Maintenance calories to break plateau?

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syrcaid
syrcaid Posts: 31 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
So I've been struggling with the same few pounds for awhile now(2 months), despite tracking everything and drinking lots of water and being extremely dilligent. I do calorie cycling, so some days I eat 1300 calories, some days it's 1900 calories, but it averages to about 1550 calories per day over the course of a week, which should be well within what I need to lose(I am 5'7" 163 lbs--- have lost a total of 32 lbs since late January). But instead I'm just playing around within a 2 pound range.

In the past, some times when I hit a stubborn wall, I have "taken a break", so to speak. And this seemed to work well for me. This does not mean eating like crap or giving up, but rather eating at maintenance---or at least higher than I have been averaging for a little while. Still eating healthy, clean foods, however. I guess my reasoning would be to give the body a break. Let it relax and adjust to it's fairly quick 30 lb drop. Take it off the defensive "save the fat" mindset?

Do you think this would be helpful for a small amount of time? Let it "reset" and start fresh(but this time with a much lower start weight)?

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  • mexiana
    mexiana Posts: 79
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    http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html

    http://www.leighpeele.com/diet-break-plan

    GOD I hope so, because I'm a week into my "diet break" Same deal, I've lost 50 since January 1st, but only about 5 has come off in the past 8 weeks or so. Makes sense that your body gets used to fewer calories and becomes more efficient. My only problem is, it's REALLY hard for me to eat healthy AND eat that many calories! I mean, we're talking 1,000 more than usual! Then to top it off I haven't been working out either because that'd just be ANOTHER 300 or so calories I'd have to re-eat! I'm going to do it for another week, today I'm starting to do better at logging (or so I'm telling myself!) and get my water in and watch sodium only while still eating at about maintenance because I'm having a REALLY hard time watch the scale go up even though I know it's from the high sodium foods and extra sugars I've been taking in without drinking much water. Also today, I'm getting back to my workouts regardless. I miss them!!! Read the links I posted for info on "diet breaks" some highly well regarded people are recommending it :)
  • melsinct
    melsinct Posts: 3,512 Member
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    That's essentially how I busted my plateau. Funny, I am also 5'7"and and plateaued around 160! I upped my calories in general by changing my loss on MFP to only losing 0.5 pounds/week which also helped. I am in the final 10 pounds so 1 pound/week losses just won't happen anymore.
  • syrcaid
    syrcaid Posts: 31 Member
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    I think I'm going to try this for a week or two. About 3-4 years ago, I lost 55 lbs, going from 211 to 154. The first 40 lbs were easy(and fast!), no plateaus, no stalls. Then I quite losing around 170. I became frustrated. I stopped dieting and started maintaining. I actually did this for several months. Then, when I was ready, I jumped back on the bandwagon and lost another 15 lbs without a problem before stalling again.

    Unfortunately, it was around that time that I started to become "ok" with how I looked. I stopped worrying so much. I met my current bf and two years later we had both gained a nice chunk of weight. Fortunately though, he's on track with me so we will be able to support and motivate each other this time to keep this from happening again. Thanks guys!

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