Signs You May Need A Diet Break
A diet break... Sign me up, right? It may seem slightly contradictory if you are committing to a diet to intentionally lose weight. Why would you need a break from it if you still have goals to achieve? There are different components to why a diet break may be a beneficial move for you in your nutrition journey, but first let’s go over what a diet break is and why it is valuable to not only your physical health but also your mental and emotional health.
What is a diet break?
A diet break is simply a period of time where you are intentionally not working towards weight loss and focusing more on maintaining the weight you are at in what we would call ‘maintenance calories’. Maintenance calories is the specific caloric intake you would need to maintain your current bodyweight and not foresee any future changes, where as being in a caloric deficit is decreasing your maintenance calories in order to see progress towards specific goals. A diet break can be anywhere between a couple of weeks to several months depending on your goals, desires, and circumstances.
Can I eat whatever I want on when in a diet break?
When you enter into a diet break, this doesn’t mean you throw in the towel and revert back to old habits or allow yourself the ability to eat whatever you desire, it is more so giving your body time to rest and reset before going back into a caloric deficit. Think of actual rest and recovery…When we need rest and recovery for our bodies we don’t stay up late, beat ourselves to the ground working, and fuel with junk… We are intentional about how we are treating our bodies and what we are doing to recover. It’s the same thing when approaching to a diet break, you still need to be intentional about what you are fueling your body with and how much fuel you are giving it in order to achieve that recovery and rest during the diet break. If you let all habits and routines go out the window during the diet break you won’t actually see the progress needed to go back into a caloric deficit, which simply defeats the purpose of eating in maintenance to begin with.
Do I have to track macros during a diet break?
This is going to change from person to person. If you really enjoy tracking and it doesn’t bring excess stress or frustration to your life, then I would encourage tracking during a diet break to allow for consistency in your intake while in maintenance. On the flip side, if tracking and weighing is bringing more stress on top of an already stressful life, I would encourage putting the scale away from a bit and working to be intentional about your intake through intuitive eating tactics. Whether you are tracking or intuitively eating during a diet break, it’s incredibly helpful to have an AIM Nutrition coach guide and support you through the process to gauge progress through data and constant dialogue to ensure you are getting everything you can out of the diet break.
How do I know I need a diet break?
Some common signs that you may need a diet break include:
1. If you have been consistently tracking for a long period of time and aren’t seeing any physical changes, it may be time to give your body a break and slowly enter into a maintenance period.
2. If tracking is adding more stress to an already stressful season in your life, it may be worth considering taking a break and allowing your mind and body to rest for a period of time. With that said, it’s important to set a time limit and create boundaries around this break, giving yourself a specific timeframe (2-3 weeks) and setting up some guidelines to help you still stay on track and maintain the progress you’ve made. For example, focusing on whole, nutrient-dense, fresh foods and limiting processed items or building your main plates around a lean meat, vegetable, and carb source while keeping snacks to fresh fruits and healthy fats.
3. If you are experiencing low quality sleep, recovery, and/or your performance in the gym has decreased, you may need to consider taking a break from being in a caloric deficit. When you are in a caloric deficit, you have less fuel to burn while burning calories during your exercise routine. If this is happening for too long, our bodies become burnt out and we are essentially running on fumes which shows primarily in performance, quality of sleep, and how we recover throughout the week. These are all tell-tale signs that you need to take a break and enter into a period of maintenance calories to allow your body to reset and recover properly before entering into a deficit again.
It can be challenging to know if you need a diet break, when you need a diet break, for how long, and what the process entails/looks like. We encourage you to find support through a nutrition coach to encourage and guide this process so you can get the most out of your diet break to ensure continued progress towards your goals.
