Treat days?

2

Replies

  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    And eat only 25-50% exercise calories. I was told that MFP and fitbit calories aren't just exercise calories hence why I'm not eating 600 more calories each day. And I always thought if you are FAT likke me you lose a lot of weight in the beginning and then in slows right down?

    I'm not sure what you were told, but your MFP adjustments from Fitbit are showing how much more you're burning that MFP would have estimated given your activity level. It's irrelevant whether or not they're actually from "exercise," you're burning those calories anyway. If you weren't losing or losing slower than expected, you might need to eat fewer of them because that would indicate they were over-estimates. But you're losing faster than you expected and you're experiencing days when you're really hungry so . . . why NOT eat the calories you're obviously burning?

    But I'm not losing faster than I expected? In my second month I'm losing under 2lbs a week. The max is 2lbs a week right for a healthy weightloss? In my first month yes it was a fairly drastic drop but there would of been other factors contributing to that and it wouldn't of been just fat loss. So over the course of 2 months it's an average of 3lbs. When I finish my 3rd month cos I'm losing under 2lbs a week now the average will become less. I don't need to eat more of them back when I'm happy at the rate I'm losing.
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    edited March 2021
    Ddsb11 wrote: »
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Ddsb11 wrote: »
    Okay so something closer to a mini binge. Gotcha.

    A treat or treat day, for me, would be having a higher calorie food item, such as dessert, or possibly going out to dinner instead of making something at home in a controlled calorie setting. Tbh, I pretty much have a treat every single day. As long as it fits in my calories, why not?

    If I had a really high calorie day, I’m typically hungry the next day as well. I feel like the more I eat, the hungrier I am, it’s like opening the flood gates. I’m sure there’s a scientific explanation, and I wish I had it for you. But you’re not alone.

    It's whatever I'm in the mood for that day, whether it be a take away, a tub of B&J's or something hearty all throughout the day. My weakness atm has been homemade stews, dumplings, Yorkshire puddings 😋. I like to have a lollipop after my tea everyday but that's a very new random thing and I don't know why lol!
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    The days I wake up hungry are the days after I've eaten loads. That was reason for the question as there is a pattern. And I do eat on these days. Just tend to eat around 1500-1900kcal which for me is a nice lunch and a big tea cos that is what I like
  • Poobah1972
    Poobah1972 Posts: 943 Member
    edited March 2021
    Both my fiancé and I have done a good job of redefining what we consider a treat. We are following low carb / Keto as it's what we find works best for us and enjoy doing. And in the past, Say at a birthday party if we ate cake or Regular Full Carb Pizza etc, we would literally feel sick, bloated and usually get booted right out of ketosis, which would usually take a few days to normalize again. On top of all that, for us it seems that sort of treat day would lead to the flood cakes slowly opening at first and then eventually breaking them all together.

    So this time around our treats are all both low carb and portion friendly. So far it feels right. In fact we have what we consider treats all the time.

    Guests coming over for a get together party?

    Keto Brownies with Halo Top frozen dessert or
    Half a Melted Quest chocolate Chip cookie with more Halo Top or
    Home made something in a mug with no sugar icing.

    Craving some chips.

    Quest Protein Chips scratches that itch. (Sour Cream and Onion and Nacho Cheese are Particularly good)

    Love chocolate

    Lily's Salted Almond Cholate bar - These are fantastic and a Half a large bar is only 190 calories and 3 net carbs

    Did you like cheesey's?

    Twin Peaks - Protein Puffs (Jalapeno Cheese) - Love em.

    The down side is a lot of these treats are a bit on the pricey side, but you stop to think about it... Over all since were not stuffing our faces with crap anymore, or eating out at restaurants were actually saving a lot of money. But to be reasonable, we limit ourselves to one portion of Protein puffs, one Quest Chips or Cookie, or half a lily's chocolate bar to just once per week (each). And it's all within our daily macro's and if it's a particular big day, we don't mind all that much if we are a few 100 calories are daily normal.

    And let's not forget that Loaf of fresh baked low carb bread that we bake each week..... It's always a treat. :)

    But to answer your last question... I find higher carb count days especially when not following low carb, tend to cause higher insulin responses which signals to the body to dump all available nutrients to your cells.... Which at the end of which, your body will tend to demand a refeeding whether you require it or not.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,899 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    The days I wake up hungry are the days after I've eaten loads. That was reason for the question as there is a pattern. And I do eat on these days. Just tend to eat around 1500-1900kcal which for me is a nice lunch and a big tea cos that is what I like

    Setting aside the question of whether you are undereating/should eat more for exercise cals, I think this shows that the pattern of eating relatively low cal and then one (per week?) day where you "eat loads" is not working for you. There are lots of reasons why restriction plus a big indulgent day could make you want to continue with the indulgent days or why your body could go from being used to eating less to wanting more. It's also not at all uncommon for people to perceive digestion feelings as hunger (including stomach growling or "pangs" and so on).

    If you are adding in this big days (I'm assuming you mean above maintenance even considering exercise) and continuing to lose at the same rate, you probably ARE undereating on the other days. I'd try something different -- maybe figure out what your maintenance is (or maintenance when you are at goal) and use that as your treat day cals, and spread the remaining cals over the other days. Or, perhaps, instead of some high cal treat day, consider having a treat meal, and eat a bit less the rest of the day to fit it in. I think for most people it's fine to go over cals on a specific day or the weekend, but that's because for many of us it makes eating less on the other days easier. For you, I think I'd try either not having a high cal day or, again, a day no higher than planned maintenance, and then adding in some smaller treat type items on the other days with calories saved.
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    Why isn't it working for me? I'm losing at a safe rate https://www.livestrong.com/article/457829-is-3-lbs-per-week-weight-loss-healthy/ I eat decent foods and meals everyday and I go over my calories occasionally. I don't know what the problem is..
  • ALZ14
    ALZ14 Posts: 202 Member
    Are you measuring your food portions to make sure you are eating the right amount?

    How much exercise are you doing and are you eating any of those calories back?

    If you are doing a weekly day where you admit to significantly over eating I would guess you are severely under eating if you are still losing 2-3 pounds a week.

    I build calories into my day for an evening snack and once every few weeks I will have a treat MEAL (not day) where I will go over my daily calories but I try to not go too far over maintenance calories so I don’t undo my progress.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,899 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Why isn't it working for me? I'm losing at a safe rate https://www.livestrong.com/article/457829-is-3-lbs-per-week-weight-loss-healthy/ I eat decent foods and meals everyday and I go over my calories occasionally. I don't know what the problem is..

    Is this directed to me? I tried to explain in my post why I think it might not be working.
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    Well whatever people may think. Whatever is wrong or right. To me the spike in blood sugar makes the most sense. I like my "diet" I eat what I want each day and still have things which are high calorie. I don't feel like I'm starving myself and like said the only time I have significant hunger is when I've "binged" the day before. No other time. And I'm losing at a rate that suits me. I don't feel like I'm pushing myself to hard and I'm genuinely more happy and have more energy so it's a win for me. Whatever people's opinion
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    I don't feel like I'm starving myself and like said the only time I have significant hunger is when I've "binged" the day before. No other time.

    You asked for advice and seemed to indicate that there was something about being hungry following a "treat day" that was bothering you.

    As I said, it seems clear that the "binging" (or simply eating high calories) on specific days isn't working well for you unless you don't mind and can deal with feeling hungry the day after. I made some suggestions on alternatives, but if you don't want to change anything and think it's perfect as is, totally cool. I guess I was confused in that you seemed to have posted seeking suggestions.

    Maybe that was the confusion as I was posting more for an explanation on why the body may do this rather than suggestions to stop it. Apologies
  • ALZ14
    ALZ14 Posts: 202 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Well whatever people may think. Whatever is wrong or right. To me the spike in blood sugar makes the most sense. I like my "diet" I eat what I want each day and still have things which are high calorie. I don't feel like I'm starving myself and like said the only time I have significant hunger is when I've "binged" the day before. No other time. And I'm losing at a rate that suits me. I don't feel like I'm pushing myself to hard and I'm genuinely more happy and have more energy so it's a win for me. Whatever people's opinion

    No one said you couldn’t eat high calorie foods. I’m guessing you should probably be eating more of them if you are binging once a week and then still hungry the next day.
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    edited March 2021
    ALZ14 wrote: »
    ]

    No one said you couldn’t eat high calorie foods. I’m guessing you should probably be eating more of them if you are binging once a week and then still hungry the next day.


    I'm more than likely binging because of the wine I drink the night before. Which I probably shouldn't be drinking so excessively, but I'm going to tackle that at a later date. Once I get a less stressful job lol. And as others have said probably a spike hence the hunger
  • Jayj180894
    Jayj180894 Posts: 286 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    Lots of tangents to talk about and also some calculations that seem a bit off to me.

    So I'm coming up with just over 1025 Cal effective long-term average deficit and just over two pounds a week from beginning to now.

    First of all you can take that figure and what your Fitbit has been telling you you've been spending in terms of calories, and your MFP logging, and actually calculate how accurate your Fitbit has been for you.

    You have, actually, muddled up something about the Fitbit calories.

    Whereas MFP logged exercise has the **potential** to double count some of the "I'm alive" calories you burn, specifically, when it comes to Fitbit total day calories, the MFP adjustment has zero double counting potential.

    This doesn't mean that the Fitbit estimate will be correct given your type of activity and exercise and the way you log your food. But the Fitbit correction which is shown as an exercise adjustment in MFP is mathematically correctly dealing with net calories.

    This is a roundabout way of saying that you have no prior reason to be doubting your Fitbit adjustment.

    Now back to your > -1025 deficit regular schedule. Because given that you have overindulgence days, in order to average -1025 you are obviously creating a much larger deficit most of the time.

    You report eating about 1500? So we are looking at a ~2700ish+ TDEE? And you cutting in the high 30%s, or even more probably in the low 40% off from that.

    Deficits over 20% of tdee are aggressive. Take a guess as to whether 40% is aggressive.

    I'm not going to talk about gallstones or muscles, though gallstones would concern me.... I'm going to talk about the future and rebounding

    You see the hunger rebound you're experiencing when you eat normal amounts?

    There is a real good chance that this is hormonally mediated, i.e. your weight loss intensity has shifted hormone levels and when normal food levels become available your body is all ready to make everything extremely easy for you to regain. By being hungry. By things tasting good. By your body prompting you to stay on the couch today.

    Classic yo-yo in preparation--IF you don't try to counteract it.

    And you're looking at an indefinite amount of time of this with the only hope that I can offer being that most people seem to recover to more normal hunger cues after an extensive time period at maintenance. With people making it to two years post weight loss often eporting that they're fine by that point even without regain. Regain of course also resolves the issue, but you probably don't want that...

    You've done great and you're doing good and you should be taking advantage of how good you're feeling to position yourself for the long term.

    You need to figure out what you'll be eating on a daily basis when you have to fuel up with 2000 to 2500Cal of tdee, or whatever you expect your activity level times reduced future weight needs to be.

    You need to embed that and make it easy to follow.

    You need to stretch out the time of weight loss and maintenance to give your body time to normalize.

    You sound, to me, totally primed to continue with rapid weight loss for a few months (often ending around the six month mark especially after a few weeks of trying real hard and not being rewarded by rapid rewards), followed by relatively rapid regain back to square one within the next 12 months... UNLESS you start fighting now to **generate time at lower weight** for your body to normalize there.

    When exactly you decide to do things is up to you. Currently it sounds like you have a double whammy:

    Suboptimal balancing of too few calories to begin with throughout the week

    Both the spread between daily and indulgence and the total deficit you're creating would probably benefit you to come down in size while extending time wise

    I am so sorry. It looks as if you've put a lot of effort in to try help, but you have confused the hell out of me. My little brain does not understand what you are saying lol 😥
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,843 Member
    Jayj180894 wrote: »
    Like I said it's averaged out. Some weeks I lose nothing other weeks like the week I came off of my period I lost nearly 6lbs. I know this isn't all fat. So I don't think you should be concerned. I only started January the 17th and to my understanding you lose a lot when you first start due to water retention. I started at 15st.1lbs and now I am at 13st5. I eat on average between 1200-1900kcal on my "good days" and this depends on my exercise and whether I'm working or not. I just want to know why my body feels so starving when I've had so much to eat the day before lol!

    What's your height and goal weight?

    (For those who aren't familiar with stones she is 187 pounds.)

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