What are your thoughts on taking a break from weight loss before starting again?

Truly eating at maintenance, meaning you are still logging, and doing your workouts (likely better now eating at maintenance) - can be a great de-stressor for the body.

Not sure if 2 months is needed at maintenance - could find the weeks where it would be hardest to keep in a diet anyway and do those weeks - so could be a week here, week there, 2 weeks there, ect.

Since a diet usually has some level of stress associated with it - that break is very useful.

Like if it can be placed at point where the amount of deficit should really be changing to lower amount anyway.
With only that much left to go though - should be on 1 lb weekly already.
At 10 lbs left, switch to 1/2 lb weekly.
So maybe that won't work.

Still log but eat at maintenance for 1-2 weeks and keep up with your workouts.
That is the only "break" you should allow yourself if you truly want to hit your goals.
After the 2 week "break", resume your deficit.

If you stop logging for a month or two and fail to hold yourself accountable you will regret it.
It might feel great to take "a break for a couple of months" over the holidays but come January you will almost certainly be lamenting how you are so much farther from your goal and so much closer to your wedding.

This is probably not what you wanted to hear but much more realistic advice.

Just asking for our "thoughts" seems like seeking validation for your desire to stop doing the work.
Once you are at your goals, then you can probably afford to take a "real break" by going over your maintenance / TDEE calories once in a while.
A high-calorie meal or snack once a week or so when you are where you want to be can usually be countered by more exercise and maybe eating a bit less on other days - but you STILL LOG EVERYTHING.

If you do not have the necessary discipline then you can easily get out of the habit of doing what is necessary when you "take a break", especially if you are thinking of 2 months!

emilygray10 wrote: »

Realistic advice is just what I wanted, thank you. Perhaps "break" is the wrong word to use for what I was thinking - I would definitely remain accountable and continue to log everything (food and workouts), and just allow myself a little more on the calorie front. At the moment I'm not eating back any exercise calories so maybe doing that first is a good place to start as I'm not risking any gain that way.

Don't eat over your TDEE, just eat at maintenance.
Your body will probably do unexpected things when you first add more calories anyway.
It is also too easy to over-estimate how many calories you are burning with exercise.

That's still quite a ways off, and I agree with other posters that you will likely not continue to lose at your planned rate and may want to reevaluate when the time comes. In fact, if your calorie allowance is 1200 right now, that may or may not get you your 1.5 lb/week goal- it's simply the default minimum for women- so you won't be able to adjust calories downward as you lose. With 40 lbs to lose, 1.5 lbs/week is a bit aggressive. But here is my favorite thread on the topic of a diet break:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10481830/the-diet-break/p1