Diet breaks and loosening the reigns

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?

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.

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?

Let me preface this by saying in the initial stages of fat loss, a degree of rigidity is in order. Otherwise people tend to flail about never really gaining any traction. How much rigidity definitely depends on the individual. Therefore it's difficult to say what's right/wrong for your given situation.

On a physiological level though, I wouldn't sweat a 200 calorie surplus at all. Remember. 3500 calories in one pound of fat.

And here's what I'm really getting at here. If I want to go out to eat, I do it and I don't consider calories. If I'm going on vacation, I don't limit my intake. I'm simply reasonable with the frequency at which I do these things. Obviously if you're eating out and travel comprise a majority of your schedule, more discipline needs to be exerted.

When they're not daily occurrences though, I just don't see them as being overly important.

Here's why...

This is a process or losing and than managing weight. That process, theoretically, extends for your entire life, starting right now (or whenever you started your diet). Going 'off plan' here and there are so miniscule in the grand scheme that they don't even register on the radar screen. It's the bigger scope and the drawn out trend of behavior that yields the actual results.

People tend to get so inundated with day to day or even week to week happenings that they wind up placing far too much importance/value on variables that really matter very little in the grand scheme. Unless they let them matter, of course.

I'm not so sure that was a helpful message or not, but I felt like it needed saying.

If I want to go out to eat, I do it and I don't consider calories. If I'm going on vacation, I don't limit my intake. I'm simply reasonable with the frequency at which I do these things. Obviously if you're eating out and travel comprise a majority of your schedule, more discipline needs to be exerted.

When they're not daily occurrences though, I just don't see them as being overly important.

Here's why...

This is a process or losing and than managing weight. That process, theoretically, extends for your entire life, starting right now (or whenever you started your diet). Going 'off plan' here and there are so miniscule in the grand scheme that they don't even register on the radar screen. It's the bigger scope and the drawn out trend of behavior that yields the actual results.

People tend to get so inundated with day to day or even week to week happenings that they wind up placing far too much importance/value on variables that really matter very little in the grand scheme. Unless they let them matter, of course.

I'm not so sure that was a helpful message or not, but I felt like it needed saying.