When I started trying to lose weight in earnest, I wanted to put everything into it - unlike the previous attempts, this was gonna be my do or die moment. Fortunately, by educating myself and having all the time in the world to meal plan and workout (a small personal benefit of the pandemic), things clicked this time and I managed to lose 80lbs between June 2020 and January 2021 (before and after pics here).
By the time January rolled around, my weight loss slowed to a crawl. Even as I continued to lower my intake in relation to my lowering weight, it became harder and harder to make progress. I was stubborn, though, and the idea of taking a break felt like giving up or giving in to laziness. Finally, I started to feel weak during workouts and my performance suffered, so I decided to eat at maintenance during February and resume my weight loss in March (note: I maintained my same work out routine the entire time). Now that I've been eating at a deficit for a week, there's a few things I've noticed:
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You know that woosh of weight loss you see when you first start out? You can do that again after a break. I lost 7.5lbs my first week back at a deficit
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"Normal" portions seem so much bigger after eating at a deficit for so long. I was able to eat a balanced diet while also drinking normal soda and eating candy a few times a week. It's reassuring to know that when I'm satisfied with my weight and eat at maintenance for good, I can eat junk food every once in a while because I know how to budget calories and adjust my other meals to accommodate for something high in calories
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If you're worried about gaining on maintenance, know that you can restrict calories for a couple of days and get back to your ideal weight. I gained 4lbs in February (probably mostly water weight), and it took two days to get back to my lowest weight
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It's easier to eat at a significant deficit when you have a defined timeline; sometimes it's hard to stick to eating at a deficit when you don't know when the diet is going to end and you might start falling off and going over on your budget. I know I was more and more resistant to eating below 2000cal/day as I hit month eight of weight loss. Now that I've taken a break, I'm comfortable eating 1700cal/day until my end date in June
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You may be hungry again when you end your break and are eating significantly less. Thankfully, that goes away, as it always does when you get used to eating at a deficit
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Eating at maintenance did fix my workout issue. I was more energized when I ate more, and now at my current calorie budget, I can still workout at peak performance
In closing, hopefully this helps people who are stubborn like me feel better about taking a break from eating at a deficit. It's not giving up or wasting time - it may actually make the process MORE efficient! I'm also going to try out "refeeding" by eating a controlled increase of carbs every other Sunday in order to encourage leptin production, which will hopefully prevent plateauing. This is a different way of having a "cheat day" but staying productive.
Any other general tips for long term weight loss are welcome, and hopefully some of you find my discoveries helpful to your own weight loss journeys.
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