I’ve been maintaining a caloric deficit of ~1,000 calories/day for the last 10 weeks to lose some weight. The goal has been to lose ~2lbs/wk, and I’ve been successful at that goal so far, coming down from 187 lbs. to 169 lbs. in those 10 weeks. I’ve been tracking food intake in Myfitnesspal and tracking steps/overall calorie bun in the Fitbit app, which imports the Myfitnesspal data and gives me an overall “calories left to eat” number throughout the day. (I manually enter workout data and calories burned from my Training Peaks log). My goal has been to get down to 160 lbs (I’m 6’0" tall) and then re-assess from there. I’ve trained and raced at that weight before (sometimes even as low as 157-158).
The main reasons for wanting to aggressively lose the weight ‘sooner rather than later’ are:
I’m coming back from a chronic run injury, and running at 160 lbs will definitely be easier on my foot than 170 or 180 lbs.
Being a typical ‘Type A’ I sometimes struggle with the whole More is Better thing. I’d rather get the weight loss out of the way during a training period where my workouts are all 1 - 1.5 hours and I’m not worrying about nutrition and fueling during long workouts. In the past, when I’ve tried to lose weight in a training period where I’m also doing long rides and runs that require proper fueling, I’ve struggled with taking in enough calories during workouts for fear of sabotaging the weight loss plan.
Everything has been going along fantastically until the last 3-4 days. My workouts have still seemed fine but by the afternoon I’m feeling sluggish and cold. Training volume is up a little over the last couple of weeks, but not significantly enough to account for this by itself. My family has been making fun of me because I’m layering on sweatshirts and turning on the heater while they’re all in shorts and t-shirts. Mental diet willpower over the last 10 weeks has been great - I’ve had no issues with avoiding temptation to eat bad stuff but the last few days the smell of pizza absolutely destroys me. Clearly, running a caloric deficit for the last 10 weeks has caught up with me. The training plan today calls for a rest day, and it’s the first time in 10 weeks that I’m truly thankful for a day off.
So, what’s a sensible way to back away slowly from the brink of disaster?
My inclination is to go 1 week with no caloric deficit, and see how I feel from there. If energy level returns to normal, then try a 500 cal/day (1 lb/wk) deficit and see now that goes. Also, I think I could use more protein in my diet. My diet is OK but not great. Myfitnesspal says I’m eating ~ 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein.
Have any of you found yourselves in a similar situation where you inadvertently chronically over-restricted yourself into a bad place? What did you do to and how long did it take you to feel normal again?
Not to be flippant, but maybe you just need a pizza! Better answer is that you’re in tune enough with your body to know that you’re on the brink of disaster, so trust your intuition and back off a bit.
1000 cal / day is doable, but not without sacrificing training quality. I lost 55 lbs over 8-ish months with a ~1000 cal/day deficit (average actual sustained deficit was 858 cal/day). Yes, it limits your energy level, and limits your longest workouts. As you noticed, there isn’t much point to a workout longer than 90-120 minutes because you just end up having to consume extra food to fuel that workout which defeats the point. Any anything above Z2 is just a suffer-fest—and mostly ineffective. I found that 500 cal/day is the most that I could sustain without significantly impacting volume/intensity. So, at that point it becomes a priority selection of weight-loss vs. training goals. Similar to you, I prioritized body-weight over short term training goals until I hit my goal-weight (155 lbs).
I agree with JeremyB’s recommendation to follow a “reverse diet” when coming off a rapid weight loss regime. I haven’t heard it called that until reading the article he posted. But, its pretty close to what I did after I lost the 50 lbs. Once I hit the 50 lbs (my original goal), I began tapering my deficit, increasing my training volume, and started an MS strength phase (I’d already been doing AA weights for the bulk of the weight-loss period). I allowed myself to have pre/post nutrition to fuel the workouts, and I started doing some higher-intensity bike workouts (2x20 type stuff). I continued to weigh myself every day, and track daily calories. Over a period of another 8-12 weeks, I lost the remaining 5 lbs, and gained a several lbs of muscle. During that time, I set a threshold of “goal weight”+4 lbs on my daily weigh-in. If I exceeded that, then I increased my deficit until I was back at goal weight. Usually, these “bounces” were mostly water, and maybe 1lb of real mass-gain. So, the water would come off within a day or two, and the remainder would be gone in another day or two. Then I resumed the gradual increase in calories again. I think I did that 2-3 times during the “reverse diet” period, and the first couple of occurrences happened very early in that time frame. During this phase, I went from 155lbs/18%bf to 151lbs/12%. I’ve been steady at 151 for about a year, and sub-155 for about 16 months.
I’ll add that I found that at the beginning of the transitional period, 1600 cals was about “maintenance” level for me (excluding training related expenditure)—above that I would start gaining weight. Today, I’m closer to 2000-2200 for daily maintenance—and will lose if I go below that. I don’t track daily anymore—I only spot check every once in a while…mostly out of curiosity.
Also, I think I could use more protein in my diet. My diet is OK but not great. Myfitnesspal says I’m eating ~ 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein.
I don’t do protein by percentage, so I’m not sure if 20% is a good number. I was never down at 20%, 30-35% was typical, so it seems low to me. But, as I said, I don’t do it that way. I ALWAYS consumed 1-1.2 g/kg of protein, regardless of total calorie restriction. Which is the same thing I eat today.
I think 1k/day deficit is too much as you get close to your ideal weight, and your body is telling as much. My suggestion: do one or two days max of break even, then move to 500k/day for the rest of the way. I don’t think you want to go a week at break even because I think you will find it hard to adjust back to deficit.
I want to echo what someone else has said about just eating the pizza!!! I find that I need one meal a week where I don’t care what I eat and I don’t track it, I just eat what I have really been craving for this one meal (last Friday it was pizza, the Friday before it was a pulled pork sandwich) and it keeps me sane!
As for being cold, I think that’s also part of the weight loss, it happens to me too! I find a good tea mid-afternoon really helps!! Good luck!
Thanks all! I appreciate everyone’s input. I agree with the general consensus of taking a few days off from running a calorie deficit to regroup, and then resume with a lesser deficit.