Diet breaks and loosening the reigns

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  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    In the other case, with the adaptive thermogenesis, starvation mode, or whatever you want to call it... there's really nothing to be done except accept the fact that your body is naturally going to expend less energy than would be predicted given your stats. Which is one of the reasons why these calculators can be way off for certain individuals.

    Can I assume this is why, after losing 54 lbs in a matter of months with VLC *NETS* and losing just a ton of hair, panicking and doing a ”metabolism reset” eating my TDEE based on a light to moderate activity level I packed on fat like none other? And why it turns out that I actually maintain at what is considered 'sedentary' even when exercising 5-6 days/week? I had my suspicions.

    Also if I focus more on heavy lifting and gain muscle weight, will my ridiculously low BMR & TDEE rise accordingly or am I just going to be making myself increasingly hungry (I'm always starving the day after lifting) while still needing to consume the same caloric intake?

    Adding additional muscle will definitely help to compensate for the depressed metabolism--how much is rather unknown. Monitoring your intake and weight over a long period of time...well maybe 6-8 weeks can provide insight into what you actually maintain on. The metabolic changes as a result of your extremely high deficits would definitely prime you for fat storage during a reset/return to a typical number of calories; HOWEVER, I do believe that it's beneficial for individuals to increase their calories after a few months of eating at a deficit. This allows the body to somewhat recover and your hormones to go back to a closer-to-normal state. I guess Steve will have to chime in here but I'd say that lifting weights is definitely in your best interest so long as you're still MINDFUL of your intake and eat accordingly--if the hunger more than outweighs the caloric expenditure then perhaps you should focus on compound lifts to maintain your muscle mass but keep the overall weight session short.
  • tommytorquestick
    tommytorquestick Posts: 57
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    Wow what a great post. I'm having a problem not necessarily taking a break from my diet, but just taking a 'cheat day'. My problem is that I end up binging. Maybe I really do need to take a 7-10 day break where I don't binge or eat like a pig, but just maintain. I did this for a few days when I was on vacation a couple months ago. I got back and was surprised to see how quickly I gained 10 pounds and how soft I was looking, but I think it was mostly water weight from carbs I was eating. It disappeared in about a week and I was back to my 'lean physique’, so it’s not like I gained 10 pounds of fat.
  • jennis70
    jennis70 Posts: 2 Member
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    In response to the beginning of the thread. I have lived with myself long enough to realize all things are possible when I am dieting. It appears life continues. People have birthdays and weddings and I want to participate and enjoy life right along with them. I have given myself permission to live while I diet and pursue better eating habits. At the last party I went to I tried to choose the better for me foods like fruit instead of ice cream. I always try to make a mental note of amounts and portion control. Because I know when I will be going to these events I plan a lower eating day (caloricly speaking). I do my best to enter as close as possible fair food amounts on my daily schedule. On every seventh day of the week I give myself a break from the data entry. It is my free day to eat what I want that I can't have the rest of the week. I don't binge but I eat some of the foods I have restricted during the week. It is usually higher fat and sugar foods. I stay aware of the fact that I want to live my life like this the rest of my life (Controlled eating). Knowing my body and my personality I will always need eating guidelines. I like to many foods that put the weight on way to easily.
    Each person needs to find what works for them. I have been practicing with myself on dieting for many years. I have had many failures and successes. This method has been working well for me. Would love to hear how each of you overcomes their failures and how they have accomplished their successes. I find reading these threads very encouraging.
  • Mexie1
    Mexie1 Posts: 48 Member
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    @mexie--what is maintenance for you and how did you come up with the goal of a bmi of 19?

    I maintain on around 1400-1500. I lose a bit less than 1lb a week on 1100. I only exercise once or twice a week and don't want to increase that. I do weights for strength and fitness benefits but I'm not interested in getting a lean look.

    My goal is 8st 7lb (119lb) as this is the weight I sat at as an adult before gaining weight for the first time, so I know it is feasible and sustainable. At 5'5" this is a BMI of 19.8 (should have said 20 before really, 19 was an estimate).
  • love4fitnesslove4food_wechange
    love4fitnesslove4food_wechange Posts: 6,897 Member
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    @MEXIE--thanks for the info. A bmi of 19.8 is quite healthy--that's where I like to be.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    Bumparonie for some awesome info!
  • hypallage
    hypallage Posts: 624 Member
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    I want to read though this when I'm not on my phone
  • roguestates
    roguestates Posts: 223
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    Great post! I am sad to know that there's not much to be done about AT, though. I'll be more conscious about finding ways to increase my NEAT.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    This a really interesting read. I want to see where else it leads. Personally, I've lost all faith in weight loss, after having gained 10 kgs over 2 years from developing an underactive thyroid. Perhaps I may find an approach which can actually see me getting somewhere.

    Sorry to hear that. Are you medicated?

    Yes I am, but I don't think the levels can be right if it still seems impossible to lose weight, no matter what I do. The meds are also making me short of breath so my running is suffering majorly. I now can only do about 1 min/km slower because my lungs just can't keep up. And to make matters worse, I'm starting out as a personal trainer now. But I've lost all faith in traditional weight loss methods. It's like saying to people 'here try this, it didn't work on me but it is supposed to work'. Makes you feel like a bit of a failure or a fraud.

    What are your stats, your average daily calorie intake, and your macronutrient breakdowns? Also, what are the length of your plateaus? Oh, and what's the highest your weight ever was?
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    Awesome thread Steve! I always appreciate it when you post here. We are also relative neighbors as I live right off the Royersford exit of 422. All the best and thanks for the stuff you share here!

    Wow, you are VERY close. Do you workout at a gym or home?

    I workout at Anytime Fitness in Trappe. And when I say right off the exit in Royersford I mean like if you are going down the westbound exit ramp and look to your right you'll see our barn and old white farmhouse! One of these days when I over your way I'll stop and say hi!

    My doors are open!
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    In the other case, with the adaptive thermogenesis, starvation mode, or whatever you want to call it... there's really nothing to be done except accept the fact that your body is naturally going to expend less energy than would be predicted given your stats. Which is one of the reasons why these calculators can be way off for certain individuals.

    Can I assume this is why, after losing 54 lbs in a matter of months with VLC *NETS* and losing just a ton of hair, panicking and doing a ”metabolism reset” eating my TDEE based on a light to moderate activity level I packed on fat like none other? And why it turns out that I actually maintain at what is considered 'sedentary' even when exercising 5-6 days/week? I had my suspicions.

    Likely has a lot to do with it. And yeah, abusing your body with low nutrition and lots of activity is a surefire way to set things up for easy fat regain.
    Also if I focus more on heavy lifting and gain muscle weight, will my ridiculously low BMR & TDEE rise accordingly or am I just going to be making myself increasingly hungry (I'm always starving the day after lifting) while still needing to consume the same caloric intake?

    Well let's get something clear from the get go... muscle isn't as metabolically expensive as some people like to believe. I've seen silly ideas tossed around like each pound of muscle burns an additional 25 and even 50 calories. That's bogus. The research, if memory serves me right, is roughly 6 or 7 calories per pound. Each pound of fat (yes, fat is metabolically active as well) expends an additional 2 or 3 calories. I might be slightly off... haven't looked at the paper in a while.

    Be that as it may, you'd need to build a lot of muscle to have an appreciable impact on metabolic rate. And here's the kicker. To build a lot of muscle, you need to be in a calorie surplus. And when you're in a calorie surplus, even if you're doing things right, you're going to be adding some portion of fat. That's just how things work. Granted, this process can allow you to diet the gained fat off at a later point in time... this time with a bigger base of muscle which will help with the ease of reaching a lean state.

    But the point it, it's not like you can go eating a deficit or maintenance, lift some heavy weights, and shoot your metabolic rate to the moon via hypertrophy.

    Your bit about hunger is too complex to really discuss. Hunger has a lot of confounding variables that impact it. You're right, some people do get ridiculously hungry in response to certain types of exercise. I've found that in these folks, that drive to eat tends to dampen after some time. But that's not fun. I've also encountered plenty of folks who claim that they can't lift weights because it makes them so hungry... but then when I analyze their diets, I find that their protein intake is super low (relatively speaking, their fiber intake is low, their fat intake is low, they're not eating any fruit, etc... and it's no wonder based on these things that their hunger is uncontrolled.
  • Ge0rgiana
    Ge0rgiana Posts: 1,649 Member
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    *bump*
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    Wow what a great post. I'm having a problem not necessarily taking a break from my diet, but just taking a 'cheat day'. My problem is that I end up binging. Maybe I really do need to take a 7-10 day break where I don't binge or eat like a pig, but just maintain. I did this for a few days when I was on vacation a couple months ago. I got back and was surprised to see how quickly I gained 10 pounds and how soft I was looking, but I think it was mostly water weight from carbs I was eating. It disappeared in about a week and I was back to my 'lean physique’, so it’s not like I gained 10 pounds of fat.

    Water weight from sure.

    Here's the thing...

    Everyone's coming from a different place physically and emotionally/psychologically. Due to the latter primarily, it's all about finding a method of eating that fits for you. For example, I'm working with a client right now who pretty much said the same thing you just did... word for word. She can't find a way of adding 'higher' calorie meals, days, or weeks without literally demolishing food.

    Binge central.

    One of the biggest problems it the fact that she's been dieting, off and on, for so damn long. She has that deep seeded mentality where she's either 'on' or 'off.' There's no middle ground. And when she's on, in her mind she has things framed in such a way that any food that isn't 'perfectly clean' is forbidden. She can't have these things. And when you tell yourself for so long that you can't... guess what? You will. Willpower is a finite resource.

    So in her case, I made sure she understood the fact that she could lose weight eating twinkies. It wouldn't be ideal for health, but often times it's a matter of bringing things into extreme lights in order to make the middle road obvious.

    Knowing that she feels good with rigidity, I simply inserted some rigidity into a portion of each day. She keeps carbs extremely low throughout the entire day, which really limits food selection. She feels like she's doing something great. Then I load her up with carbs around her training in the afternoon and really for the remainder of the day. At that point, she's pretty hungry and she doesn't feel guilty since she was so 'good' throughout the day. Plus, it makes a ton of sense to stack carb intake around training due to the probable partitioning benefits. Lastly, it maybe most importantly... it sort of fills her desire to binge. By holding off carbs to such a punctuated period of time, it allows her to be liberal to the point where she doesn't feel deprived.

    It's working like a charm. For her. She's leaning out very nicely. And her rating of tolerance for the process is very high, which indicates that this will likely stick for a while. My point is, you really have to match the approach to the person. You can't get married to one single way of doing things... you have to experiment and eventually you'll find something that you can easily fall into a groove with.
  • tommytorquestick
    tommytorquestick Posts: 57
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    Thanks!
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    Wow what a great post. I'm having a problem not necessarily taking a break from my diet, but just taking a 'cheat day'. My problem is that I end up binging. Maybe I really do need to take a 7-10 day break where I don't binge or eat like a pig, but just maintain. I did this for a few days when I was on vacation a couple months ago. I got back and was surprised to see how quickly I gained 10 pounds and how soft I was looking, but I think it was mostly water weight from carbs I was eating. It disappeared in about a week and I was back to my 'lean physique’, so it’s not like I gained 10 pounds of fat.

    Water weight from sure.

    Here's the thing...

    Everyone's coming from a different place physically and emotionally/psychologically. Due to the latter primarily, it's all about finding a method of eating that fits for you. For example, I'm working with a client right now who pretty much said the same thing you just did... word for word. She can't find a way of adding 'higher' calorie meals, days, or weeks without literally demolishing food.

    Binge central.

    One of the biggest problems it the fact that she's been dieting, off and on, for so damn long. She has that deep seeded mentality where she's either 'on' or 'off.' There's no middle ground. And when she's on, in her mind she has things framed in such a way that any food that isn't 'perfectly clean' is forbidden. She can't have these things. And when you tell yourself for so long that you can't... guess what? You will. Willpower is a finite resource.

    So in her case, I made sure she understood the fact that she could lose weight eating twinkies. It wouldn't be ideal for health, but often times it's a matter of bringing things into extreme lights in order to make the middle road obvious.

    Knowing that she feels good with rigidity, I simply inserted some rigidity into a portion of each day. She keeps carbs extremely low throughout the entire day, which really limits food selection. She feels like she's doing something great. Then I load her up with carbs around her training in the afternoon and really for the remainder of the day. At that point, she's pretty hungry and she doesn't feel guilty since she was so 'good' throughout the day. Plus, it makes a ton of sense to stack carb intake around training due to the probable partitioning benefits. Lastly, it maybe most importantly... it sort of fills her desire to binge. By holding off carbs to such a punctuated period of time, it allows her to be liberal to the point where she doesn't feel deprived.

    It's working like a charm. For her. She's leaning out very nicely. And her rating of tolerance for the process is very high, which indicates that this will likely stick for a while. My point is, you really have to match the approach to the person. You can't get married to one single way of doing things... you have to experiment and eventually you'll find something that you can easily fall into a groove with.

    Awesome job of understanding the mentality of the person your are working with and instead of trying to fit her thought pattern into your method, you adapt your method to her thought pattern. There would be a lot more success stories of people working with trainers if more of them took this approach! Very creative FTW! Nice work.
  • whittlelauraann
    whittlelauraann Posts: 175
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    Thanks for the information
  • NitaCB
    NitaCB Posts: 532 Member
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    This a really interesting read. I want to see where else it leads. Personally, I've lost all faith in weight loss, after having gained 10 kgs over 2 years from developing an underactive thyroid. Perhaps I may find an approach which can actually see me getting somewhere.

    Sorry to hear that. Are you medicated?

    Yes I am, but I don't think the levels can be right if it still seems impossible to lose weight, no matter what I do. The meds are also making me short of breath so my running is suffering majorly. I now can only do about 1 min/km slower because my lungs just can't keep up. And to make matters worse, I'm starting out as a personal trainer now. But I've lost all faith in traditional weight loss methods. It's like saying to people 'here try this, it didn't work on me but it is supposed to work'. Makes you feel like a bit of a failure or a fraud.

    What are your stats, your average daily calorie intake, and your macronutrient breakdowns? Also, what are the length of your plateaus? Oh, and what's the highest your weight ever was?

    I'm 5"3.5, and 66.5 kgs, which is currently the highest weight I've ever been. (Depressing much?!) I stopped logging for a good month or so cos I was finding I was getting too obssessed with it and it wasn't getting me anywhere anyway. I also wore a BMF for about 3 months, so I was trying to eat according to my burns off that, which varied from 2100-3000 or so if it was a long run day. I'm not sure what you think about BMFs and how accurate you think they are. I've started logging again in the past week, and my average intake is about 1800-2000, which must be lower than what I was before I started back because I'm pretty darn hungry ALL the time. My macronutrients sit about 45% carbs, 30% protein and 25% fat. I don't think you can call it plateaus, when the whole time I've been on here (more than 18 months) I have never lost, just slowly gained, which I know now was due to an underactive thyroid. I'm medicated now, but I can't seem to budge it at all.
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    Wow what a great post. I'm having a problem not necessarily taking a break from my diet, but just taking a 'cheat day'. My problem is that I end up binging. Maybe I really do need to take a 7-10 day break where I don't binge or eat like a pig, but just maintain. I did this for a few days when I was on vacation a couple months ago. I got back and was surprised to see how quickly I gained 10 pounds and how soft I was looking, but I think it was mostly water weight from carbs I was eating. It disappeared in about a week and I was back to my 'lean physique’, so it’s not like I gained 10 pounds of fat.

    Water weight from sure.

    Here's the thing...

    Everyone's coming from a different place physically and emotionally/psychologically. Due to the latter primarily, it's all about finding a method of eating that fits for you. For example, I'm working with a client right now who pretty much said the same thing you just did... word for word. She can't find a way of adding 'higher' calorie meals, days, or weeks without literally demolishing food.

    Binge central.

    One of the biggest problems it the fact that she's been dieting, off and on, for so damn long. She has that deep seeded mentality where she's either 'on' or 'off.' There's no middle ground. And when she's on, in her mind she has things framed in such a way that any food that isn't 'perfectly clean' is forbidden. She can't have these things. And when you tell yourself for so long that you can't... guess what? You will. Willpower is a finite resource.

    So in her case, I made sure she understood the fact that she could lose weight eating twinkies. It wouldn't be ideal for health, but often times it's a matter of bringing things into extreme lights in order to make the middle road obvious.

    Knowing that she feels good with rigidity, I simply inserted some rigidity into a portion of each day. She keeps carbs extremely low throughout the entire day, which really limits food selection. She feels like she's doing something great. Then I load her up with carbs around her training in the afternoon and really for the remainder of the day. At that point, she's pretty hungry and she doesn't feel guilty since she was so 'good' throughout the day. Plus, it makes a ton of sense to stack carb intake around training due to the probable partitioning benefits. Lastly, it maybe most importantly... it sort of fills her desire to binge. By holding off carbs to such a punctuated period of time, it allows her to be liberal to the point where she doesn't feel deprived.

    It's working like a charm. For her. She's leaning out very nicely. And her rating of tolerance for the process is very high, which indicates that this will likely stick for a while. My point is, you really have to match the approach to the person. You can't get married to one single way of doing things... you have to experiment and eventually you'll find something that you can easily fall into a groove with.

    Awesome job of understanding the mentality of the person your are working with and instead of trying to fit her thought pattern into your method, you adapt your method to her thought pattern. There would be a lot more success stories of people working with trainers if more of them took this approach! Very creative FTW! Nice work.

    Thanks. And you hit the nail on the head. Most 'fitness professionals' have this rigid mindset. They know what they know and truly believe this is the gospel. Problem is twofold:

    1) They typically don't really know all that much at all.

    2) Even if they do, they discount the fact that we can't rigidly apply "science" to the masses.

    This transcends individualization based on physical factors... anthropomentry, injury status, training experience, etc. It's also heavily connected with the mental side of things. The perfect program for someone's body and training experience might be the exact opposite for that same person due to their mindset.
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
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    Boink
  • stroutman81
    stroutman81 Posts: 2,474 Member
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    I think that's the first thread I've had that's been boinked!

    :p

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