Suddenly out of the blue for the past few days I am starving to death. I have been dieting using the following information with a lot of success. Probably 4% -5% cut in body fat in 4 weeks and lost 7lbs (I’m 199 right now).
Calories Fat Carb Protein
1947 65 68 244
Following the completion of those 4 weeks I increased by training volume slightly and added another day to my workouts coming up to 5 total for the week. I also upped a little bit on my post workout cardio. Just intensity though, I still never do cardio for more than 30 minutes.
It is my 7th week in since starting this diet and all of a sudden I am really hungry throughout the day. I was fine eating like this up untiI the other day when I started getting crazy hunger pangs. 'm guessing that this is because my body composition changed and now my body wants more food. I have also definitely noticed that I was leaner last week than I am right now. Do you think all this is, is that I am eating too few calories, that I upped my cardio intensity (still at a point I could easily talk the whole time) or a combination?
I’m thinking about just adding 250 calories to my day from fat (handful of nuts) and solving the problem so my body will just shut up. I gained muscle and got leaner since I started this thing so I’m guess my calories are just off because of the transformation.
Sounds like it’s time for a refeed/cheat. I would start there (with one) and see if that takes care of it. Your body is trying to tell you something (low leptin, likely). I have been where you are and the refeeds helped tremendously. Killed cravings and fat loss continued. And, damn, it was fun.
You know, last weekend is the first one I decided not to do my usual crazy binge eating on Saturday…Hm…I wonder if that is related. But the thing is I don’t really want to cheat because I don’t like the way I look after it. It was getting to the point that every Friday I looked awesome and had dropped at least a pound from the week before but then Saturday-Wednesday I looked much heavier.
I’d prefer not to go back to the refeed if I can, instead opting for smaller cheats (an after work beer or a slice of pizza on the weekend) rather than an all out crazy day. Hopefully the small increase in calories will help.
Come to think of it, I did do a refeed meal, had like 4 slices of pizza and beer on Saturday night. So actually I did have some extra cheaty calories this past weekend but still no avail, I’m actually even starving today and I added in a handful of nuts. I can easily deal with hunger but I don’t understand why it has showed up out of the blue. Other than it being related to eating like a crazy person on Sundays the 5 weeks prior to this past Sunday.
You don’t have to do a REFEED day with CHEAT food. When I read refeed I think a day with more carbs added in to each meal from clean whole food sources. Where perhaps the last meal of the day would be a cheat but you don’t have to cheat on a refeed day. When I think cheat I think pizza and beer…
A lot of how you think about yourself may be psychologically tied to what you are doing… When I’m doing well and rocking it I feel great, I can then have a cheat meal one time and let myself get tripped up and thinking I’m fatter, which in the physical nothing has really happened the hours following the meal, it’s just a mental thing.
If you do get your BLOAT on after a cheat on Sunday try to coordinate your training on Monday to match. That’s what I do at least.
And lastly it’s not really what you look like Monday-through Wed it’s about matching training to your nutrition and finding out what will work for you in the long term.
It sounds like you are making good progress so if you can have your cheats and still continue then maybe you should until you can’t and then you could remove them… I’ve said enough. I hope all that helps
Hey All, Just wanted to post that I was able to find a good solution to the issue I was having. Like I explained, my issue with the cheat was the bloat factor I had to deal with over the next few days, not whether or not my diet was working. I figured it out. My cheat day consists of 3-4 slices of fresh baked pizza, 3-5 quality beers and 2 fresh baked bagels, along coffee with cream sugar and honey (i usually drink green tea) on top of my regular diet which satisfies protein requirements.
The next morning, all I do is pop a Biotest Brain Candy, and do the semi fasted cardio solution that Lonnie Lowery recommends and hop back on my regular diet. By Tuesday I look good again and continue losing lbs on my diet. It’s pretty cool.
