Diet Breaks

DIET BREAKS 🍦🍩🍰

A diet break an intentional break from a caloric deficit that can be anywhere from 7-14 days.

It’s a time where we take calories out of a deficit & put them at an estimated maintenance level. Not only does this help with diet adherence, but it takes the stress of a calorie deficit off of a person.

A short period of “regular” eating outside of a deficit can reverse some of the metabolic adaptations to a caloric deficit & give your hormones time to recover to normal levels. By this I mean that you’ll be less hangry, irritable, probably have more energy, & be nicer to your significant other. 😂

How do you know if you need a diet break?

▪️Loss of hunger even in a deficit
▪️Poor sleep
▪️Poor diet adherence
▪️Irritability
▪️Plateuing in fat loss
▪️Gym performance is lacking

There are two ways you could go about the diet break. Controlled or uncontrolled.

The uncontrolled diet break would consist of eating according to HUNGER (not craving) cues & don’t count macros, but also don’t be afraid of eating more since you aren’t tracking.

The controlled diet break would consist of tracking your macros but increasing caloric intake to an estimated maintenance OR having a ~500kcal increase. You could even remove the macro targets, focus on hitting your protein & then just hitting whatever carb and fat number your lil heart desires.

The leaner you are, the more frequently you’ll need these diet breaks because the metabolic adaptations can be harsher as we get leaner.

You MIGHT gain some water weight because more carbs = more water in our bodies. 1g of carbohydrate holds 3g of water. Our muscles are made up of 70-80% water which is stored from muscle glycogen.

If we’re eating more carbs than normal on this diet break (you will be), your body (the muscles mainly) will hold more water.

You have NOT gained fat. It’s just water. Let’s not judge our progress solely by the scale here. I’d even recommend not weighing the week or 2 of your diet break if it messes with ya mentally.

Have you ever taken a diet break before? Did it end up helping your cut be more successful? Would love to hear your experience in the comments! 👇🏼👇🏼