eat soooo many calories lol i average 200-300- ivbeen hitting my macros dif foods and meal times and messing with them, still hungry. And cravign the worst foods (cookies and donuts and nachos yes please) i have to assume its just the big loss and the struggle to up my calories consistently.
  • sardelsa
    sardelsa Posts: 9,812 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    sardelsa wrote: »
    mmapags wrote: »
    sardelsa wrote: »
    Interesting. This past cut I did a calorie cycle where I would bring the cals up a bit more on lifting days and especially on weekends. I don't know if I was doing it right because while most of the extra cals came from carbs, fats usually went up too. Not sure if he addresses this in the video as I only skimmed trough it briefly, but how do you know if you are doing refeeds correctly? Did it really matter? I only really felt drained at the end (of 16 weeks) at which point I just headed into maintenance. I didn't do any formal diet breaks during that time. I am not a competitor or anything, so I did not get that lean, but I would say lean enough that these high cal days were necessary!

    You were intuitively doing pretty close to the right thing. IIRC, Lyle recommends raising carbs but keep fats the same or lower during the short refeed windows. But, you didn't hurt yourself any. You are pretty lean, so it was a smart thing to do.

    The one thing I'd consider on your next cut is a 2 week full diet break every 6 to 8 weeks. It's help make your cut more efficient and probably have you feeling so drained at the end. 16 weeks is a long grind without a break both mentally and physiologically!

    Yes definitely, while I made it through, looking back I probably would have benefit from a good diet break weeks before reaching that breaking point. I kept thinking "but what's the point, I'm so close to the end...." (however, I underestimated how far I really was from the end) now I know better and see the benefit. Each bulk/cut I learn a little bit more, do things a little differently, become a little more successful.

    This was me too, I was aiming to lose a mighty 3.5 kg, but then I watched some of Lyle's podcasts specifically on women, and was like 'oh, actually...'. So my diet break was at Week 6. I definitely recommend checking some of those out. The ones with Abbey Orr are the most recent, so have his latest thoughts from the book he's writing (actually editing now!): https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/podcasts/epic-podcast-with-abbey-orr-of-first-base-fitness.html/

    Oh and yeah, you're lean! Way more so than me.

    Thanks for the link, I will check it out!
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
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    anubis609 wrote: »
    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    maybyn wrote: »
    Thanks @Nony_Mouse!

    I was on a deficit for 5 weeks at 50% carbs, then went on a 4 weeks maintenance (not by choice but because as you said, my performance was just tanking and going back to maintenance helped with hunger). Now, I'm back to a deficit again and upped to 60%. I really like the idea of a regular weekly refeed.

    And yeah, I was looking for a quick answer :blush:... sorry!

    I'll forgive you this time @maybyn ;)

    Refeed is awesome, though be warned, if you're like me and tend towards higher fat (I'm generally around 70-80g, but can easily be as high 100g), keeping that down around 50g is hard work! Whether a 'by the book' refeed is necessary, or just having weekends at maintenance is enough is the question! One I'm pretty sure will be answered in Lyle's forthcoming book for us wimmin folks.

    This thread is fabulous - thanks for posting the video, even if it's blocked on my work computer and I keep forgetting to fire it up at home. I have read through the links though. I've been very curious about the effect of maintenance weekends personally, as I've been eating at or above maintenance probably 1 day out of 3 or 4 since I started losing (usually but not always weekends), and at least 9.5 months and 32 pounds in have not felt any negative effects of being in an overall deficit. Certainly I'm not losing as fast as I could, but it's been steady enough that I'm quite happy and feel optimistic going into year two. After reading the link on https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/why-big-caloric-deficits-and-lots-of-activity-can-hurt-fat-loss.html/ I feel extra bad for folks who are really impatient to lose/stressed out about water gains/worried a single day over goal will ruin everything.

    Being in an overall deficit is what drives fat loss. Full stop. How you achieve a net deficit is a personal choice.

    As a summary of 5 pages worth of info:

    - As soon as you're in a deficit, hormonal changes happen for everyone, though there is a delayed response before you even feel it. Caveat: if you have a lot of weight to lose, you may not feel those effects until you're leaner.

    - The concept of refeeds are to address downregulated hormonal responses, primarily leptin, which responds to levels of body fat, but carbs trigger an upregulation of leptin faster than fat can; due to the nature of delayed response, smaller refeed schedules probably aren't doing much; therefore, longer refeed schedules actually bumped up leptin levels as close to baseline as possible (it's never true baseline until you're no longer on a diet). Caveat: glycogen depletion allows for higher carb intake without actual fat gain and somewhat "tricks" fat cells into thinking there is permanent energy storage happening to signal leptin - it is not a free for all pass to eat all the things.

    - 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.

    - If after the diet break period, you still need (or want) to lose more body fat, then continue another round of dieting. If you no longer need (or want) to lose body fat and you are at a satisfactory level of personal health, comfort, happiness, etc., congrats, you've won the dieting game and can continue maintaining *your new lower weight* AKA don't get fat again.

    - Not discussed in this particular podcast, but the general advice among the fitness and nutrition science community is
    1) don't get fat in the first place if you're lean,
    2) if you are starting from being overweight, don't regain what you've lost,
    3) the more overweight you were at your starting point, the easier it is to rebound AKA you gain fat faster than your naturally leaner counterparts - it sucks but it's true,
    4) continually gaining and losing large amounts of body fat is more detrimental than losing it once and maintaining, and finally,
    5) there is a range of optimal body fat % for the human body (extremely variable due to demographic), where having both, too much and too little, are harmful.

    Just as an additional observation, it's good to be mindful of your intake whether you're tracking calories/macros/micros/etc., but don't get neurotic about it, which is why the concept of flexible dieting exists, such as following something like the 80/20 rule. If you are recovering from an ED or some other dysfunctional relationship with food, recognize your triggers and be aware if you are falling into old patterns and/or developing new ones that detract from the goal of an acceptable form of general health, mental and physical.

    I did read all five pages before commenting (I realize I only mentioned the links, my apologies), and I certainly didn't mean my comment to sound like I wasn't trusting CICO. I really am enjoying reading the discussion - apparently I sounded a bit more like a moron chiming in there than I meant to! But I'm sure the summary would be quite awesome for newcomers to the thread, as there is a lot of information there.

    Not at all. As I discussed with @Nony_Mouse, I tend to generalize my response to everyone reading and the summary was just to bring any newcomers up to speed, with just some additional notes. I just addressed your specific example a bit curtly, so my apologies, but my intention was to say that you're doing fine with your strategy as long as you were creating an overall deficit, you will achieve your fat loss goal.
  • JaydedMiss
    JaydedMiss Posts: 4,286 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    JaydedMiss wrote: »
    Im attempting a refeed now. Im so lost xD Scary stuff. I wanted to focus on spreading my meals out more, Since i struggle to need to eat pretty constantly now. But im guessing not worth trying to overlap eating more and spreading out. So ill just focus on eating more anyway. I already eat very high carb. Just want to fix this damn appetite LOL.

    Iv known all along i needed a refeed but i ignored it and chugged on, 110 pounds down im now 125 pounds and starving non stop no matter what i do i cant stop thinking of food every hour xD No matter the macros. Whoops :p Hopefully upping calories a bit will help (ill try my hardest to match fitbit but it worries me lol)

    I really think you'd benefit more from a full diet break, Jayde. You've been at this a long time and it will really help to get your hormones in check and bring your appetite in line. Then maybe regular refeeds going forward.

    1-2week refeed seems the same to me as a diet break maybe i got the terms wrong, But im going to be trying 2 weeks (the fact it scares me made my mind up on 2 weeks vs 1) of eating at maintenance according to my fitbit- Will be scary because say 1600ish on lazy days, But days i work i can burn upwards of 2500-3000...that sounds insane to someone who has averaged 1200-1700 for 18 months lol
  • MegaMooseEsq
    MegaMooseEsq Posts: 3,118 Member
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    Nony_Mouse wrote: »
    Thanks for the cliff notes @anubis609 :)

    I was slightly worried when I saw my notification bell with all those replies. I admit my instant reaction was 'damn it, who broke my thread and turned it into an argument???'. Once again, pleasantly surprised :)

    Sorry, that was my fault. >.<