Anyone here taking "diet breaks"?

[conservativechristian]

This video from MissFitandNerdy is seriously making me consider doing 2-3 week cutting cycles instead of continuously dieting.

I've been in a 500 cal deficit for 2 weeks now (5,3ft, 130lbs, eating 1400-1500cals), and I've lost 2,5lbs which I'm happy about. I'm considering doing a maintenance week and eating at 1900. I'm just terrified of gaining back the weight I've lost, this is the first time in my life I've been able to intentionally lose any weight and it would suck to gain it again.

Anyone ever tried doing this?

 

[tinglee0021]

@conservativechristian I just mix in some high cal days randomly and don’t worry about it. The last time I was working on my weight and lost 70 lbs I would randomly eat “bad” one day after doing great for awhile, and then the next day I’d assume I’d be up in weight but I actually lost a pound. I prefer to just add in random high cal days so I can enjoy life when it happens and not worry about being too strict all the time.

 

[lechatnoir]

@tinglee0021 I do this too. I just like to keep my metabolism guessing instead of getting used to a deficit

 

[lichti]

@tinglee0021 i know you said it's random, but do you have a guess on how often these high cal days would come up? like is it more a 1x/week thing, or like 2x/month thing?

 

[tinglee0021]

@lichti If I had to guess I would say once a week I go a few hundred over, and every few weeks I have a day that I don’t even track that’s probably WAY over.

 

[billbennet]

@tinglee0021 This is the way.

 

[joemzkie08]

@tinglee0021 Same. I'm not tryna feel bad for enjoying food. We just had Chinese takeout and I'm sure I went over my deficit. I don't care. It's all about averages really.

 

[dashadams]

@conservativechristian Yes. I’ve done it multiple times.

I’m a visual learner and thinker so my take: the thing about maintenance, is that it’s not that much more than deficit, especially at our heights. While I wouldn’t recommend for everyone, I’ve become great at eyeballing over time because I hate literally having to log every single number. It is give or take an extra small meal or a calorie dense snack or extra olive oil in your cooking (that might be a surprise).

People may often think the difference between them is vastly different that they’re going to put weight on but that’s usually because we naturally underestimate calories as humans and think we need to eat so much more than we really do to maintain. Asides from the typical womanly fluctuations, if you put on weight, then somewhere down the line you’ve mistaken a surplus for a maintenance. The key is to understanding the difference between your deficit and maintenance.

For me, visually it’s a bowl of (40g) granola and some Greek yoghurt. A large fries from McDonald’s. A large avocado and a handful of nuts. Volume wise none of these are that crazy but they are calorie dense. It really helps to visualise those calories in my opinion or if you’re not a visual person, collate a calorie data based list of snacks and meals which total to the calorie difference between your deficit and maintenance so you don’t have to think about it that hard during your diet breaks.

Or on the other end of the spectrum, if you want to feel like you’re eating so much more as a petite woman, you can use that as an opportunity to volume eat lower calorie, high fibre/high protein to make that maintenance count for the day.

Good luck. Really try to understand the extra you’re putting into your body on maintenance and you should not put on weight.

 

[conservativechristian]

@dashadams Thanks for your comment, it's great to know that it worked for you.

I've been tracking for months before going into a deficit so I feel I've got a pretty good idea of how to eat at maintenance. For me it's just a slightly larger lunch, or a second helping at dinner!

 

[rodjonesinchrist]

@conservativechristian Maintenance breaks are a game changer for me. Its really only an additional 200cals but its the equivalentof a weekly takeaway.

 

[jimmyh214]

@conservativechristian I think if you go to maintenance, you will gain a bit, because more food needs more water to digest it, and that will show on the scale. So don't freak out if you bump a couple pounds.

That said, it also gives your body a break and reduces the physical stress of eating less than you burn, which is important. When I was younger and lost a fair bit, about every 10 lbs I would take a month to maintain, get used to a new normal, then work on the next 10.

Now that I'm older, it's proving a bit harder, so I just gotta get more stubborn about it.

 

[autisticcrazyknight]

@conservativechristian So the whole month between semesters at school for me, I ate whatever I wanted and when I wanted and maintained my weight. I stopped trying to lose weight because I was doing a medication change and I knew I would be very lethargic from it. Oddly enough, since I have started doing my lifestyle change, I just naturally eat less, so not tracking wasn't a problem and it was nice to eat at maintenance over the holidays.

 

[subitoit]

@conservativechristian Yes, I do. I did a cut for four months (it was a very small deficit) and am now finding my new maintenance calories. My goal now is recomp, so if all goes as planned, I won't need to cut. I'm still open to doing so if I end up gaining a bit of fat with the muscle. But in that case it will likely by mini-cuts as they are more sustainable.

 

[randalthor1604]

@conservativechristian Yes! I did about two breaks in the last 6 months. First was during October, i was 10 pounds down and wanted to stop tracking calories for 3 weeks. I wanted to see if I could intuitively eat at maintenance. I ended up losing maybe a pound over those 3 weeks even though I meant to be at maintenance, because I didn’t track and I’m quite active. But that’s okay. Also that pound could’ve been measurement error, who knows.

Second maintenance break was about 2-3 weeks from mid December to early January. I had final exams so I wanted to take a break from working out and thinking about calories. Then it was Christmas time. I maintained my weight this time. I did the same intuitive eating. I didn’t work out at all during this time.

Maintenance breaks are very useful for me, but ymmv. I also reached my first goal weight— 135lbs— before my second maintenance break. I finally feel happy with the way my body looks again so it was a lot easier to take a maintenance break. But I’d like to lose another 10lb off of that, down to 125lbs. Then I’ll see how I feel. I’ve never felt great under 120lbs so I’m really just feeling it out from here on. FWIW I started at 152lbs in July!

 

[elisvac]

@conservativechristian I have done it, following the advice in this blog. https://rippedbody.com/diet-break/

It was effective for me. I did 3-4 months of cut then two weeks at maintenance.

 

[loveyhwh]

@conservativechristian You won’t gain it back if you’re eating at maintenance and it’s just one week. Even if you did go over your maintenance slightly you can’t gain that much fat in one week unless you’re bingeing non stop or overindulging every day like crazy. If you do gain from a maintenance target it’ll be just water weight from increased carbs.