Who is on a cut?

[Allentown]

Deficit too big, triggering starvation mode and weight stall? Not sure if that is a real thing.

[Hardartery]

Deficit too big, triggering starvation mode and weight stall? Not sure if that is a real thing.

I am still a lttle stumped, but dropping so I a less frustrated. It could be that I started using a little peanut butter on lifting days. I counted the calories, I kept it to the actual portion on the label. But, it may have pushed my carb count too high and screwed me up. I was hoping to be able to lighten up on that at some point and push closer to 70 or 80 carbs a day. I'm guessing that may be it. I cut back hard core on the carbs, really keeping it as close to zero as possible again. If I hit 250 maybe I transition then, the rebound water from glycogen would leave me roughly where I ought to be. The BP is in line though, I can tell by the over head pressing. No lightheadedness on the clean of any kind, an indicator for me that my normal walking around BP isn't high enough to give me problems from the difference when it drops on a clean. Hard to tell with a cuff where I'm really at, the one I have reads about 15 points different from the doctor's office, and that can vary widely depending on the nurse and whether or not they want to listen to me about which cuff to use. I'm not that huge, but my arms are still over 18" and even relaxed they're not getting a good reading out of the normal adult cuff.

[dw]

Deficit too big, triggering starvation mode and weight stall? Not sure if that is a real thing.

I'm not sure either but that's the theory behind refeeds.

Lyle McDonald had this very mechanistic idea that a sudden carb surplus would restore your leptin levels to pre-fasting levels, and leptin affects both hunger and fat catabolism, or something like that. I believe subsequent research didn't support the idea but I can't remember for sure.

[MattimusMaximus]

I’ve been dieting for 6 mths and lost 27 lbs. Hit a hard plateau at month 5 so reduced cals by another 250 and the plateau remained. I even gained a pound I think.

Decided to reverse, albeit slowly and I’m now down another pound. I plan to reverse and then maintain for about 2-3 months before going into another deficit. Layne Norton et al., seem to think this is pretty usual for longer calorie deficits and that the BMR needs a bit of a “reset” so-to-speak.

@JohnHelton made a good point that my weight loss during my reversing is probably due to my metabolism increasing faster than I’m adding cals back in. It’s super cool. I’m no expert but I’d give it a shot, it seems to be working for me so far. Weighed in at 217.7 lbs this morning. That’s down 1 lb since reversing and down 28 lbs since “dieting” from about 245.5 lbs.

[Hardartery]

I’ve been dieting for 6 mths and lost 27 lbs. Hit a hard plateau at month 5 so reduced cals by another 250 and the plateau remained. I even gained a pound I think.

Decided to reverse, albeit slowly and I’m now down another pound. I plan to reverse and then maintain for about 2-3 months before going into another deficit. Layne Norton et al., seem to think this is pretty usual for longer calorie deficits and that the BMR needs a bit of a “reset” so-to-speak.

@JohnHelton made a good point that my weight loss during my reversing is probably due to my metabolism increasing faster than I’m adding cals back in. It’s super cool. I’m no expert but I’d give it a shot, it seems to be working for me so far. Weighed in at 217.7 lbs this morning. That’s down 1 lb since reversing and down 28 lbs since “dieting” from about 245.5 lbs.

I am trying to get my head around this fat loss stuff. My plateau would have been around the 5 month mark. Pissed me off. The only place I really want to lose fat did not change, the belly. In fact, it kinda looks worse 30 lbs lighter. Damnit. I can see striations in my shoulders sometimes, my arms are significantly more vascular, the gut remains. I am currently running a harder deficit (Under 2k cal the last few days), but I want to know more about exactly how one does this Reverse Diet thing?

[slowmotion]

There's a new article on calories out on Stronger by science just now. I haven't read it yet, so I don't know if it is relevant to this discussion or not.

I've been loosing about 10kg or 22 pounds of body weight a year for the last 3 years or so, and when I plateau I just take a break for a month or 3 before starting up again. That seems to work for me at least.

[Allentown]

I’ve been dieting for 6 mths and lost 27 lbs. Hit a hard plateau at month 5 so reduced cals by another 250 and the plateau remained. I even gained a pound I think.

Decided to reverse, albeit slowly and I’m now down another pound. I plan to reverse and then maintain for about 2-3 months before going into another deficit. Layne Norton et al., seem to think this is pretty usual for longer calorie deficits and that the BMR needs a bit of a “reset” so-to-speak.

@JohnHelton made a good point that my weight loss during my reversing is probably due to my metabolism increasing faster than I’m adding cals back in. It’s super cool. I’m no expert but I’d give it a shot, it seems to be working for me so far. Weighed in at 217.7 lbs this morning. That’s down 1 lb since reversing and down 28 lbs since “dieting” from about 245.5 lbs.

I am trying to get my head around this fat loss stuff. My plateau would have been around the 5 month mark. Pissed me off. The only place I really want to lose fat did not change, the belly. In fact, it kinda looks worse 30 lbs lighter. Damnit. I can see striations in my shoulders sometimes, my arms are significantly more vascular, the gut remains. I am currently running a harder deficit (Under 2k cal the last few days), but I want to know more about exactly how one does this Reverse Diet thing?

I'm on a reverse diet right now, started 6 days ago. Carbon has me at "maintenance calories" right now, not sure if that will increase after my next weekly check in or what, since I just switched it from "weight loss" to "reverse diet weight gain" like I said 6 days ago.
Went up about 2lbs (last 4 days average) vs the previous week average, but was basically level for those last 4 days.

[MattimusMaximus]

@Hardartery Layne Norton and the team at 3DMJ (Eric Helms) are great resources for reverse dieting and flexible dieting. They’ve got their PhD’s so they’re very knowledgeable and have been coaching for a long time.

Reverse dieting basically takes your BMR and “revs” it up. For example, I was losing a ton of BF on 2550 cals for 5 months but plateaued. So I dropped down to 2300 cals for a month and nothing budged (even gained a pound). At this point I knew my metabolism had adapted to the low cals and slowed down.

It’s not sustainable for me to eat less than that so I calculated my BMR using the Müller formula (age, weight, activity level) and it spat out 2760 cals. I want to reverse slowly so I started at 2650 nearly 2 weeks ago and just bumped it up to 2750 last week. Now my metabolism is revving up faster than I’m adding cals back. Which is pretty cool, but once I keep adding every week that’ll stop and hopefully I’ll maintain for a few months. Keep weighing myself to see what the trend is. If I gain too much I just won’t add cals for a week or so. Starting with 100/week cal increases but soon I’ll slow that to 50/week. I’m in this for the long-term so no rush.

According to Norton I should be able to increase my BMR another 10-20% above my calculated one once I’m done reversing. Hopefully!

[Allentown]

@Hardartery Layne Norton and the team at 3DMJ (Eric Helms) are great resources for reverse dieting and flexible dieting. They’ve got their PhD’s so they’re very knowledgeable and have been coaching for a long time.

Reverse dieting basically takes your BMR and “revs” it up. For example, I was losing a ton of BF on 2550 cals for 5 months but plateaued. So I dropped down to 2300 cals for a month and nothing budged (even gained a pound). At this point I knew my metabolism had adapted to the low cals and slowed down.

It’s not sustainable for me to eat less than that so I calculated my BMR using the Müller formula (age, weight, activity level) and it spat out 2760 cals. I want to reverse slowly so I started at 2650 nearly 2 weeks ago and just bumped it up to 2750 last week. Now my metabolism is revving up faster than I’m adding cals back. Which is pretty cool, but once I keep adding every week that’ll stop and hopefully I’ll maintain for a few months. Keep weighing myself to see what the trend is. If I gain too much I just won’t add cals for a week or so. Starting with 100/week cal increases but soon I’ll slow that to 50/week. I’m in this for the long-term so no rush.

According to Norton I should be able to increase my BMR another 10-20% above my calculated one once I’m done reversing. Hopefully!

Also, the Carbon app from Layne Norton.

[MattimusMaximus]

@Allentown lol yes that’s right. I’m just cheap. My wife bought me Layne’s Fat Loss Forever book so I’ve just been following that. I’d use the app if I wasn’t cheap though.

[Allentown]

@Allentown lol yes that’s right. I’m just cheap. My wife bought me Layne’s Fat Loss Forever book so I’ve just been following that. I’d use the app if I wasn’t cheap though.

Personally I find that the $50 for 6 months is just enough of a commitment to ensure I stick with it and follow it. Like "don't want to waste my money, haha" type expense.

[JohnHelton]

@Allentown lol yes that’s right. I’m just cheap. My wife bought me Layne’s Fat Loss Forever book so I’ve just been following that. I’d use the app if I wasn’t cheap though.

Personally I find that the $50 for 6 months is just enough of a commitment to ensure I stick with it and follow it. Like "don't want to waste my money, haha" type expense.

I think there is something to that. I also think that the app will push you harder than you would push yourself. The results in the end are worth the monetary investment.

[Allentown]

@Allentown lol yes that’s right. I’m just cheap. My wife bought me Layne’s Fat Loss Forever book so I’ve just been following that. I’d use the app if I wasn’t cheap though.

Personally I find that the $50 for 6 months is just enough of a commitment to ensure I stick with it and follow it. Like "don't want to waste my money, haha" type expense.

I think there is something to that. I also think that the app will push you harder than you would push yourself. The results in the end are worth the monetary investment.

Actually, I would have cut harder without the app. Two or 3 days of no change or increases in weight and I would have cut calories. Instead I trusted the app to make the changes based on weekly averages, and it worked out.

[JohnHelton]

Good article from Stronger by Science regarding CICO:

https://www.strongerbyscience.com/calories-weight/

[dw]

Of all the BF% estimators, which is least sensitive to the effects of being on a cut?

I.e. will any of them not go haywire when I revert to maintenance?

I find both BIA and waist circumference to be sensitive to this, to the point that it makes them less useful because they are based on data from presumably non-dieting populations.

[JohnHelton]

Of all the BF% estimators, which is least sensitive to the effects of being on a cut?

I.e. will any of them not go haywire when I revert to maintenance?

I find both BIA and waist circumference to be sensitive to this, to the point that it makes them less useful because they are based on data from presumably non-dieting populations.

BIA is terrible. I also find waist circumference to be mediocre. When I gain or lose weight, it doesn't happen uniformly. I gain it first right at my navel. It is also the last place that I lose it. I have found the 3-site caliper test to be the most useful. It disregards glycogen uptake in the muscles. It also has more data points than waist circumference. Of course, it isn't perfect, but I think it is close enough.

[dw]

Of all the BF% estimators, which is least sensitive to the effects of being on a cut?

I.e. will any of them not go haywire when I revert to maintenance?

I find both BIA and waist circumference to be sensitive to this, to the point that it makes them less useful because they are based on data from presumably non-dieting populations.

BIA is terrible. I also find waist circumference to be mediocre. When I gain or lose weight, it doesn't happen uniformly. I gain it first right at my navel. It is also the last place that I lose it. I have found the 3-site caliper test to be the most useful. It disregards glycogen uptake in the muscles. It also has more data points than waist circumference. Of course, it isn't perfect, but I think it is close enough.

I tried the Jackson 3-site test just now and got 11.2%, which is way off. I think I'm about 15.5% at best. User error very possible though...caliper based estimations always come in low for me.

[JohnHelton]

Of all the BF% estimators, which is least sensitive to the effects of being on a cut?

I.e. will any of them not go haywire when I revert to maintenance?

I find both BIA and waist circumference to be sensitive to this, to the point that it makes them less useful because they are based on data from presumably non-dieting populations.

BIA is terrible. I also find waist circumference to be mediocre. When I gain or lose weight, it doesn't happen uniformly. I gain it first right at my navel. It is also the last place that I lose it. I have found the 3-site caliper test to be the most useful. It disregards glycogen uptake in the muscles. It also has more data points than waist circumference. Of course, it isn't perfect, but I think it is close enough.

I tried the Jackson 3-site test just now and got 11.2%, which is way off. I think I'm about 15.5% at best. User error very possible though...caliper based estimations always come in low for me.

That is a pretty big delta. It sounds like user error to me. They are a little tricky to use on yourself. I use a horizontal pinch on my stomach and pec as doing a vertical pinch is harder to accomplish. I don't think it has a huge effect on the results. The most important thing is consistency though and the relative number. The absolute number is always going to be wrong.

[FredM]

Of all the BF% estimators, which is least sensitive to the effects of being on a cut?

I.e. will any of them not go haywire when I revert to maintenance?

I find both BIA and waist circumference to be sensitive to this, to the point that it makes them less useful because they are based on data from presumably non-dieting populations.

BIA is terrible. I also find waist circumference to be mediocre. When I gain or lose weight, it doesn't happen uniformly. I gain it first right at my navel. It is also the last place that I lose it. I have found the 3-site caliper test to be the most useful. It disregards glycogen uptake in the muscles. It also has more data points than waist circumference. Of course, it isn't perfect, but I think it is close enough.

Wife test continues to be the best for me. Mirror test doesn't work so well when I spent my whole life fat and still see a fatty because of it. But "are you working on your abs?" and "your shoulders look really wide" are generally good indicators diet is going in the right direction (for cuts and/or bulks).

Waist is a great tool at the macro level. If you're trying to lose 10+ lbs I think it's unlikely you did a good job if your waist didn't go down an inch. If you're trying to recomp/lose a few lbs, obsessing about your waist measurement probably isn't the greatest strategy.

[JohnHelton]

Learn from my mistake: I took a 10 day vacation at the end of July/beginning of August. I didn't lift, and I didn't track my calories. However, I had already started to cut, so I wanted to be careful not to put on a bunch of weight. Thus, I just tried to control my portions. I guess I did too good a job because I lost around 4-5 lbs. on the trip with 50% of that coming from LBM. I've subsequently been in a caloric deficit. As such I haven't been able to gain that LBM back. I should have either continued to lift or done a better job of making sure I wasn't in a caloric deficit while not lifting. I'm sure that I can eventually build that LBM back, but I will need to be in a bit of a surplus to do it.