I planned on losing 10% of my body weight (27lb) over a 10-week period. I was tracking my weight more than I was tracking time and because I was only down 5% of my body weight I did not notice it had been 15 weeks. Let me tell you the crash in mood and energy was intense. Took me a few days to figure out why I was so miserable. Literally a day and a half of eating at maintenance calories and I feel great. Diet breaks are extremely important. While it is totally possible for you to lose your goal weight with no breaks there will be consequences.
I have a friend who, over the course of a year lost about 25% of their body weight. This was 3 years ago and while they have managed to maintain their weight loss, which is surprising in of itself, their appetite has still not fully recovered. They suffer regular intense bouts of hunger even at maintenance calories.
For those who are not aware the general guidelines are:
Lose no more than 1% of body weight per week.
Maintain a deficit for no more than 10 weeks in a row.
Lose no more than 10% of your total body weight per diet phase.
Return to maintenace calories for at least as long as your diet phase. Ideally longer.
Remember that when you go up to maintenance calories, you are not losing any of the progress you have made. Also, be prepared to gain 2 or 3 lb of just water weight when you do. This is just your body carrying more water, you have not gained any fat.
It's not sexy. It is a long-term plan that will not get you super fast results. But the results you get are much much more likely to last long-term. It gives your body plenty of time to recover from the stress that accumulates during calorie restriction, and it helps you build good habits and learn how to properly eat at maintenance calories.
I hope this helps some people out 👍 Good luck with your goals.
Edit: Because of some of the comments, here are some additional clarifications
Some people have said diet breaks have been debunked. That depends on what you mean by debunked. They have been shown in studies to not increase weight loss, fat loss, or resting metabolic rate. None of those are my claims. They have also been shown to reduce disinhibition during diet phases making it easier to stick to the diet. I will say that none of these studies have been long term and none of them have had follow up years after to assess whether or not they kept the weight off.
The source for my advice comes from Dr Mike Israetel from Renaissance periodization. He has two different weight loss courses. One that's short and digestible, and another that's long and in depth. I generally trust him for evidence based medicine when it comes to hypertrophy and fat loss.
Here are the playlists.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyqKj7LwU2RulAjHczohbx5OyJQ8TaFM0&si=oTpiyhoLqnbLhkOS
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVk7ofrHePaCnmNMqSa7ZYdI1I22ljwLt&si=-A-3JqXx8SSqt1k1
I have personal experience with diet fatigue. Low energy, less NEET (not exercise activity thermogenesis), mood swings, feeling cold, etc. That is anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt. But I think that diet breaks are a good safe path to take when it comes to weight loss. There is significant individual variation so assess how you feel and adjust accordingly. There is no universal solution for everyone.
by Miserable_Sweet_5245
9 Comments
Thank you for this!!
I had only heard of this recently, and I really wish i had sooner!
Back in the before times (Covid) I lost about 31% in 9 months by just changing my diet (282 to 195 43M). Since then, I have tried to maintain a healthy eating regiment and am floating between 220 and 230. I feel great, but am ready to tighten it back up again to get back to around 200ish. No need for breaks, just little adjustments to let your body regulate.
Debunked pretty well here https://macrofactorapp.com/reverse-dieting/
I’m ok with taking breaks, but not nearly as long as you suggest. A day or a weekend, maybe one week at most. Then it’s back to the plan for me.
There are several false statements in this post.
– Metabolisms do not “recover” from dieting and they don’t need to.
– reverse dieting, maintenance breaks, et al. have been thoroughly debunked
– Eat less than maintenance and you will continue to lose weight, no matter how long you’ve been in a deficit
If you need a break for psychological reasons that’s great. Take a break. It’s not however physiologically necessary.
Disagree. I lost 70 pounds in 6 months. Got to 150 which at almost 50 I was okay with. Lost another 15 over the next 18 months. Have maintained the loss for over 6 years.
I did it by eating what maintenance calories were for sedentary at goal weight. I just stayed at that for 6 months then I hit goal. I was very active so increased calories at that point.
The only reason to take breaks is if you need it mentally but having gone through this I feel it will make keeping the weight off harder.
I agree. But also have heard people describe not needing them. My personal unverified opinion (after reading all the scientific articles I could find) is that thyroid is super important here. And thyroid appears to be more responsive in women’s bodies. Men are saying “I just dropped my calories and lost the weight: women are saying “I dropped my calories, lost weight, then plateaud. Then dropped further, felt awful, lost weight slowly”. Calorie expenditure is downregulated in response to the “famine”. Women have better survival potential in times of famine. Most people with clinical thyroid problems are women but men are not immune either.
I have Hashimoto’s (hypothyroid) and I lost weight by doing weekly cuts and diet breaks (5 day cut, 2 days maintenance per week) and monthly (4-6 weeks maintenance after 4-6 week cut).
Do you have any actual, testable, peer-reviewed scientific evidence for any of this, or is it just your own personal experiences and opinions? No offense, but it really sounds more like the latter. Which is fine, and may help some people. But I’m a little skeptical about them being “general guidelines”. Who exactly decided these were “guidelines”?