crash diet - how to keep it off?

mikes99mail
mikes99mail Posts: 318 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
after 6 months of exercising hard but eating back most of my calories, I've lost almost nothing so my other 1/2 persuaded me to try a crash diet + high impact interval training to kick my body into the right direction, then try and carry that on with a more sustainable diet and back onto the cardio... (because I love it)

Diet is going well so far, I'm 10 lbs down in under a week, but know this is almost all water & emptying myself out :)

How do I maximise the chance of keeping most of it off?

Replies

  • AdrianChr92
    AdrianChr92 Posts: 567 Member
    mikes99mail wrote: »
    How do I maximise the chance of keeping most of it off?

    You don't go for crash diets and eat right. If you eat back all your exercise calories what did you expect
  • EvgeniZyntx
    EvgeniZyntx Posts: 24,208 Member
    Since it is almost all water, you won't keep it off.
    Any magical loss in one week? It isn't fat loss.

    Good luck.
  • tiptoethruthetulips
    tiptoethruthetulips Posts: 3,371 Member
    edited January 2016
    Well if most of it is water and emptying yourself how do you think you are going to keep it off? Not drinking? Constant going to the toilet to empty yourself?

    It is likely this week there may be a gain due to rehydration.

    Calculate your daily allowance to lose weight, eat to calories, do some exercise, eat back some exercise calories if exercising intensively, drink some fluid, repeat.

    How much weight do you need/want to actually lose?
  • mikes99mail
    mikes99mail Posts: 318 Member
    was 115kg (250lbs), want to get down to 95 (210). Am 6'2" and ex competitive rower and rugby player.

    I was eating back my exercise calories to get to a target which should have been losing me 1lb / week. I weighed everything.
  • adub119
    adub119 Posts: 27 Member
    Your calories were off, you either over estimated your workout calories or under estimated how much you ate. Eat back half of your exercise calories and then try it again for a few weeks. If no change lower it even more or lower your daily goal.
  • PrimalGirl
    PrimalGirl Posts: 148 Member
    Hi
    Unfortunately the others are correct - chances are good you'll gain in the next few weeks. However, if the cardio hasn't been working, then perhaps the HIIT will.
    Try incorporating strength training as well - build up some muscle to burn more calories at resting. And - even if you haven't lost as much weight as you'd like, you're no doubt healthier now than you were six months ago. Strength training is likely to improve aesthetics more than pure cardio, no matter how much you love cardio. Keep it varied and eat healthily.
    Losing 10lbs in a week isn't sustainable and you know yourself it's only water anyway - it isn't fat loss, so it's essentially a false loss anyway.
    Best of luck - I'd stick with the HIIT for at least six weeks but put your calories back up to manage the higher intensity of your workouts, then re-evaluate.
  • dammitjanet0161
    dammitjanet0161 Posts: 319 Member
    adub119 wrote: »
    Your calories were off, you either over estimated your workout calories or under estimated how much you ate. Eat back half of your exercise calories and then try it again for a few weeks. If no change lower it even more or lower your daily goal.

    This - you seem to have found maintenance before. So all you really needed to do to lose a bit was to eat back half of your exercise calories or reduce your overall target by 100-200 cals a day, rather than do a drastic crash diet and mad exercise.

    That said, I lost half a stone in a week back in August due to being ill and only put back about 2lb once I could eat normally again and was rehydrated. I expected for it all go back on pretty quickly but I too must have inadvertently found my maintenance level for the slightly lower weight. So as long as you set your calorie targets right you won't necessarily put the whole 10lb back on quickly, but I don't think any further rapid loss would be sustainable.
  • ilex70
    ilex70 Posts: 727 Member
    I would say you need to be logging your crash diet so you know what your calorie intake is while on it.

    When you quit it if you don't want to regain quick then you need to refeed slow.

    Add 100 calories a day for a week. Scale still going down, or steady? Add another 100 calories a day for the next week.

    *Exception: this crash diet is low carb. The I would just expect/ignore the initial gain because it is glycogen load/water. Still stick with a gradual refeed.

    At some point you will gain. Cut that 100 calories a day and you are at you current maintenance level.

    You could try eating at that level for a few weeks and then try adding that 100 calories a day and see if you maintain or gain.

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