Of refeeds and diet breaks
Replies
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collectingblues wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »I've finally read nearly all of this thread. But I need people to dumb things down for me.
@Nony_Mouse Why are you now doing "moderately low carb"? I must admit I cringe at the thought of one of my heroes going the low carb cult route, but knowing you, you will have a good reason.
I've always eaten lowish carb (around 100-120) at a deficit, not because I think there's any magic in it, just because it's easier for me to create and sustain a deficit that way. Even at maintenance 150g a day would be the norm for me most of the time. I'm all about the protein, and the things I eat tend to be higher fat (I'm looking at you, avocado and halloumi, oh and dark choc pb in my shakes!), so by the time those two things are in there's not a lot of room left for carbs, and they're the thing I care least about. Nothing cultish about it, just basic maths. I just don't shout it from the rooftops that I'm technically low carb (if you subscribe to that meaning lower than 150g), because it's just the way I eat. Dropped that a little lower than normal the past few days simply to shift some of the unholy amount of water weight I was lugging around. Purely psychological, I know it isn't fat weight.
So there you go, I've always been moderately low carb, you just didn't know it
I've been doing the same thing, Nony. The dietitian had me doing a moderate low carb during the pre-race taper, to try to curb that taper weight gain and keep my brain from freaking out. I actually enjoyed it, and found it easier to do when I was focusing on protein more, so it seems to have stuck.
*slowly raises hand* I'm also low to moderate carb right now, just because that's how the macros land when I focus on protein. I would actually prefer to be higher carb since I'm ramping up my cycling and running, but I seem to be unconsciously reaching for the protein, fat and fiber trifecta.
Me, too. I've been really good at managing my macros for the last couple of months for roughly a 1/3 for each. My exercise has been crap for the last few weeks (though still getting steps) because of the 15 hour work days. But I keeping on track with what I can. I keep lots of food in my office, so even when there are emergency meetings, I can still manage my nutrition--at least the macros.
I have to say I feel you on the work hours cutting into activity time
I retired last May (sing hallelujah!) but for the 14 previous years I had a 4 hour daily commute and my activity was practically nothing outside of weekends. I'm impressed you're keeping up with your steps (I think you have a more or less sedentary job in mental health counselling?) Yeah, I ended up keeping a bunch of portioned out food in my office, because toward the end there I was hitting the snack machine for potato chips and snickers bars almost on the hour.
I do technically have a sedentary job. I'm closing in on one year of at least 10,000 steps every day, but the big things was the Step Bet I joined. I refuse to lose money over something which should be under my control (or so I think). My goals were quite a bit over 10,000/day (15,000/day four days a week and 18,000/day two days a week). I'd do some yoga on my own after to stretch and relax a bit. And use my pranamat.
I work on a large college campus and going from meeting to meeting really does help me with my steps.
The main threat has been gone for a week and is at home with their parents. Mom still thinks the student's diet might be part of the problem (it's not) and I am concerned for the mental health support the student might be getting at home. They should be in an in-patient or intensive outpatient treatment. They're not.
And of course, this situation happened at another school right in the middle of when we were responding to our student. Our student was hospitalized for mental health issues 4 times in about 5 weeks.
We've done everything we can possibly do and I still worry it's not enough.
And today I should get my fitness life back. It's spring break here and things are a little slower (knock on wood). Yoga tonight!
I'm not sure how bad a diet needs to be to warrant a psychiatric threat, barring pure starvation or any extreme diet methods. There are studies that suggest a balanced or improved diet, used in conjunction with therapy, aid in mental health improvement, but an underlying disorder needs to be addressed by a healthcare professional as you stated.
Oh yeah—agreed! Mom is from a culture that doesn’t really believe in treatment the way we do in the US for mental health issues, even ones as serious as these (note I used the plural).
Sure, the student could always improve their nutrition (which could help them be in better condition for treatment to work), almost all my students could (and so could I—to be perfectly honest), but eating more veggies and getting some additional fiber isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with them. Mom is thinking it’s the cure because she didn’t have exposure to mental health issues where she was from.
OK, time for more yoga!3 -
collectingblues wrote: »Nony_Mouse wrote: »I've finally read nearly all of this thread. But I need people to dumb things down for me.
@Nony_Mouse Why are you now doing "moderately low carb"? I must admit I cringe at the thought of one of my heroes going the low carb cult route, but knowing you, you will have a good reason.
I've always eaten lowish carb (around 100-120) at a deficit, not because I think there's any magic in it, just because it's easier for me to create and sustain a deficit that way. Even at maintenance 150g a day would be the norm for me most of the time. I'm all about the protein, and the things I eat tend to be higher fat (I'm looking at you, avocado and halloumi, oh and dark choc pb in my shakes!), so by the time those two things are in there's not a lot of room left for carbs, and they're the thing I care least about. Nothing cultish about it, just basic maths. I just don't shout it from the rooftops that I'm technically low carb (if you subscribe to that meaning lower than 150g), because it's just the way I eat. Dropped that a little lower than normal the past few days simply to shift some of the unholy amount of water weight I was lugging around. Purely psychological, I know it isn't fat weight.
So there you go, I've always been moderately low carb, you just didn't know it
I've been doing the same thing, Nony. The dietitian had me doing a moderate low carb during the pre-race taper, to try to curb that taper weight gain and keep my brain from freaking out. I actually enjoyed it, and found it easier to do when I was focusing on protein more, so it seems to have stuck.
*slowly raises hand* I'm also low to moderate carb right now, just because that's how the macros land when I focus on protein. I would actually prefer to be higher carb since I'm ramping up my cycling and running, but I seem to be unconsciously reaching for the protein, fat and fiber trifecta.
Me, too. I've been really good at managing my macros for the last couple of months for roughly a 1/3 for each. My exercise has been crap for the last few weeks (though still getting steps) because of the 15 hour work days. But I keeping on track with what I can. I keep lots of food in my office, so even when there are emergency meetings, I can still manage my nutrition--at least the macros.
I have to say I feel you on the work hours cutting into activity time I retired last May (sing hallelujah!) but for the 14 previous years I had a 4 hour daily commute and my activity was practically nothing outside of weekends. I'm impressed you're keeping up with your steps (I think you have a more or less sedentary job in mental health counselling?) Yeah, I ended up keeping a bunch of portioned out food in my office, because toward the end there I was hitting the snack machine for potato chips and snickers bars almost on the hour.
I do technically have a sedentary job. I'm closing in on one year of at least 10,000 steps every day, but the big things was the Step Bet I joined. I refuse to lose money over something which should be under my control (or so I think). My goals were quite a bit over 10,000/day (15,000/day four days a week and 18,000/day two days a week). I'd do some yoga on my own after to stretch and relax a bit. And use my pranamat.
I work on a large college campus and going from meeting to meeting really does help me with my steps.
The main threat has been gone for a week and is at home with their parents. Mom still thinks the student's diet might be part of the problem (it's not) and I am concerned for the mental health support the student might be getting at home. They should be in an in-patient or intensive outpatient treatment. They're not.
And of course, this situation happened at another school right in the middle of when we were responding to our student. Our student was hospitalized for mental health issues 4 times in about 5 weeks.
We've done everything we can possibly do and I still worry it's not enough.
And today I should get my fitness life back. It's spring break here and things are a little slower (knock on wood). Yoga tonight!
I'm not sure how bad a diet needs to be to warrant a psychiatric threat, barring pure starvation or any extreme diet methods. There are studies that suggest a balanced or improved diet, used in conjunction with therapy, aid in mental health improvement, but an underlying disorder needs to be addressed by a healthcare professional as you stated.
Oh yeah—agreed! Mom is from a culture that doesn’t really believe in treatment the way we do in the US for mental health issues, even ones as serious as these (note I used the plural).
Sure, the student could always improve their nutrition (which could help them be in better condition for treatment to work), almost all my students could (and so could I—to be perfectly honest), but eating more veggies and getting some additional fiber isn’t going to fix what’s wrong with them. Mom is thinking it’s the cure because she didn’t have exposure to mental health issues where she was from.
OK, time for more yoga!
Ah, that makes sense. Culturally speaking, the stigma surrounding mental health often causes a lot more problems due to the lack of treatment or recognition that treatment is necessary. It’s a mark of shame leading to being a sociocultural pariah if your family is known to have something wrong. Pure lack of understanding is usually the root cause.
Some of family believes there’s a cure for anxiety and depression by simply toughing it out and “getting over it.” Social awkwardness is rewarded with titles of being a good and quiet child that doesn’t speak out unless spoken to, while any objections are punished with physical and mental abuse.
In my case, if food was encouraging those types of behaviors because it deviated from traditional meals, then it was a cause of being influenced by growing up in the US and disowning their native culture.
While it might not be the same line of thought, I can understand why the Mom might believe what she does. It sure as hell doesn’t take it right, but there’s at least some existing context that can be used to try and approach her from a different perspective.2 -
Hungry_Shopgirl wrote: »nexangelus wrote: »Remember that among the three macros, carbs and fat are the worst combination to pair together for optimal body composition. They're competing substrates for fuel in the body and it can only burn one or the other, and carbs/glucose is always first in line to be used as fuel. Fat goes straight to storage*. On the other hand, it's really hard to overeat animal protein, so people who like to eat a lot tend to not prefer them.
*Digested fat always goes to storage, but circulates out when insulin levels are low enough to meter them out via lipolysis. Glucose spikes increase insulin levels which halts lipolysis.
So this is where the demonizing of sugar or carbs on their own is a no-no? In the UK, dunno about anywhere else, they are making sugar the latest demon (sugar tax, making sugary things smaller and even lowering the sugar in some drinks), used to be fat, red meat, blah blah, now carbs (especially sugar). They forget the scientific part that specifies overeating fat plus carbs = danger, and as you said anubis609, this is what most people tend to eat in abundance. I have had so many arguments with folks lately about sugar being the bad, bad thing making people obese. How do you get this across to peeps not into researching or reading around stuff? I mean layman's terms...sorry just venting a little...also the overeating bit..
So fat only goes "straight to storage" when eating at a caloric surplus? Not just whenever it's consumed at the same time as carbs? That already makes more sense. Phew!
Well, not really.
Upwards of 90% of your energy source for the day as a whole is still fat, anyone with detailed metabolic/RMR test results can show that. As activity level increases in intensity then more of it becomes glucose. So depends on how active you are overall. 50/50 ratio is up in the aerobic zone if fit, down lower if you don't exercise much.
After eating then with insulin elevated, fat to storage since body is dealing with higher blood sugar immediately, potentially.
Once carb stores are filled in muscle and liver and blood sugar still high despite using it as energy source right then, gluconeogenesis and the carbs go to fat, insulin lowers - fat burning back on.
In a diet, the muscles stores usually are always below their potential.
So blood sugar lowers faster in a diet compared to not.
So you are back to fat-burning mode sooner, in fat-storage mode shorter - compared to no diet.
But for the specific commented scenario of body comp, carbs with protein will get everything filled up and protein shuttled off to where it's needed while insulin is up. The high % of fat source for energy is on pause until that happens and blood sugar back down. Then back to fat burning. But you are getting protein where it's needed.
Carbs with fat does fill the glucose stores still, but the fat is going to fat stores during that whole time.
Protein with fat still raises insulin, despite the claims made by some low carbers. Just not as fast or as high as carbs alone.
In an average diet, the day as a whole doesn't make as much of a difference as the fact of just being in a deficit.
Only if you were like major carby and when low would the differences in efficiency cause a tad more to be burned in processing food.
What happens after a meal and such may look different, but at the end of the day, same result - if all else kept the same like amount of protein at best levels.
It's like the claims of fasted workouts being a special benefit to weight loss - studies have shown not. Personal preference sure.
Just wanted to share this as Jeff Nippard basically reiterates this entire response by @heybales
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxmVsT_ZeNs
I've just recently been catching a few of his videos on muscles and workouts and science, so very interesting, have to look up those myth discussions.
I'm especially thrilled to find someone that gestures as much, if not a tad more, than me. Don't see him talk as much in the other video's I've seen.
That comment near end about the study showing the "fat-adapted" (I guess that means in sense of brain on keto since body already is) showed improvement in endurance.
I recall reference to an early study testing that against just doing endurance training at lower HR, the Maffetone method basically - and it showed same improvement in increased mitochondria allowing for more % of fat as energy source as intensity went up. Meaning you could go longer slightly harder.
Thanks for reference, I guess I need to subscribe now.2 -
I just had the realisation that my projected maintenance calories for my UGW (still around 15–20 pounds from now) is the same as what I'm currently eating, so it looks like at some point I'm simply going to stop losing and that's how I'll know I'm 'done'. It's not even that low of a BMI - I'm talking about 120–125 pounds at 5'3" (middle of normal range, but I have a small frame; wrist measurement under 5.5", East Asian heritage). Being a short, old, sedentary woman blows sometimes.
I'm wondering if this realisation has any potential ramifications that I should be thinking about now, like 'take a diet break now while you still even have a deficit', as well as what this might mean, if anything, as far as metabolic or hormonal stuff in the long term. Like, that whole discussion on whether to gradually up one's calories to find maintenance level or jump immediately up to them is never going to be a thing for me. Yeesh.
If you're quite close to your goal weight, remember that extending the deficit is going to be less productive for hormonal regulation. That said, you can take more frequent maintenance days/diet break periods as an approach to give you a break from the chronic deficit.
During your goal weight maintenance, since that is perceivably the hardest concept for most dieters, you are allowed some flexibility in your diet. Not everyday is going to be the same, so hunger won't always be the same either. Some days may have a deficit, while others might have a surplus. The average intake should be roughly your calculated maintenance and scale weight will fluctuate around a range in either direction. Whether you want/need to actively track during that time is up to you, but it wouldn't hurt to have a rough idea as a baseline.
I haven't delved into ethnic demographic metabolism very much (other than potential risk factors for certain races), but it does play some part in our personal genetic ability to handle more or less substrates.
Thanks. I'm 10 pounds out from my 'stop and reassess' goal of 130 but in all likelihood will keep going until I naturally slide into maintenance at 120–125 due to the aforementioned frame size considerations. Apparently, for example, 130 and 5'3" would put me only around the very top of healthy BMI according to the Chinese government's table (140 in the US, for reference). And though I'm not Chinese as such there's a certain logic in someone with my genetic background taking note of that set of national averages. Also, when I was at uni 20-something years ago I settled at 125 for quite some time after the freshman 15 so I think of it as a sort of 'happy weight'.
I'll be doing a proper diet break in the second half of April because I've got a holiday planned that will involve a lot of eating and drinking with people I haven't seen in ages, then I guess the slow march to 'no longer losing' will continue. Knowing I'm already eating at my maintenance level for my goal weight means I can already answer the question of whether or not I'll track calories at maintenance with an emphatic yes, I'll be tracking forever, because I could easily overeat my allotment by 700 calories a day if I didn't make a point of reining it in.4 -
MegaMooseEsq wrote: »
Hah, whenever I see that thread pop up, I think "Good for those nerds!" Please note that I'm currently 2/3rds of the way through my annual Lord of the Rings re-read, so am definitely Team Nerd.
@MegaMooseEsq *laughs* I don't read the books annually, but I've read them a few times - including the Silmarillion, and I own all the Histories though I haven't read them all (a little academic & dry, but wonderful back ground material), not to mention all the memorabilia in my office area.......And I can keep the "F" straight! Finwe, Feanor, Fingolfin, Finarfin, Finrod, Fingon, Faramir, Frerin.....Tolkien apparently had a thing for "F" names........
So does that qualify me for a Team Nerd membership card? lol3 -
amusedmonkey wrote: ». . . what's a Pocket?
It's a bookmarking site. I use MFP on PC and it has a little handy Chrome extension that saves any page you want and you get to add a tag to it. I believe it's available on all kinds of devices. This also solves the problem of wanting to bookmark a certain page in a thread (just make sure to click the page number before bookmarking)
https://getpocket.com/add/?ep=1
ETA: another plus side of this method is that I no longer need to hunt and weed through notifications because all new posts on favorite threads are consolidated and shown as a number.
Aha. I NEED this. Thanks!1 -
amusedmonkey wrote: ». . . what's a Pocket?
It's a bookmarking site. I use MFP on PC and it has a little handy Chrome extension that saves any page you want and you get to add a tag to it. I believe it's available on all kinds of devices. This also solves the problem of wanting to bookmark a certain page in a thread (just make sure to click the page number before bookmarking)
https://getpocket.com/add/?ep=1
ETA: another plus side of this method is that I no longer need to hunt and weed through notifications because all new posts on favorite threads are consolidated and shown as a number.
Aha. I NEED this. Thanks!
If you want to bookmark a certain comment, not just a page, click on the date under that comment first them bookmark.6 -
Hungry_Shopgirl wrote: »nexangelus wrote: »Remember that among the three macros, carbs and fat are the worst combination to pair together for optimal body composition. They're competing substrates for fuel in the body and it can only burn one or the other, and carbs/glucose is always first in line to be used as fuel. Fat goes straight to storage*. On the other hand, it's really hard to overeat animal protein, so people who like to eat a lot tend to not prefer them.
*Digested fat always goes to storage, but circulates out when insulin levels are low enough to meter them out via lipolysis. Glucose spikes increase insulin levels which halts lipolysis.
So this is where the demonizing of sugar or carbs on their own is a no-no? In the UK, dunno about anywhere else, they are making sugar the latest demon (sugar tax, making sugary things smaller and even lowering the sugar in some drinks), used to be fat, red meat, blah blah, now carbs (especially sugar). They forget the scientific part that specifies overeating fat plus carbs = danger, and as you said anubis609, this is what most people tend to eat in abundance. I have had so many arguments with folks lately about sugar being the bad, bad thing making people obese. How do you get this across to peeps not into researching or reading around stuff? I mean layman's terms...sorry just venting a little...also the overeating bit..
So fat only goes "straight to storage" when eating at a caloric surplus? Not just whenever it's consumed at the same time as carbs? That already makes more sense. Phew!
Well, not really.
Upwards of 90% of your energy source for the day as a whole is still fat, anyone with detailed metabolic/RMR test results can show that. As activity level increases in intensity then more of it becomes glucose. So depends on how active you are overall. 50/50 ratio is up in the aerobic zone if fit, down lower if you don't exercise much.
After eating then with insulin elevated, fat to storage since body is dealing with higher blood sugar immediately, potentially.
Once carb stores are filled in muscle and liver and blood sugar still high despite using it as energy source right then, gluconeogenesis and the carbs go to fat, insulin lowers - fat burning back on.
In a diet, the muscles stores usually are always below their potential.
So blood sugar lowers faster in a diet compared to not.
So you are back to fat-burning mode sooner, in fat-storage mode shorter - compared to no diet.
But for the specific commented scenario of body comp, carbs with protein will get everything filled up and protein shuttled off to where it's needed while insulin is up. The high % of fat source for energy is on pause until that happens and blood sugar back down. Then back to fat burning. But you are getting protein where it's needed.
Carbs with fat does fill the glucose stores still, but the fat is going to fat stores during that whole time.
Protein with fat still raises insulin, despite the claims made by some low carbers. Just not as fast or as high as carbs alone.
In an average diet, the day as a whole doesn't make as much of a difference as the fact of just being in a deficit.
Only if you were like major carby and when low would the differences in efficiency cause a tad more to be burned in processing food.
What happens after a meal and such may look different, but at the end of the day, same result - if all else kept the same like amount of protein at best levels.
It's like the claims of fasted workouts being a special benefit to weight loss - studies have shown not. Personal preference sure.
Just wanted to share this as Jeff Nippard basically reiterates this entire response by @heybaleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxmVsT_ZeNs
I've just recently been catching a few of his videos on muscles and workouts and science, so very interesting, have to look up those myth discussions.
I'm especially thrilled to find someone that gestures as much, if not a tad more, than me. Don't see him talk as much in the other video's I've seen.
That comment near end about the study showing the "fat-adapted" (I guess that means in sense of brain on keto since body already is) showed improvement in endurance.
I recall reference to an early study testing that against just doing endurance training at lower HR, the Maffetone method basically - and it showed same improvement in increased mitochondria allowing for more % of fat as energy source as intensity went up. Meaning you could go longer slightly harder.
Thanks for reference, I guess I need to subscribe now.
No problem. I just recently subscribed to him too.
As far as keto/fat adaptation goes, Bill Lagakos breaks it down pretty well in his posts:
http://caloriesproper.com/ketoadaptation/
http://caloriesproper.com/long-term-fat-adaptation/
http://caloriesproper.com/a-timeline-of-ketoadaptation/
As for the mention of that ~3 week period of performance drop AKA "keto flu," Lyle's ketogenic diet book will mention that it's mostly due to the shift in electrolyte dumping once glycogen becomes reduced:
Low energy levels
Carbohydrates are the body’s preferred fuel when they are available (see chapter 4). As
well, they burn more efficiently than fats. Many individuals voice concerns about drops in general
energy levels (not including exercise) on a ketogenic diet due to the lack of carbohydrates.
Many subjects in early studies on ketosis or the PSMF noted transient lethargy and
weakness. As well many studies noted a high occurrence of orthostatic hypotension which is a
drop in blood pressure when individuals move from a sitting to standing position. This caused
lightheadedness in many individuals. It was always taken for granted that ketosis caused this to
happen.
However, later studies established that most of these symptoms could be avoided by
providing enough supplemental minerals, especially sodium. Providing 4-5 grams of sodium per
day (not much higher than the average American diet) prevents the majority of symptoms of
weakness and low energy, possibly by maintaining normal blood pressure (26).
In most individuals fatigue should disappear within a few days to a few weeks at most. If
fatigue remains after this time period, small amounts of carbohydrates can be added to the diet,
as long as ketosis is maintained, or the diet should be abandoned for a more balanced diet.
The effects of ketogenic diets on exercise are discussed in chapter 22. To summarize,
ketogenic diets can generally sustain low-intensity aerobic exercise without problem after a
period of adaptation. However because carbohydrates are an absolute requirement to sustain
high intensity exercise such as weight training or high-intensity aerobic exercise, a standard
ketogenic diet is not appropriate.1 -
I just had the realisation that my projected maintenance calories for my UGW (still around 15–20 pounds from now) is the same as what I'm currently eating, so it looks like at some point I'm simply going to stop losing and that's how I'll know I'm 'done'. It's not even that low of a BMI - I'm talking about 120–125 pounds at 5'3" (middle of normal range, but I have a small frame; wrist measurement under 5.5", East Asian heritage). Being a short, old, sedentary woman blows sometimes.
I'm wondering if this realisation has any potential ramifications that I should be thinking about now, like 'take a diet break now while you still even have a deficit', as well as what this might mean, if anything, as far as metabolic or hormonal stuff in the long term. Like, that whole discussion on whether to gradually up one's calories to find maintenance level or jump immediately up to them is never going to be a thing for me. Yeesh.
If you're quite close to your goal weight, remember that extending the deficit is going to be less productive for hormonal regulation. That said, you can take more frequent maintenance days/diet break periods as an approach to give you a break from the chronic deficit.
During your goal weight maintenance, since that is perceivably the hardest concept for most dieters, you are allowed some flexibility in your diet. Not everyday is going to be the same, so hunger won't always be the same either. Some days may have a deficit, while others might have a surplus. The average intake should be roughly your calculated maintenance and scale weight will fluctuate around a range in either direction. Whether you want/need to actively track during that time is up to you, but it wouldn't hurt to have a rough idea as a baseline.
I haven't delved into ethnic demographic metabolism very much (other than potential risk factors for certain races), but it does play some part in our personal genetic ability to handle more or less substrates.
Thanks. I'm 10 pounds out from my 'stop and reassess' goal of 130 but in all likelihood will keep going until I naturally slide into maintenance at 120–125 due to the aforementioned frame size considerations. Apparently, for example, 130 and 5'3" would put me only around the very top of healthy BMI according to the Chinese government's table (140 in the US, for reference). And though I'm not Chinese as such there's a certain logic in someone with my genetic background taking note of that set of national averages. Also, when I was at uni 20-something years ago I settled at 125 for quite some time after the freshman 15 so I think of it as a sort of 'happy weight'.
I'll be doing a proper diet break in the second half of April because I've got a holiday planned that will involve a lot of eating and drinking with people I haven't seen in ages, then I guess the slow march to 'no longer losing' will continue. Knowing I'm already eating at my maintenance level for my goal weight means I can already answer the question of whether or not I'll track calories at maintenance with an emphatic yes, I'll be tracking forever, because I could easily overeat my allotment by 700 calories a day if I didn't make a point of reining it in.
Sounds like a well enough plan. Lifelong tracking may need to be done in many cases. I share that aspect considering my mention of being formerly obese. If I'm not at least aware of what I'm eating, I will overeat. Though, I do have periods of relaxed and rigid tracking when situations or events call for it.3 -
I'm currently following this plan. 1800 calories weekdays (30% carbs/40% fat/30% protein) - 2500 calories on weekends with extra carbs. It's working well and I'm lost ten pounds in 5 weeks. Back to my previous low before diet break at Christmastime. More energy in the gym, too - a nice benefit.
Is it advisable to take a break and eat at maintenance for a couple of weeks? Or should I continue with the current plan, since I'm replenishing carbs each week?2 -
ZOMG guys, we're a Sticky!!!! We've finally made it
22 -
Nice! That's great news. Thanks for starting this thread, @Nony_Mouse. I've learned a lot here.7
-
Nony_Mouse wrote: »ZOMG guys, we're a Sticky!!!! We've finally made it
Congratulations! Such a wonderful resource for the community!5 -
Nony_Mouse wrote: »ZOMG guys, we're a Sticky!!!! We've finally made it
Congratulations! This is such a helpful thread, I'm glad to see that it's placed for easier reference.6 -
Yay to stickydom!
I will be a bit more cautious about going for a diet break on schedule next time (I'm a fat chick, and I lurk at the edge of the protocol, every 12 weeks or whatever it is, so I didn't really need one at 8 weeks, I was experimenting). It's been murder trying to get back on track this time. Next time I am going to try and budget in things I am craving until at least 12 weeks. I also have a much better idea of how to do this now
In better fitness related news, I did 18000 tough steps mostly around a RSPB site last weekend, and I coped. Given I started this journey to improve cardiovascular health, this is huge for me (6 months ago I wouldn't have even attempted it). My husband was basically all "who are you and what have you done with my wife". I'll live with the month or two's delay to goal. This is bloody priceless.
I'm also hovering a pound over my lowest weight pre diet break, so I'm not doing that badly. When I get back on the horse after Easter I am expecting all the entertaining stress / cortisol gain and glycogen gain to come off, after all. 11 -
I'm continuing on with my 1800 this week, but I think I messed myself up yesterday. It was Easter and I really chowed down on the ham, which has resulted in a lot of water weight gain this morning. I don't know if I'll have it all gone by weigh day on Thursday, so I might have to wait another week to get an idea of where maintenance is for me!
Oh well - I got a lot of protein in yesterday! lol8 -
Good morning! I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!
I just finished up a 16 day diet break. I'm packing 3-4 more pounds than before my diet break. I hope I'll have most of it off this week with my deficit. This diet break was kinda crazy for me. I was thrown into it by circumstances and so I just went with it. The first 2 days after the initial start I settled into it and maintained about a 2# surplus for about 9 days. Then something happened and I found it a little harder to control. I would start out the day good, but about mid-day I would think, 'wow I still have 'x' amount of calories for the day left' and so I would have a little snack and then another and before the day was gone, I was over. bummer.
I think this is another reason that when I hit my 2nd 10% goal (10# (well now 14#) to go), I will take an extended diet break. 2-3 months. I gotta learn how to control this thing. If I can't control and maintain at the heavier calories, how am I going to control when I have less calories to eat?12 -
Hurray for stickiness!
Just for the collective thoughts in regard to the blips from Easter or just recent diet breaks, it's part of the process. More likely than not, the first diet break, or first few, are going to be the learning curve. The relief that comes from no longer being on a deficit can easily be interpreted to be some days of unbridled feeding. Don't beat yourself up over it. The diet break is the diet break for a reason.
Remember that you have long-term goals, so repeated cycles of deficit and diet break are going to happen. Being too rigid leads to an explosive reaction to the diet break. Being too relaxed in the deficit may actually not put you in a deficit overall.
So, the happy medium is somewhere that allows you to eat as much as you can that allows you to still lose weight. This is the most optimal chance at maintaining a deficit allowed for your body type. Just as a reminder, the larger you are, the longer you can maintain a deficit. The smaller you are, the shorter your deficit will be.
Example: a 250 lb individual with 35% bf might be at a deficit with 2750kcal, which should perceivably be sustainable until they stop losing weight. Say they lose 30 lbs (assume pure fat) and at 220 at 26% bf , they don't lose at that calorie level, so a new deficit of say 2400 is needed to continue weight loss. As long as you're not feeling the effects of hormonal dysregulation, you can keep up this cycle up to 12-16 weeks or something before a diet break is needed.
Conversely, a 180 lb individual with 20% bf might need 1980kcal to be at a deficit, but at 165 lbs at 13% bf, they may not see weight loss at 1800kcal, and if they dropped it to 1600kcal it would work for a while, but as they get leaner, there's only so many calories left before it becomes unrealistic, so they could only do 1600kcal for 10 days before taking a week long break or they may need to average 1600kcal/day on a weekly basis (alternating days of maintenance and deficit).
These are just really rough examples to get my point across, but hopefully it makes sense. The point is that the diet break food isn't really going to be drastically different from normal dieting food where most of your food quality should be coming from whole food with just an extra allowance or two of something you've been cutting from your deficit diet - or the calorie dense equivalent of diet food; i.e. whole eggs instead of egg whites.14 -
Just a quick follow up to reinforce the notion of why focusing on pure scale weight isn't always conducive as a measurement to success.
10 -
So. Thanks to a new GP who actually listened, we figured out what the problem was with Me and My Thyroid. It was similar to what I was suspecting, but more complex, in that apparently after years of calorie restriction, my body got *pissed*. The suspicion is that it started making reverse T3 instead of T3, and everything got screwed up from there. This is typically seen in individuals who are *actually* anorexic, instead of my atypical diagnosis, but is not unheard of. (Cue my being pissed, because my stupid body gained weight when it put into place a safety net that typically doesn't activate until you're actually starving, as opposed to my "I'm gonna just burn everything off" slimmer-side-of-normal weight status.)
In response, for a while, I'd been dropping to <1000 calories a day, with <900 the past few weeks. Because to my little head, still, the response to "I can't lose weight" is still "I can't trust calories and you can't make me eat. But I'm going to go run 5 miles anyway."
But today, after my GP was all "I think we need to evaluate whether it's time to go inpatient, and that's my preference" I ran some trendline and r-squared analyses ... and saw that much to my surprise, I actually lost more weight when my deficit was smaller.
So I told her I'd agree to changing my synthroid again (she's concerned that I'm now hyper, according to T4 and TSH, which she says isn't helping the rT3) and although I also have an appointment with a functional medicine doc to discuss the rT3 and T3 issue (she had said to get one if I wanted, but that she wasn't going to prescribe T3, and neither was my endo) that I was willing to try eating more if those same trendlines continue.
I'm at a point where my more structured clothes don't fit anymore, and we know it has to be water, since you can't build fat in a deficit, so something has to change. And I don't have the resources to be hospitalized. So I need to play along with their game and at least try it.
It scares the crap out of me, but I changed my calorie goal to 1800, and I guess I try it from here.17 -
Just a quick follow up to reinforce the notion of why focusing on pure scale weight isn't always conducive as a measurement to success.
Oh that is so very, very true.1 -
How long does it typically take to drop water weight from a high carb/high sodium day? I ask because it always seems to take forever for me to lose water weight, which in turn plays havoc with my weekly weigh ins. I over-did it with the ham this weekend, and my weight spiked up 8 lbs from Friday to Monday. It's coming back off, but very, very slowly. I'm trying to figure out where my maintenance calories are, but the water weight is making it extremely difficult to evaluate. Tomorrow is supposed to be my weigh in day, but from what I saw this morning, I'm not going to have all the water weight off to be able to see where I'm at.
Right now, I'm eating 1800 calories a day and have been sticking to that limit very closely. In using the formula Anubus provided on page 194, my maintenance calorie level should be somewhere between 2771 and 3198 if I'm at 50% bf, or 2420 to 2793 if I'm at 40% bf (using the 1.3 - 1.5 sedentary to lightly active modifiers). One problem I have is that I have no real idea of what my %bf is, but I'm assuming its around 40-50% as I'm not very active and haven't really started much of an exercise program yet behind daily chores. And since I was very, very obese, I've got a lot of extra skin hanging around which I would think would also be a problem in trying to evaluate %bf - right?
The 2420 says I should be losing around 1.5 lbs a week on an 1800 calorie week limit, on average. And I think I am somewhere in that neighborhood, but I can't get a true trend established because of the water weight. I did lose weight in the last 2 weeks, BUT my weight has been pretty erratic in those 2 weeks due to TOM and then this weekend, and now its popped back up to 268, so I'm having trouble getting an idea of the rate I'm losing at in order to figure out for sure where my maintenance is and how much above the 1800 I should raise my limit.
I check my weight daily, but weigh in and record it only once a week, and I know it fluctuates during the week, but I'm usually okay with that as long as the general trend is down. However, many times, I'll be trending down nicely until weight record day, when it will suddenly bounce up 2 or 3 lbs, which in turn kills my record for the week. And then it will take several days to get it back down.
My goal is to find maintenance and eat at that or slightly above it for 2 weeks, if I can ever establish where it is. I'm trying to establish a trend line to help, but the water weight is interfering with that. Do you have any advice on how to get the water weight to level off? I'm trying to eat lower carb, but I'm afraid that might be exasperating the constipation issues I'm dealing with (sorry for the TMI). I've been focusing on fiber intake and trying to get the recommended values in, but that isn't helping, either.
I thought about just going ahead and raising my maintenance up to the 2500 (the sedentary, 40% bf calorie calculation), but I'm not 100% that would be true maintenance or surplus, and I don't want to accidentally remain in deficit. And I want to be sure that I'm eating at the right deficit level when I go back to deficit.
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
1 -
It takes me forever to lose water weight, and I shift around a lot, especially now that I'm back to working with weights every other day. This is one of the reasons I stopped weighing and started focusing on habits and compliance ... because my water shifts are bad.
BTW, I'm back to higher carbs now. Over 200 grams a day. I started listening to new audio books and well, just got more busy walking listening to them. I needed fuel. I think increasing the weights added to that too. I feel a lot better. The great thing about exchanging fat for carbs is that for the calories you don't have to cut too many grams of fat to do this. I'm still getting a whole avocado a day at lunch, which keeps me in a happy place.
Anyway, when I eat at maintenance, since I've been dieting so long, I allow for a slight adaptation factor and some small things I don't log that would possibly be in the neighborhood of around 50 calories, so I err on the side of caution and cut slightly below what my Fitbit is saying. But I'm at a very different phase of dieting than you are, so I would likely err on the side of being optimistic about the numbers in your situation.3 -
Sodium seems to be 2-4 days for most. Depends on if you were going much lower than body desires, and then went way over.
Glucose depends.
If very active and body has been trained to store alot in the muscles for workouts, and you top them all off with some big carb meals, and then go back to normal being active - 2 days possible if back to deficit.
If big carb meals proceed many lazy days like you got sick - you aren't using those muscle stores - could last a long while even in a deficit.
Since those stores can't be put back into bloodstream, and the body doesn't always call on muscle stores first even when using muscles briefly, they could sit awhile.
3 -
The typical bodybuilding style of getting rid of bloat after a high carb/sodium day is to flush with a lot of water, increase potassium via Lite Salt or potassium chloride for seasoning food, reduce sodium/carbs, and a lot of LISS.
Not that anyone needs to do that, but it's a thing. Bodybuilders and physique athletes, and by extension physique chasers, have a horrible binge/purge cycle, speaking from experience.
Worst case scenario is that it may take up to 2 weeks for your scale weight to return to baseline, if that's your current metric of measurement. Every 1 day of eating blown way out of proportion (full on binge) = ~1 week to return to baseline, so for 2 days of complete overfeeding, it could potentially take 2 weeks.
The optimal and ideal realistic approach would be to just consider Easter as a refeed, go back to your normal routine and just allow yourself to be as consistent as possible from here on out. Daily weigh-ins take a mental toll, and menstruation plays a part in that. Lyle recommends picking an anchor week out of the month as your measurement of progress (in his Womens Book):
This causes several problems. The first is that it can exacerbate the normal issues many have with the
scale. The woman who is already fixated on the small day-to-day changes can be driven mad by the
weekly changes as she will be adhering to her diet and exercise program and almost over night, her weight
spikes by several pounds or kilograms. Hopefully readers will avoid at least this issue now that I have
pointed out what those types of fluctuations mean but I've even known female trainees who, despite
knowing full well the difference between body composition and body weight, still getting affected by these
types of weight shifts. Even taking a rolling average as I recommended above doesn't eliminate this because
the average value and trend line will be shifting up and down each week. Within any given week, the
rolling average will be useful but from week to week it will not be. An added issue is that it makes tracking
changes more difficult for the normally cycling woman compared to women with most of the hormonal
modifiers or men since comparing different weeks of the cycle to one another won't give any accurate
indication of what is happening in response to her diet or exercise program.
To better illustrate this, I've shown a hypothetical month of average weekly body weights and how
they might change in different weeks of the cycle along with month to month. These numbers are for
illustration only and any individual woman may see smaller or larger changes from week to week.
Phase | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3
Early Follicular | 143 lbs | 141 lbs (-2) | 140 lbs (-1)
Late Follicular | 147 lbs | 145 lbs (-2) | 144 lbs (-1)
Early Luteal | 145 lbs | 143 lbs (-2) | 142 lbs (-1)
Late Luteal/PMS | 150 lbs | 148 lbs (-2) | 147 lbs (-1)
You can see that average body weight is changing from week to week during the month with the
lowest value occurring in the early follicular phase and the highest in the late luteal phase. I might go so
far as to suggest women avoid any measurement during the last week of the cycle due to the large increase
that can occur which can be extremely psychologically stressful. In practice that would mean only tracking
for three weeks out of the month. Perhaps the bigger point of the table is that comparing any individual
week of the cycle to any other individual week is rather pointless due to the water weight shifts that are
occurring. Weight goes up from the early to late follicular phase, goes down to a different number in the
early luteal before increasing again in the late luteal phase. The week-to-week shifts in hormones and body
weight make any comparisons useless. The same holds for other body composition methods.
At the same time, you can see that it is possible to compare one week of the month to the same week
of the following month. Bodyweight or BF% could be compared between the early follicular phase of
Week 1 and the early follicular phase of Week 2 and this will give some indication of what is actually
happening over time. The same would hold for the late follicular to late follicular, early luteal to early
59
luteal and late luteal to late luteal. So from Month 1 to Month 2, body weight goes down 2 lbs in each
week of the phase. The numbers are all still different from each other but the absolute change is the same.
I've shown a similar result from Month 2 to Month 3. The changes might not be this consistent in the sense
that every week might not show the same 1 or 2 pound loss and I'd expect the late luteal phase to be the
most variable. But overall, comparing only like weeks of the cycle to each other will give a much better
indication of what is happening than trying to compare weeks within the same month.
This does raise the question of what a woman's "real" weight or BF% both for her own peace of mind
as well as within the context of the calculations that will appear late in this book. That is, which week's
numbers should a woman use when setting up her diet or protein intake or what have you? In one sense it
doesn't matter so long as the same week of the month is used to make any changes. In another sense, since
any increase in water weight from week to week isn't "real" in the sense of representing a true change in
body composition, measuring in a week where water retention is known to occur makes no sense. As water
retention is likely to be at its lowest during the early follicular phase, I'd generally recommend using the
average body weight, BF% estimate, from that week. Usually weight will be at its lowest roughly 3-4 days
following menstruation and this would give the best indicator of a woman's true weight. There is another
reason that using the early follicular phase to set up a diet is important related to when it's best for the
normally cycling woman to actually start her diet that I will discuss in a later chapter.6 -
Dietary related (carbs or sodium) for me is usually 3-4 days. When I start getting twitchy, I'll look at the highest sodium day, and count out 4 days from that last high sodium day -- and 9/10 times, it resolves itself on day 4.
Travel is usually a week.
Race weight = usually two or three weeks.
Mid-cycle and cyclical = 10 days1 -
I had a "refeed" or "binge" on Easter. I ate a lot of bad bad food that day, and its taken me longer than normal for my body to get rid of the water weight. I hold onto water very easily, so this isn't a big surprise. Just annoying. I feel like a fat slob but I know that I probably only gained 1-3 pounds of fat that day. Oh well. Back to the deficit life.0
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I had a "refeed" or "binge" on Easter. I ate a lot of bad bad food that day, and its taken me longer than normal for my body to get rid of the water weight. I hold onto water very easily, so this isn't a big surprise. Just annoying. I feel like a fat slob but I know that I probably only gained 1-3 pounds of fat that day. Oh well. Back to the deficit life.
Unless you ate >3500-10500kcal over maintenance, fat accumulation isn't going to be that rapid, if it's any consolation. But yes, just go back to your normal routine. It corrects itself over time as long as there aren't frequent spikes to hinder it.7 -
Hey diet break crowd, hope everyone's doing well this morning/afternoon/evening. I was just thinking about you all because I've scheduled my second diet break, woooo! Assuming that the plan continues to chug along as expected, I should start dipping under 150 in early June, putting me 15 pounds away from my first goal weight at the top of normal BMI. I'm planning a vacation for the back half of June and realized that if I was going to eat at maintenance for five days, I might as well just stretch that out to 15 and get a real break in. I also like the idea of starting maintenance a week or so before heading out of town so that I can get used to my new normal a bit.
I'm also planning on starting a new strength program in June, probably Strong Lifts, as I'll have a hot cash infusion sufficient to upgrade my home set-up and pay for a few sessions with a personal trainer. The timing of the vacation isn't amazing for that, but so it goes. Depending on how I feel about my body at that point, I may extend the diet break for a month or so and see how that feels with lifting. I haven't felt like I'm suffering lifting in a deficit, but I really have no point of comparison, and my first 2-3 weeks were largely light form work anyhow. Just to toot my genetic horn a little, I carry my weight pretty well (now that my wine belly has been significantly reduced), and if I can get my waist-to-hip ratio down, I don't really GAF what the scale says.
I don't know if any of you have popped your head in the "can I reduce my waist" thread, but it's gotten me thinking about how accurate WHR is for people with more distinct waist tapers or lack thereof. I'm 21 pounds overweight and certainly overfat (maybe 35-40% bf by my eyeball), but my WHR is normal using my natural waist, and obese using my belly. /shrug
Enough babbling!9 -
That's all good news. WHR is actually a good metric to use (any measurement, really, in conjunction with scale weight) to better determine if any scale weight loss is correlating with measurements. That and some physicians like to use WHR to predict health risk susceptibility.
Plus if you're strength training, if measurements and scale weight are trending down, but strength is steady/improving, it's a good sign that you are losing primarily fat and retaining muscle/gaining strength. Outside of novice gains or getting back into training after a layoff, fat loss and hypertrophy muscle gain are almost mutually exclusive. Either way, even in a deficit, do not reduce the intensity of your heaviest lifting set. Say for Stronglifts, if your next scheduled lift is +5 lbs for your working set, then if you can hit it for 1-2 sets but need to reduce the weight for subsequent sets, that's still fine.
In fact, in a deficit, training volume might decrease, but that shouldn't deter you from trying to still get stronger. Which is why I tend to use reverse pyramid training (RPT) during a deficit. Warm up to a top set of my heaviest intensity for a prescribed amount of reps (3-5), then reduce load by -10% on following sets but add reps (5-8) > -10% for 8-12 reps.
If you're unable to maintain the intensity, then it might be time to reconsider the programming or energy intake.
For now, do what you're doing in terms of the plan and enjoy your diet break and upcoming vacation.2
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