Confession time

lwoodroff

I may be the sole voice of disagreement here, but so be it.

Lydia - how long has it been since you have taken an honest-to-goodness diet and lifting break? Not 2-3 days, but a solid week of eating to satiation and resting your muscles? Because not being able to control yourself around food sounds to me like your body is trying to tell you something. Strength training is hard. Hard on your muscles, hard on your cells, hard on your CNS. And that's why it's so awesome - but you also need to rest occasionally. And eating at a deficit is the same way. If you have been doing it for too long, and making hard physical demands on your body, eventually it will rebel, plain and simple. Giving it a break every 6-8 weeks can help keep you on track.

At 5'11", your weight seems a bit on the low side to me. Heck, at 5'4" I am 162, and not really planning on losing too much more scale weight (fat yes, weight no). You have made awesome progress in your lifting - but we all have to remember that it takes time! And one day (or week) our bodies might need to hold on to more water and get fluffy, and the next week they might not and will let all that go - but as long as you are consistently lifting heavy and doing a little cardio, you aren't going to gain back what you have lost, fat-wise, unless you start eating WAAAAYYY over your TDEE.

Speaking of, how long has it been since you have calculated your TDEE? I know this is totally anecdotal, but I want to share this with you as an example: I had stopped progressing on my lifts, couldn't recover fast enough, was getting achey. So I took a week off, and I have been slowly moving towards my TDEE - that means I am up from 1900 to 2400. And you know what? I got puffy for about a week, and then the puff went away. I am maintaining at 2400, so now I"m going to go up to 2500 and see what happens. And so forth, until I figure out where I start truly gaining weight (not just water as my cells soak up nutrients). And once I find that number, I'll cut back to a small deficit (nothing over 500 calories). This is just one approach - but I figured out in the last few months that unless I can eat normally WHILE I am losing fat, I will NEVER be able to keep that fat gone. Ever.

Again, anecdotal, my experience, ymmv, etc. - but I wanted to throw it out there that maybe there are other alternatives. Probably not the most common viewpoint you will find on MFP, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

not disagreement, another perspective my dear thank you.
to be frank though, my last week-long break was only a couple of weeks ago - gym on sunday 14 July, the inlaws came on the tuesday, we flew to Barcelona on the Wed, back late Sat, inlaws left on the Monday, gym on the Tues - very deloaded and over a week later, my mum came on the Wed so Sunday was the next session, I made it to the gym on Tuesday but giving blood tonight so Sunday will be the next opportunity. Then Tuesday and maybe Thursday next week, before we go to Devon for a week (some toddling along at 4-year-old pace will likely be the only exercise I do then!).

so yes, I've deloaded, I've had over a week's break, I've logged poorly if not at all for weeks, and certainly haven't held back on the food!

I've got my target in my diary set to 1800 with no exercise cals but that's only for mind games - my real target is 2000 but when that was in my diary I was sailing past it gleefully..

I think what has happened recently is that I do just get rebellious every few months, like I said it's been nearly 3 1/2 years I've been tracking and logging, and over 2 since I hit 'goal' (whatever that means lol! in this case it was 'normal BMI').. so I think it's not surprising sometimes I just feel like saying 'sod it'...

I've only worked out my TDEE once, and that was with someone's help (maths has always been scary since I had a ghastly teacher who humiliated me age 7/8)! however I can't believe it's changed much since March as my weight has gone up from around 175 to where it is now, I know some will be glycogen/water/whatever, but I can't believe 5-7lbs up will have had a massive TDEE impact? very open to your expert thoughts though!

sadly at 5'11" (and once it was 11 and 3/4 but I think I've shrunk!), my weight is currently just into the 'overweight' BMI. I know BMI is a crock but I'm not so muscled as for that to be irrelevant. I'd like to be within normal BMI (which really means lose about 4lbs..) just for peace of mind. Having said that I started at 29.9BMI, .1 off 'obese' so I'm still pretty chuffed!

kirabob

It's good that you've had a lifting break - I hadn't realized that.

BMI is only useful as a comparison to the population as a whole - it is pretty much useless as an indicator of health. I know you know that, but it bears repeating. The stronger indicators of health are do you feel good? Do you do things you enjoy? Do you sleep well?

Here's the TDEE calc I use - I will often dial in a lifting day and a rest day, then average everything out because I like to eat about the same amount each day.

http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

This is the one the Amber Rogers from gokaleo.com recommends, and I've had several doctor type friends tell me it's the most accurate one they have come across.

2000 is probably fine for you on a rest day - but I imagine with your bike HIIT on a lifting day you need closer to 3000 - which would explain why you often 'blow by' 3000.

lwoodroff

ooh will take a look, thank you!

the hiit is only about 7 mins on the bike including 3x20seconds furious pedalling.. so not huge!

right, thanks for the link, plugged it in at 20 mins a day moderate exercise (3x week strength training) and 10 mins/day standing/walking (even upping this a little makes v little diff to the cals).

it puts my BMR at 1836, and TDEE at 2622, so I think I need to a) up my cals to 2000/day and maybe a wee bit more on lifting days? and b) track to see what I am ACTUALLY doing, and see what has an impact!

kirabob

Yes! Be aware that as you up your calories you will have a period of time where you are retaining water and glycose - that's your cells thanking you for the much-needed nutrients they have been missing. It will go away. And your lifting will get super duper awesome.

And you HAVE to stand/walk more than 10 minutes a day. You have to, right? Just sayin'. . .

For me, the whole point of fiddling with all this is to find the place where I can trust my hunger signals, and move enough that I don't have to be afraid of eating. No point, IMO, of rushing to get to a place that I can't then sustain.

lwoodroff

I fiddled with ten to thirty minutes of that and it affected cals by about 30 so not enough to be relevant!