Is Your Diet Off?
Maybe some of our weight loss efforts are not always successful because we are unaware of how we should go about tracking our progress. This is part of the reason why personal trainers can be valuable, because it is another person who is supposed to understand the process and know what to expect, and they are supposed to keep you accountable and on track with your goals. It is never fun when you feel like you are not progressing in something, whether it is fitness related or not. I myself have a trainer, Neil “Yoda” Hill, and learning from his perspective as to why he does things and what he would recommend for certain situations has given me more knowledge and understanding in the overall process. For this blog in particular, I am going to discuss the importance of eating higher calories 1x out of your week (commonly known as a refeed) if you have been dieting and training hard, and why it is important to add into your routine.
First and foremost, you should never stop seeing progress and you certainly should not go backwards. If you start to see progress, but then it stops and you start to look worse, this is obviously a cause for concern. At the end of the day, if you are not seeing the results you want then this boils down to diet and training. It is not one or the other, and it is likely not one specific thing that is going to make a magical difference. Rather, weight loss is trying to take all the different elements surrounding your past and current behaviours, current diet, and training style, and then trying to find how they can all fit in harmony. I would say everyone’s harmony is different from the next person’s, but doesn’t mean each and every one of us won’t ever find it. When it comes to diet and exercise, “one hand washes the other”, it is never “one or the other”.
Among all of the different elements that go into weight loss, I would say diet holds the most weight. Without a proper calorie intake and macronutrient distribution, your training efforts could be going to waste, or you may not be getting the most out of your training. It takes a lot of time, effort, and energy to get to the gym so making sure your diet will give you the results you’re working for is obviously ideal. I would say most people eat too little calories in their day when they need it most, and then eat the majority of calories later in the evening at their most inactive. I think this is especially true when someone is attempting to follow a diet with restricted food groups and calories. Eating low calories or cutting out food groups will not work well with your training when you are attempting to lose body fat, and strength train. One of my biggest recommendations and tips would be to include a refeed day into your weekly diet. If you were to take your meal plan/diet, you should aim to dedicate 16 weeks/4 months minimum to it. If the diet is correct, and your training is going well, you will find yourself at one point or the other, very depleted.
Signs You May Be Depleted:
- Strength decreases significantly and obviously.
- Your appetite decreases, but increases for foods you were not normally craving previously.
- Your sleep is disturbed.
- Washroom activity has stopped or you have become constipated without any diet changes.
- You are moody, short tempered, and have low energy.
- You have noticed a plateau, or have not seen any changes.
All of the above would indicate a refeed day is needed one time out of your week. I think people get confused thinking since they are on a diet or a meal plan, it means they will stick to that until the end of time, or until the event/holiday/vacation comes. When someone has body fat to lose, they do not think they need or deserve extra calories 1x a week, but this is not always the case. Just because you have body fat to lose, does not mean your body does not get depleted on your base line meal plan/diet. If you are eating your meal plan for 2-3 weeks straight, you will eventually find the above signs start to happen to you. Our bodies are a lot more catabolic (muscle eating) then we are lead to believe, and we are capable of burning calories at a higher rate than we think. When we are trying hard to be on a meal plan or a diet, it is likely working on a physiological level more than you ever imagined. So, even though you may have body fat to lose and visually are not happy yet, a refeed 1x a week could still be beneficial to keeping your glycogen stores topped up in your muscles, and could keep you further away from becoming catabolic. Avoiding catabolism is one of the tricks to a successful weight loss journey.
People who are white knuckle dieting often do not implement a refeed, and will experience the above depletion signs without realizing they are depleted. Rather, we are conditioned to believe depletion is how we are supposed to feel on a diet, since most diets are very limited in calories or aim to remove an entire food group. However, always eating low calorie in addition to weight training and cardio could bring us closer into a catabolic state which only means an increased chance for fat storage as our metabolism slows down, and muscle degradation occurs. Our metabolism slows down in order to save calories and save energy, and it also does this by eating away at our muscle. Muscle is a luxury on our body, it’s hard to build and tricky to keep. So don’t think your body will opt for keeping muscle over fat, when fat will give almost double the amount of energy per gram. Muscle will be the first thing to go when your body feels it needs to gear down and get into fat storage mode, usually due to eating too few calories for too long a period, or over training.
One time a week eating higher calories or having a “refeed day”, could decrease the risk of depletion, therefore keeping us away from a catabolic zone so we can continue to be in a muscle building state (anabolism…it’s science!). The more muscle we can build and keep on our body, the faster our metabolism and the faster we lose that stubborn body fat. Ideally, we want to be eating enough calories so we can build muscle, but at the same time be able to burn fat. It is a delicate balance, that takes a long time and a ton of patience in order to understand and find. Too many calories could mean you may not see the body fat loss you want, but too little calories could also mean no increase in muscle mass, so you don’t see body fat loss in the long term either.
Another positive towards a refeed day 1x a week is your mental sanity. I never recommend eating deep fried foods, or to binge on candy, chocolate, popcorn etc. Can some of that be in the day? Yes, with moderation, but I would recommend a refeed day to be “gourmet” versions of cheat meals you would dream of. Making things from scratch at home, such as whole wheat pancakes or waffles, oatmeal with fruit, grass-fed burgers with homemade baked sweet potato fries, panini, wrap, crepe, bowl of pasta, salmon sashimi and another fresh sushi roll, some gelato or sorbet at night with low or no lactose, are some examples. If you are on a diet that supports your training and hypertrophy, then it should be relatively high calories (at least higher than the average non-fit person). A refeed day needs to be extra food that mimic your normal meals, only they contain higher HEALTHY calories than your normal baseline diet does not give you. For example, if your everyday/baseline breakfast is 3 eggs with 1 piece of toast, you would add oatmeal with fruit or pancakes to the side of this breakfast. The extra calories are not enough to wreck your progress for the week ahead, but they are enough to give your system a boost, give yourself a mental break from “dieting”, and will keep your energy, mood, and metabolism high.
On top of the mental sanity, it’s good for your gut health to switch it up a little bit. Give it something new, different, and exciting to digest. If you have intolerances, a refeed day is still not a good time to experiment with those foods, as it will only wreck you for the week ahead. Sometimes when you are eating a constant diet, it gets almost automatic so it is important to switch up food groups, therefore introducing new vitamins, minerals, and different calories we may not be getting from our everyday diet.
Below are common breakfast, lunch, and dinner refeed meals I have:
Breakfast
-4 whole eggs
-Ezekiel English muffin, Ezekiel toast, or whole wheat bagel (Bagel Belt+bacon from T&T Bakery in Markham in particular oh my gaaawwwwwwwwwd if you have not had you NEED)
-all natural PB
-1.5C oatmeal with mixed berries and honey
AM Snack
Ground turkey
Rice
Broccoli
Big handful cane sugar/organic candy gummy bears
Protein cookie
Lunch
1 order salmon sashimi
10 piece’s salmon sushi
1C rice
stir fried vegetables
Afternoon Snack
Smoothie
Popcorn
Terra Mediterranean vegetable chips (addictive)
Greek Salad and pita with tzatziki
(not necessarily all of it…or in that order)
Dinner
Organic, grass-fed burger
Ezekiel bun
Any toppings
Caesar salad
Store bought frozen sweet potato fries-baked
Dessert
Fiasco gelato/sorbet (lactose free)
1 scoop protein
all natural PB
This is such a well thought out and knowledgable article! Thank you for sharing your wisdom!
Thank you Keltie!! I appreciate your support, and I am glad you got something beneficial out of it!
Thank you thank you thank you! This is extremely helpful and good to know!
Question for you: When you have your ‘reefed days’ do you feel like you’re not hungry enough to eat all that food (forcing yourself to eat)? Or do you feel like your body craves it?
This is a good question. Ideally, the refeed day is essential to top of glycogen stores in your muscle belly. The refeed day should be more carbs than your baseline, but the same amount of protein and a bit more fats. You should attempt to eat your baseline PLUS the additional food. However, if you find every week you are refeeding but are feeling full, bloated, and do not seem to be leaner in the days following, it is likely the refeed was too much. I do sometimes feel very full, sometimes I do not. I find when I eat non-clean food, my stomach seals off more than if I ate a day filled with fresh foods. I would also suggest trying to go 2 full weeks before a refeed, and see how your body does. You might need to do a 2 week rotation for a bit until you get to the point where you can then do a refeed 1x a week, and you may find you are not feeling as stuffed. Ideally, the refeed is working if you are leaning down/dropping 1-2 lbs approx. 3-4 days after your refeed day. If not, then there is something off with diet, with training, might be over training, might be not enough rest, might be not enough training…might be not enough food, or too much food in the wrongs times…etc. Hope that helps and is not too confusing, its just that everyone works different and is at different stages. Thanks for the question, and sorry for the late reply!
This article is very interesting. I would love to lose body fat without losing muscle but am finding it hard to balance calories and the number on the scale. I recently went on vacation where I gained some weight and am now trying to diet back down to where I was, but am definitely feeling depleted and noticing loss in my strength training. I am definitely interested in the idea of a refeed day and also wonder if it is worth for me to cut calories at all. Any thoughts on cutting and bulking based on body fat percentage. I am currently at 13.09% and used to 11.5% before vacation.
Hey Lainy,
Thanks for the question and the read! 11.5% is pretty low, from not seeing you or knowing anything about you it sounds like you have a high metabolism. If this is the case, then I would recommend picking a calorie count that starts out high i.e. 1500 for example, and stick to this amount for 3-4 weeks straight. It is important to be extremely consistent, and tracking your intake is important to understand more about what is going on with your body. It requires a lot of patience and commitment, but if you don’t bunker down and commit to a plan for a long period of time then you will never learn what your body needs, in order to warrant the results you want. Also, if you were doing a ton of activity and eating little in order to drop to a low BF, then when you stop being as restrictive your weight will bounce back up. Combat this with eating a high amount of calories, split up 5x in your day, and a good breakdown of protein, fat, and carbs per meal. Thats all I can really offer you without knowing about your situation! Just stick to a baseline and you may be surprised your body was craving more calories, and as a result you may then be able to build more muscle which will then contribute to a higher resting metabolic rate, therefore creating that toned appearance you are after.
Thank you so much for the advice and email! I will try to maintain weight while strength training, instead of dieting, and hopefully see results or at least establish a baseline. Thanks again!
If you are going to use an overdraft, then look at the one with the best long term overdraft does lasix lower blood pressure