Has anyone ever dieted this way?

Diet and Nutrition
1

In short, I want to create a sizeable (~1000 kcal) deficit for a couple weeks to shed a few pounds of fat.

I’m working on a very stressful and taxing project at work, therefore… I don’t wish to starve during the day.

The idea is to conserve as much energy as possible and eat a perfectly normal amount of food from 8 am til ~7 pm to feel satisfied and sharp. After work is finished, I go on a long run/elliptical/bike ride to create that 1000 calorie deficit in a matter of 2-3 hours. (1-1.5 hours of pure excercise with walking in-between.) Thankfully, i’m single, no annoying distractions such as a wife or a family. Before sleep, I would have a very small snack so that I could doze off and not be too hungry. Next morning, I fuel up on a good breakfast to get my brain running again and repeat.

So… maintenance during the day, hunger in the evening, as opposed to all day long.

Am I missing something big here? I feel like I am, because i’m not hearing people talking about doing it like this a lot.

2

I have tried this. It went poorly. I would end up binge eating due to the fatigue generated from the training.

6 Likes
3

Because it is dumb.

Caloric burn is not linear. There is no way you are going to monitor a caloric deficit through exercise. Your body will adapt to the work and you will burn less over time.

Look up “constrained energy expenditure”.

When are you weight training?

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4

This will mostly be water and lean mass. Plus once you go back to normal, you might subconsciously overcompensate and have a bad rebound.

This sounds hellish. And if you’re already doing something like this I’d echo @OTay.

Why not have a decent breakfast to start, have some healthy spaced-out protein and snacks during your work (which would help if you told us what it was,) to achieve a ~500 cal deficit, workout, then have a solid meal after?

5

Depending on how well you can manage the stress, you might want to wait until the project is complete.

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6

looks like that’s his plan

7

am I to understand this normal amount of food is your TDEE?

the calorie deficit in your plan will be created with activity not eating less food than you were the week before?

8

That’s how I read it, eat whatever then do hours of cardio.

1 Like
9

it would take david goggins level work ethic to go hard enough for 3 hours every night after working all day to burn 1000 calories.

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10

Ha! Not exactly a stress reducer!

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11

I tried something similar–eating maintenance-level calories and creating a deficit through walking. I was shooting for a 500cal/day deficit.

It worked great at first, but… you adapt. I started at 8k steps, adding 1k steps every week or two. It worked great until reaching 10-12k steps, but fat loss eventually plateaued. I kept adding steps, getting to 15k or more per day, but eventually had to cut cals, too.

You can see the (modest) results in my log.

Plus, I was lifting four times per week.

4 Likes
12

You need to diet properly for fat loss. You cannot sustainably do what you’re looking to do long term and short term it will make no difference.
You also don’t mention what your normal day of eating is.
You cannot exercise away a poor diet and that seems like what you are trying to do.

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13

Reminds me a little of this article from last year.

14

One of my favorite quotes “You can’t outrun a fork”

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15

Two questions…

  1. Whats your estimated BMR?
  2. Whats your Daily caloric intake?
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16

Similar to @barley1, I have, multiple times, found a threshold amount of cardio/ movement below which I really don’t lose any weight and above which I see a point of extraordinarily diminishing returns.

That amount is quite low: between 20-30 minutes of activity at about 65-70% MHR.

If I’m not doing that, I tend to have to drop calories to a point my appetite is out of control (and I think activity itself is an appetite-suppressant). Once I hit that mark, adding more does not make a tangible difference - I still have to adjust calories downward at a similar rate as I would have anyway. Overdoing the activity/ cardio, while my calories go down, makes me cranky, ruins my weight workouts, and noticeably makes me move less throughout the day. I think we see differently in other cases:

  1. Ultra-endurance athletes focused on performance who are also eating up to support these needs
  2. Biggest Loser type challenges that are locked away in a boot camp for a short period of time with no maintenance expectation
  3. Competitive bodybuilders perhaps using pharmaceutical support (when I see naturals over do it, my untrained eye thinks they get stringy and sad-looking)
  4. Female physique competitors with uncaring coaches who end up 40 lbs overweight for the rest of their lives after their competition
  5. Ranger School… and nobody is coming out looking awesome and strong

Editing my post: 3 and 4 aren’t great examples, because they also don’t eat enough. The other 3 are pretty similar to what you’re asking, I think: huge activity-driven deficits.

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17

Lol @ avoiding eating less because it’s stressful.

As if 3 hours of medium intensity cardio every day isn’t stressful.

Its a good thing that compensatory hunger doesn’t exist.

1 Like
18

That’s a much more articulate way to put it.

Also, in my case, even though walking is supposed to be a “recovery free” activity, at 16k steps/day, I was worn out and didn’t have the desire to push any further. It may be that getting extremely lean requires more than I’m willing to give.

Anyhow, I still think there’s merit in the idea–at least early on, eating more while moving more was way easier than cutting cals to absurdly low levels. Gym performance didn’t suffer quite so much. And, since the T-ransformation challenge, I haven’t experienced any weight rebound–I actually lost an additional couple pounds walking less, taking ten days off training, and eating more.

1 Like
19

Velocity Diet?

20

what about it?