3 ms·

Renaissance Periodization just did a video on calorie cycling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZfryrVddY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZfryrVddY (the video

Renaissance Periodization just did a video on calorie cycling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZfryrVddY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwZfryrVddY (the video is titled carb cycling, which he dismissed in the first few minutes and he moves on to calorie cycling) and in it he discusses some of the benefits and disadvantages of calorie cycling vs just eating at a deficit. The tl;dr is follow your body (e.g. not sleeping well, exhausted all the time, eat more for a bit), but try starting out around 2:1 for eating a fair bit under vs slightly above maintenance. (e.g. diet 6 days, eat a bit extra for 3 days, repeat). In another video he also mentions that after weight loss, that it is a good idea to slowly increase calories until the scale doesn't move, and then eat at that level for a few weeks to reset the body's hunger signaling. (I am dramatically simplifying there). > The human body always adapts and if I were a gambling man, I'd say this is largely why most people fail at dieting: after a month or two the results stop and they have to further decrease their intake which interferes with other pathways and tanks motivation. This is why "cheat days" or even "cheat weeks" work. People are on a strict diet, weight loss stalls, they go on vacation and eat at a surplus for a bit, and then they find that after vacation they are able to resume losing weight. Likewise a big thing in Keto awhile back (not sure now) was cycling off Keto for the weekend, which unless a person is very careful, ends up with people eating at least a little bit to "excess". Plenty of people do "lazy keto" and eat a big Sunday family meal and so long as the excess calories on Sunday don't exceed the sum total of deficits from the other 6 days, they'll be A-OK, and now it turns out they may actually be better off.

_dark_matter_ 3y ago
I highly recommend this article from the MacroFactor team on this: https://macrofactorapp.com/refeeds-diet-breaks/ https://macrofactorapp.com/refeeds-diet-breaks/ Basically their view is that refeeding (aka cycling) probably doesn't do much physiologically speaking, but there may be advantages to adherence when people use diet breaks (typically longer than a cycle or refeed).
- com2kid 3y ago
  > As shown in Figure 9, results indicated that “intermittent energy restriction interventions,” which include relatively long diet breaks, led to a fairly negligible weight loss advantage that was not statistically significant. The problems I am seeing with all these studies is that the participates in the control groups (just regular dieting) are still losing weight throughout the study. Instead, do a study where you have a bunch of people who are calorie restricted, and when the scale stops moving, have half the participants do a re-feed before trying to cut again, and the other half keep soldiering on as is. Or to put it another way, we all know people plateau with diets. Running a study that where participants do not hit a plateau, and instead having science just go "oh well! Sorry can't help you!" aren't of much use. (It is funny because the author of that article starts out talking about plateaus, and then runs a bunch of studies that.... don't encounter plateaus.) I've met people, who are grossly obese, who after going from 400lb to 300lb, find that they aren't losing weight at even 2500 kcals a day. So they drop it to 2000kcal. 25 pounds later the scale stops, and they try 1500kcal, feel like shit, and they give up. Math says at 250lb they should be shedding tons of weight at 1500kcal, but they aren't. I want to see a study that investigates that, instead of "oh someone lost 10kg, woohoo!" 10-15kg is a lot of weight to lose, but almost any dietary intervention will pull of a 10-15kg weight loss (which is what all the studies looked at show!) > Theoretically, reverse dieting should be most effective in scenarios where metabolic adaptation is most extreme, and to my knowledge, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment reports some of the most dramatic metabolic adaptation ever observed in the scientific literature. Except it was taking people at healthy weights and having them drop to an unhealthy low weight, and then having them regain weight. The situation we are faced with now is people at unhealthy high weights, with all the hormonal problems that entails, losing a bunch of weight, and messing up their hormones in a different way, and now the goal is to stabilize their body at that new lower weight. > As previously discussed, the available research hints at a number of subjective and behavioral improvements related to hunger, satiety, diet adherence, mood, and perceived energy level, in addition to improved performance All of those "subjective" feelings have basis on the body's physiological systems. With better measurements, the underlying cause of those "subjective feelings" can be found. Edit: FWIW I think the extreme weights we are seeing in developed societies have multiple underlying causes, and that pure dietary interventions are not the solution for everyone. From gut microbiome to environmental pollutants, to the # of ads for fast food on TV, IMHO the problem is multi-causal.

_dark_matter_ 3y ago

I highly recommend this article from the MacroFactor team on this: https://macrofactorapp.com/refeeds-diet-breaks/ https://macrofactorapp.com/refeeds-diet-breaks/ Basically their view is that refeeding (aka cycling) probably doesn't do much physiologically speaking, but there may be advantages to adherence when people use diet breaks (typically longer than a cycle or refeed).

com2kid 3y ago
> As shown in Figure 9, results indicated that “intermittent energy restriction interventions,” which include relatively long diet breaks, led to a fairly negligible weight loss advantage that was not statistically significant. The problems I am seeing with all these studies is that the participates in the control groups (just regular dieting) are still losing weight throughout the study. Instead, do a study where you have a bunch of people who are calorie restricted, and when the scale stops moving, have half the participants do a re-feed before trying to cut again, and the other half keep soldiering on as is. Or to put it another way, we all know people plateau with diets. Running a study that where participants do not hit a plateau, and instead having science just go "oh well! Sorry can't help you!" aren't of much use. (It is funny because the author of that article starts out talking about plateaus, and then runs a bunch of studies that.... don't encounter plateaus.) I've met people, who are grossly obese, who after going from 400lb to 300lb, find that they aren't losing weight at even 2500 kcals a day. So they drop it to 2000kcal. 25 pounds later the scale stops, and they try 1500kcal, feel like shit, and they give up. Math says at 250lb they should be shedding tons of weight at 1500kcal, but they aren't. I want to see a study that investigates that, instead of "oh someone lost 10kg, woohoo!" 10-15kg is a lot of weight to lose, but almost any dietary intervention will pull of a 10-15kg weight loss (which is what all the studies looked at show!) > Theoretically, reverse dieting should be most effective in scenarios where metabolic adaptation is most extreme, and to my knowledge, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment reports some of the most dramatic metabolic adaptation ever observed in the scientific literature. Except it was taking people at healthy weights and having them drop to an unhealthy low weight, and then having them regain weight. The situation we are faced with now is people at unhealthy high weights, with all the hormonal problems that entails, losing a bunch of weight, and messing up their hormones in a different way, and now the goal is to stabilize their body at that new lower weight. > As previously discussed, the available research hints at a number of subjective and behavioral improvements related to hunger, satiety, diet adherence, mood, and perceived energy level, in addition to improved performance All of those "subjective" feelings have basis on the body's physiological systems. With better measurements, the underlying cause of those "subjective feelings" can be found. Edit: FWIW I think the extreme weights we are seeing in developed societies have multiple underlying causes, and that pure dietary interventions are not the solution for everyone. From gut microbiome to environmental pollutants, to the # of ads for fast food on TV, IMHO the problem is multi-causal.