Do you take diet breaks?

Do you allow yourself a cheat day?? If not, then maybe a diet break is what you need. I have a cheat day every week. I don't binge eat but allow myself something I wouldn't normally have. It also helps trick your body so it's not the same thing day after day! Good Luck to you!

I was actually planning on doing the same thing for a couple of weeks but haven't been able to bring myself to do it, it has been so long that I didn't eat at a deficit. I can't seeing any damage being done by having a break though but you might find zig zagging your calorie intake and still maintaining a deficit more beneficial as it has room for flexibility for holiday eating.

Yup. It's never really planned. But it usually happens somewhat during the holidays and during vacations. But I think people will get confused reading this because I read it to mean you meant not a break from eating healthy, but upping your cals to give you a chance to somewhat rest and re-set. But I got the impression others thought you meant to just go whole hog and eat whatever. But you mean not to do that, but just to up cals to maintenance for a period of time, right? I think it's a good idea. Not only for your body, but for your brain. And if you're like me and have been doing this slow and steady, then it won't be a shock at all. And since you said no foods were off limits, that's even better! You just won't have that urge to eat like crazy because nothing has been a 'no no'. Anyways, I say if you feel the need then go for it, but maybe do longer than 2 weeks to make it more worth while. Maybe an entire month and then after that start cutting back down to see what happens. You WILL probably have an initial weight gain when you go up, but to me that wasn't a big deal. If it had been like, 8 to 10lbs., I would freak. But not 5 or less.

Just a note, my ticker says 0 loss, but that's since joining MFP last month. I'm tweaking now to see what works and doing new things. Prior to joining, I lost 50lbs, went into maintenance for a couple of months, and now I'm working on losing right at 35 to 40lbs. I gained right at 4lbs. when I went into maintenance.

I definitely have gone over certain days but not on holidays. My dietary restrictions prevent me from eating almost everything at my in-laws house. :indifferent: If we are going somewhere out to eat that I love that has food I can have, I try to get in extra calorie burning before or after.

I think occasional 'cheat' days are supposed to be good for you metabolism, but I don't know about 2 weeks?

She is not talking about going over, but about eating at maintenance. Here's what Leigh Peele has to say:

"Short-term refeeds are short breaks from a deficit state. The purpose is to maintain quality metabolic or psychological behavior. These can come in as short forms like cheat meals, whole weekends off, long-term, several-week periods, or your standard total break from dieting all together. When embarking on a break, I see the background information as suggesting you are staving off abnormal adaptation. In short, you are still in a good place, taking part in proper deloads, resting, and diet breaks on a regular basis. You are avoiding any detrimental negative consequences from dieting down, at least beyond normal adaptations.

Some people also call them cheat days, high days, carb-up days, etc.

Long-term refeeding is when you have gone beyond the point of standard dieting down adaptations. You need to replenish or reset an above-normal deficit period. This is going to be an instance where you’ve been dieting down for an extended period of time with few to no maintenance days. This is going to be especially increased if dieting and training habits include more aggressive protocols like PSMF, VLCD, or advanced metabolic training. When this has taken place, short-term breaks will do little to help reset or create a place of optimal metabolic homeostasis.
From:
http://www.leighpeele.com/starvation-mode

Edited for link.