Of refeeds and diet breaks
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I always say I'm going to reverse diet...might actually hold at goal instead of bouncing up a kg if I did that...1
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »I always say I'm going to reverse diet...might actually hold at goal instead of bouncing up a kg if I did that...
I'm going to see what my calorie margin is by that point. If it's only 250, what's the point? If its fairly significant like it is now (trust me, I eat M & M's to make it a 500 calorie deficit daily), well then I can take my time, reverse diet, and maybe lose a few buffer pounds.
I thought (don't have time to watch the video right now, it's my bed time) that the idea of the need to reverse diet was pretty much debunked except if you needed to do such a thing so as not to see the scale jump due to glycogen replenishment. It was my understanding that all settles out eventually on its own.1 -
Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.
So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.
Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.
Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.
All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.
The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.
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I kind of figure doing a diet break only a kg or so from goal I should be sweet. Not like that extra kg is going to have a huge impact on my energy needs! I may do a week at a 250 deficit (and if I hit goal by Christmas, it may be necessary after Christmas Day anyway
). We'll see. The real difference for me is actually going to be in continuing to log. That's my other 'I say I'm going to do it' thing, but I just end up not (and can actually maintain just fine not logging, so long as I'm mindful). But since I have strength/recomp goals, I want to make sure nutrition is on point, so logging shall continue. 3 -
@GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.
Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.
@psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!1 -
Thanks @CynthiasChoice, @Leeg5656 and @maybyn for the updates! It's great to read about others' experiences.
I'm a week into my two-week diet break. I plan to give another update at around a week after I go back to deficit.
I'll just say that I am soooo glad I took the break. I would never have thought to do this on my own...I would have just kept pushing on. My weight is up about a kilo (about 2.5 pounds) and seems to have settled there. I am a bit under the calories I was shooting for; I'm averaging around 1750 net instead of 1900. I feel content on these calories - the first few days I felt I was feasting! - and I'm unsure whether I should deliberately add things just to get my average up to 1900 or just keep plodding on as I am. Any thoughts on this?
On another point - and this will probably sound silly to many - but I never really understood deficit and maintenance calories before I started using MFP. When I tried to lose weight by counting calories previously, the program I was using also gave me 1200 calories. I actually thought I would need to stay on those calories to lose and maintain. My thinking went like this: okay, this is how a 59kg person eats, so they give me these calories to get down to that weight and then I have to keep eating at 1200 to maintain otherwise I'll put all the weight back on. I also didn't understand water weight fluctuations and put too much emphasis on short-term changes in the scale.
Now that I have weeks of data from MFP, I realise that 1200 creates a bit too much deficit for me anyway. But because I had misunderstood the process in my previous attempts, I thought that I was doomed to long-term failure if I didn't consistently reach 1200 forever and ever.
Eventually I would reach a point where I would think, "This is pretty hard; I don't know that I can keep eating like this for the rest of my life!", and gradually go back to my snacky habits to curb my hunger.
I feel I've got a better chance at getting to goal and maintaining now that I have a bit more understanding.
The diet break really does give me the feeling of a break too. And I've only been losing for 4 months! I can see how it would help people who are looking at having years in deficit. By making it a deliberate part of the process, it's giving me a feeling of "controlled freedom", so to speak. I don't feel like I am going off the rails at all; it just feels like a continuation of what I've been doing already, except with more food to enjoy.
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Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.
So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.
Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.
Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.
All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.
The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.
I have done both. For some reason jumping right into maintenance leads me to be intensely hungry and I seem to lose control a little bit. It usually lasts about a week or so before I get it out of my system.
If I ease into maintenance, adding calories back in slowly while monitoring my weight I am able to maintain control of my eating.
It is actually something I had thought about. Why am I HANGRIER jumping right into maintenance? I am sure it is partially psychological but there is probably some physiological explanation for it too.2 -
As for reasons mentioned in the video debate, there’s a strong psychological component to reverse dieting and jumping right up to maintenance. With either method, achieving maintenance - emphatically stressed to be calculated at your new low weight - is the goal, how fast you get there is the debated topic. Both methods have varying degrees of pros and cons.
TL;DR - Don’t stop being active. Don’t eat your old previous overweight maintenance calories. Carry your new lean habits into bumping up calories for your new lean weight.
The argument for jumping right into maintenance is to absolutely halt the adaptive thermogenesis of down regulation of hormones, bmr, tdee, etc as soon as possible where eating at calculated maintenance will take roughly a few days to a couple weeks to balance out, depending on how aggressive and lengthy the cut (deficit) was to achieve the desired body composition.
In the extreme examples (using bodybuilders and physique competitors), loss of menstruation for women and severely decreased libido/testosterone in men, thyroid for both, plus the mental stress of achieving unsustainable levels of body fat, reversing that process asap is both physiologically and psychologically necessary for hopefully obvious reasons = Jump into maintenance calories, and maybe a short-term temporary surplus (to sustain a healthy level of body fat), then adjust calories in small increments to find a sweet spot once weight becomes stable.
On the other hand, those who may have developed an unhealthy relationship with food and body composition may find that directly jumping into maintenance calories becomes an episode of binges and subsequent purges because of fear of fat gain - again, emphatically stressed that it’s going to happen no matter what.
Which is where the proponent for reverse dieting comes into play. If the psychological consequence of increasing calories is going to negate the positive result of achieving sustainable healthy body fat, then tapering calories up in a stepladder fashion may be much easier to grasp in concept and easier on perceived stress levels. Some people may be okay with gaining the same amount of body fat slowly vs seeing it happen in the course of a month.
The downside to reverse dieting is that the dieter is still thermodynamically in a deficit until maintenance calories are achieved, because of fear of fat gain. And as aggressive as the cut may be, the opposite may forever stall the ascent upwards in calories.
Using myself as an example, if being on a cut for 1 year has resulted in a scale weight of 172-175 with bf% around 10-12%, maintenance for me would be roughly an additional 600-900kcal per day. Due to the buffer of glycogen loading, water weight, sudden influx of nutrients, I may jump up to 182 or so for a couple weeks and settle around 178 and maybe 13-15% bf by the time I achieve homeostasis, due to increased TDEE from adaptive thermogenesis.
If I were to reverse diet, I may see how I feel by adding 100kcal per day, then bumping it up another 100kcal the following week, then another 100kcal the week after and so on. In the long run, it may take me 9 weeks just to achieve maintenance, not taking into account calories expended from training, which if I did would perpetually take an additional 5-7 weeks to achieve.
On the long end it would take me 4 months to get to maintenance. Or I could immediately increase kcal by 1000kcal, let it settle, and adjust from there within a month.
For most people already within their range of sustainable body fat and body composition, and at a very non-aggressive deficit, reverse dieting may very well be a realistic strategy to attain maintenance since it’s not too far away.
So, there’s my comprehensive breakdown of both methods and truly it is a personal preference as to go about it. Just implement it as you see fit as best as it applies to your personal and optimal health goals.10 -
@GottaBurnEmAll, thanks.
Yeah, it's not easy, as you know, and I've had this little problem for 30 years or so... That's why I wanted to post too. Hopefully, it will help someone else reading this thread. I also found the thread on willpower really interesting - I think I (and maybe others) focus so much on making everything else perfect (diet, exercise, work, home) that I don't know how much willpower/discipline I have left to try and fix things especially since the cycle generally allows me to lose and maintain anyway. It's just a terrible, terrible way of doing it.
@psuLemon, thanks for the post on the reverse dieting video. I'll have to watch it. I understand, as what @anubis609 mentioned, that it's increasing slowly rather than jumping into maintenance immediately and that there are disadvantages to this (Lyle too mentioned it in one of his podcasts). For me though, I'm maintaining CI but lowering CO as the way to reverse diet. I think this makes sense?!!
For general health reasons and maintaining body composition, you may want to keep the CO and increase CI. Not that it has to be done this way, but being active, in and of itself, has components to optimizing nutrient partitioning and substrate storage.
You can maybe find a balance between the two, where you decrease the volume of activity but maintaining some just to avoid complete sedentary status, and increasing a little of the intake to maintain a relatively enjoyably active lifestyle.0 -
Post refeed (3days) and diet break (14 days) results:
Start weight 26th October was 169.2 (weight is in lbs)
Post glycogen depletion weight was 166.6
3/11 168.4
4/11 167.2
It then bounced up and down 1 pound for 5 days
10/11 168.6
11/11 167.8
12/11 167
13/11 167
14/11 166.4
15/11 166.2
16/11 166.2 (pre-maintenance phase weight)
So 3lb drop in 3 weeks.
Average calorie intake was 2200 (maybe a bit higher as forgot to log some things, oops!). Refeed cals were 2600ish so you don't have to scroll back.
I cut out extra cardio (I usually walk for an hour in the evenings, around 4 miles) during these 3 weeks.
Today (Thursday 16/11) I am bumping cals up to 2490 (estimated maintenance, I think I will still lose a little on this amount, but we will see) for 2 - 4 weeks. Then bumping them up to 2720 for 6 - 8 weeks.
Will be adding back my daily evening walk as this helps relaxation before bed today until the end of January.
I can check in again after the 2 - 4 week maintenance period (for the curious). Not sure if anyone wants to hear about gains/losses post surplus...? I know there are maintenance and bulking forums but I am not at goal yet and the bodybuilding style posts are quite intimidating...anyhow. There it is...5 -
nexangelus wrote: »Post refeed (3days) and diet break (14 days) results:
Start weight 26th October was 169.2 (weight is in lbs)
Post glycogen depletion weight was 166.6
3/11 168.4
4/11 167.2
It then bounced up and down 1 pound for 5 days
10/11 168.6
11/11 167.8
12/11 167
13/11 167
14/11 166.4
15/11 166.2
16/11 166.2 (pre-maintenance phase weight)
So 3lb drop in 3 weeks.
Average calorie intake was 2200 (maybe a bit higher as forgot to log some things, oops!). Refeed cals were 2600ish so you don't have to scroll back.
I cut out extra cardio (I usually walk for an hour in the evenings, around 4 miles) during these 3 weeks.
Today (Thursday 16/11) I am bumping cals up to 2490 (estimated maintenance, I think I will still lose a little on this amount, but we will see) for 2 - 4 weeks. Then bumping them up to 2720 for 6 - 8 weeks.
Will be adding back my daily evening walk as this helps relaxation before bed today until the end of January.
I can check in again after the 2 - 4 week maintenance period (for the curious). Not sure if anyone wants to hear about gains/losses post surplus...? I know there are maintenance and bulking forums but I am not at goal yet and the bodybuilding style posts are quite intimidating...anyhow. There it is...
We want to hear it all!!5 -
I've had to remind myself this evening to not be an idiot and try to achieve a full week's deficit this week. So I had some chocolate. Late phase luteal, and the hunger is kicking in. One more day of deficit to go. 3
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Nony_Mouse wrote: »nexangelus wrote: »Post refeed (3days) and diet break (14 days) results:
Start weight 26th October was 169.2 (weight is in lbs)
Post glycogen depletion weight was 166.6
3/11 168.4
4/11 167.2
It then bounced up and down 1 pound for 5 days
10/11 168.6
11/11 167.8
12/11 167
13/11 167
14/11 166.4
15/11 166.2
16/11 166.2 (pre-maintenance phase weight)
So 3lb drop in 3 weeks.
Average calorie intake was 2200 (maybe a bit higher as forgot to log some things, oops!). Refeed cals were 2600ish so you don't have to scroll back.
I cut out extra cardio (I usually walk for an hour in the evenings, around 4 miles) during these 3 weeks.
Today (Thursday 16/11) I am bumping cals up to 2490 (estimated maintenance, I think I will still lose a little on this amount, but we will see) for 2 - 4 weeks. Then bumping them up to 2720 for 6 - 8 weeks.
Will be adding back my daily evening walk as this helps relaxation before bed today until the end of January.
I can check in again after the 2 - 4 week maintenance period (for the curious). Not sure if anyone wants to hear about gains/losses post surplus...? I know there are maintenance and bulking forums but I am not at goal yet and the bodybuilding style posts are quite intimidating...anyhow. There it is...
We want to hear it all!!
I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?0 -
CynthiasChoice wrote: »I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?
Yes. I was in deficit pre glycogen depletion (which I did for 3 days starting the 26th Oct) then did a 3 day refeed at the 2600 cal mark and as per Lyle's instructions I took my estimated maintenance cals minus around 150 cals ( I was eating 2300 plus on some days) allowing for the body's adjustments to calories (cannot recall the scientific term). Yes I lost 3 lbs during this time, which has shown me that my estimated maintenance cals might be higher than I thought, or the refeed just helped speed up some more fat loss as had been on around 1900 - 2200 cals during deficit and had been doing more cardio (an hour extra per day walking)
I am going into a surplus until the end of January (trying to build some more muscle mass) after a couple of weeks at full maintenance cals. I am them going to head into a deficit again in Feb 2018 to get to goal around July/August next year. So I am not going back to a deficit I am heading into a surplus, which kinda ties into the reverse dieting topic. I have had it happen before - I lost a full 5 pounds (again one a week) at maintenance cals after a 3 month deficit once...
2 -
Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.
So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.
Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.
Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.
All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.
The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.
I have done both. For some reason jumping right into maintenance leads me to be intensely hungry and I seem to lose control a little bit. It usually lasts about a week or so before I get it out of my system.
If I ease into maintenance, adding calories back in slowly while monitoring my weight I am able to maintain control of my eating.
It is actually something I had thought about. Why am I HANGRIER jumping right into maintenance? I am sure it is partially psychological but there is probably some physiological explanation for it too.
Oh, I pondered this somewhere way back in this thread. My thought was that it's perhaps a response to your body 'sensing' that there's food available again - 'quick, eat now while you have the chance!' kind of thing. No idea if that's remotely grounded in science, but it would make sense that you would be spurred on to keep finding food when it became available after a shortage, rather than just sitting around the campfire rubbing your belly.6 -
nexangelus wrote: »CynthiasChoice wrote: »I'm not entirely understanding your time line. During Oct 26 - Nov 16 you did a refeed and a diet break? And still lost 3 pounds?
Yes. I was in deficit pre glycogen depletion (which I did for 3 days starting the 26th Oct) then did a 3 day refeed at the 2600 cal mark and as per Lyle's instructions I took my estimated maintenance cals minus around 150 cals ( I was eating 2300 plus on some days) allowing for the body's adjustments to calories (cannot recall the scientific term). Yes I lost 3 lbs during this time, which has shown me that my estimated maintenance cals might be higher than I thought, or the refeed just helped speed up some more fat loss as had been on around 1900 - 2200 cals during deficit and had been doing more cardio (an hour extra per day walking)
I am going into a surplus until the end of January (trying to build some more muscle mass) after a couple of weeks at full maintenance cals. I am them going to head into a deficit again in Feb 2018 to get to goal around July/August next year. So I am not going back to a deficit I am heading into a surplus, which kinda ties into the reverse dieting topic. I have had it happen before - I lost a full 5 pounds (again one a week) at maintenance cals after a 3 month deficit once...
Maintenance calories can be fine tuned .. if you’re still losing weight at your calculated number, then increase kcals. Or increase the multiplier to allow for activity levels.
I think you have a solid plan, but I do want to just hone in on the 1 month surplus for muscle gain. Completely my own opinion, so take it as just some food for thought.
Any appreciable muscle mass you gain (I can’t recall aforementioned strength training volume) in a month, may be negated by a 6 month deficit following that. I’m not sure what your protein macros might be, but in a deficit protein needs increase to reduce lbm loss.
And if you’re already at a composition and training experience level well into the intermediate stages of lifting, lbm gains are going to be staggeringly slow so the surplus may need to be extended beyond a month.
Otherwise, if you still have body fat to lose and/or are at a novice level of weight training experience, hold maintenance calories while lifting heavy weight in an increasing linear progression, and to retain as much muscle mass as possible, keep progressively lifting heavier as you slowly reintroduce your deficit and keep protein levels appropriate to your lbm / aim for ~0.7g/lb of bodyweight / eat 0.8-1.2g/lb of target goal weight (old school bodybuilding method of protein calculation).2 -
Maintenance calories can be fine tuned .. if you’re still losing weight at your calculated number, then increase kcals. Or increase the multiplier to allow for activity levels.
I think you have a solid plan, but I do want to just hone in on the 1 month surplus for muscle gain. Completely my own opinion, so take it as just some food for thought.
Any appreciable muscle mass you gain (I can’t recall aforementioned strength training volume) in a month, may be negated by a 6 month deficit following that. I’m not sure what your protein macros might be, but in a deficit protein needs increase to reduce lbm loss.
And if you’re already at a composition and training experience level well into the intermediate stages of lifting, lbm gains are going to be staggeringly slow so the surplus may need to be extended beyond a month.
Otherwise, if you still have body fat to lose and/or are at a novice level of weight training experience, hold maintenance calories while lifting heavy weight in an increasing linear progression, and to retain as much muscle mass as possible, keep progressively lifting heavier as you slowly reintroduce your deficit and keep protein levels appropriate to your lbm / aim for ~0.7g/lb of bodyweight / eat 0.8-1.2g/lb of target goal weight (old school bodybuilding method of protein calculation).
Third time lucky (on phone at work grrr)...
I eat between 136 and 200g of protein per day, have been doing this since May this year.
Surplus total of 2720 cals (might have to increase to 2970 for a bit we will see) is for 8 - 9 weeks. Maintenance is 2 weeks.
I have never lifted heavy in surplus or maintenance, apart from once for about 6 months in 2013. Trying it to see how strong I can get and how it improves the lifting. If anything I will just get some new pbs and prs. Any recomp will be a bonus.
Yeah being female, 43, intermediate lifter, menopausal mean this will be a challenge but I am determined to have food as my friend (not in that comfort eating binge come don't give a toss way). This is really helping even if the focus may be a tad too sharp at times....
Thanks @anubis609 for the shedloads of insight and head nodding moments! As well as this whole darn thread : )
3 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »Holding goal for a certain period seems to be okay. The actual concept of reverse dieting by slowly increasing calories up to a level of maintenance is nuanced.
So the TL;DW summary of the video (I'm about 37 min in now) would be the debate about actual pace of caloric increase vs immediately eating the level of *new lower body weight* maintenance calories.
Reverse dieting would be essentially extending the diet.
Immediately jumping to calculated maintenance and fine tuning from there.
All personal preference as to how it's done with as little resistance as possible to ultimately achieve new lower body weight maintenance calories.
The truth is that coming from a state of deficit eating up to maintenance is that there IS going to be some fat gain. No one can escape that. Permadieting leads to harsher outcomes. It's more how fast you can accept a higher calorie bump consistently.
I have done both. For some reason jumping right into maintenance leads me to be intensely hungry and I seem to lose control a little bit. It usually lasts about a week or so before I get it out of my system.
If I ease into maintenance, adding calories back in slowly while monitoring my weight I am able to maintain control of my eating.
It is actually something I had thought about. Why am I HANGRIER jumping right into maintenance? I am sure it is partially psychological but there is probably some physiological explanation for it too.
Oh, I pondered this somewhere way back in this thread. My thought was that it's perhaps a response to your body 'sensing' that there's food available again - 'quick, eat now while you have the chance!' kind of thing. No idea if that's remotely grounded in science, but it would make sense that you would be spurred on to keep finding food when it became available after a shortage, rather than just sitting around the campfire rubbing your belly.
Makes sense! 0 -
The first 2 days after I started a diet break, my weight popped up to 282, then on day 3, settled down to 280.9 lbs from my absolute lowest point of 276.7 (which I think wasn't accurate in and of itself and was truly around 278ish). There were other factors there, such as eating out at a restaurant known for high sodium amounts, and other issues, but I've been steady on the 280.9 lbs all week.
Would it be safe to say that the extra 2-4 lbs is water due to the extra carbs? That's what I'm hoping for, anyway, and was assuming earlier in the week (to keep myself grounded instead of panicking at the weight increase).4 -
Muscles don't hold that much total glucose with water to cause that big a jump - but you are eating more, hence more food in stomach at any one time that is making it's way out undigested.
In those endurance trained where muscles are really trying to increase them, you might have 2000 cal total through whole body. Every 500 is about 1 lb. And you never came from a total deleted state, merely topping off.
Other reasons for water weight gain too.
Just do the math if you think any bit of it is fat to reassure yourself.
You'd have to be eating 250 OVER true TDEE to slowly gain 1 lb over 2 weeks.
So even if you started out with a suppressed TDEE that slowly increased because body saw food coming in, up to potential TDEE - do you really think it was 250 over true TDEE at that point?
And if lifting during that time - body knows what to do with the extra calories.4
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