Diet Break???

[JuliusPleaser]

I have been dieting for about 105 days, completing the 12 Week Shred Guide from simplyshredded . com

The program puts you in a 20% Caloric deficit for five days of the week, and two days of 10% deficit, where you increase your carbs.

Five days your macros are 35 protein, 40 carbs, and 25 fats, and you get two higher carb day is 30 pro / 50 carbs / 20 fats.

This was no doubt the easiest diet I have ever done. I literally eat whatever I wanted, lost tons of fat, and got stronger.

It's an IIFYM diet and I hadn't had an issue with it at all. I couldnt' believe I could lose weight eating what I wanted because I was so brainwashed by broscience nonsense. Just to prove that IIFYM works, I made sure I violated every diet myth possible. I ate burgers, pretzels, cream, pasta, dairy, cheese, fruits and eveyrthing a bodybuilder is told to avoid, along with every "bad food" you can imagine. Now clearly I the diet calls for the 80/20 rule; most of your food being 80 nutirent dense and the rest can be whatever. Following this I lost about 15 lbs in 77 days. I started at 215 and ended up at 200. I've done every other diet possible and this worked best for me.

But now, I think my body wants off the diet. During the 90 days I never binged nor went crazy. The PDF says if you want to continue going passed 90 days, keep doing it, but a the last two weeks, I started noticing how hungry I've been getting

In these last two weeks, I've had about 4 binge sessions. Two of them were last week, the other two were last night and just now.

Even though this diet has been fairly easy and I haven't been starving at all, nor did I have cravings for any food, some days I just get triggered and became insatiable. I've been counting my binges on my fitness pal and I've noticed that I'll binge until I get around my 3000 maintenance or go a few over that. The wost I even ate was a total of 4600 calories in a day.

I've been trying to research what I happening to me and I ran into some articles talking about taking a diet break.

Ive been in deficit for over 3 months, with no cheat meals during the program, no binges, cycles from five 2330 low cal days to two 2630 on high cal days... Fat loss has pretty much stalled but I'm still getting stronger/bigger. But my goal is to have solid abs at 10% bf. Right now I see the veins starting to show up have veins all over my body, arms, my legs virtually have no fat at all, but just a small pocket on the bottom of my abs and some back fat, so i assume im at 13-15%. (picture attached)

Do you guys think its time to take a diet break for about 7-14 days as this article suggests, and then hit a new cutting diet soon after?

Are You Ready For A Diet Break?

Attached are pictures of my change. Top Left is when I began 105 days ago. Top right was Last night. The other two on the bottom are 1 week and 2 week before the top right.



Thanks.

[JuliusPleaser]

Anyone?

BTW, I just woke up and had a great nights sleep. My body looks totally unaffected by these two binges in a row. I FEEL like this is the right thing to do, as many say, "listen to you body."

Also, just to add more detail, I didn't go through any 'sides' of dieting. During this IIFYM routine, I didn't binge, I wasn't starving, my workouts weren't suffering, I wasn't getting tired, I wasn't weaker (in fact I got stronger) so the only side effect is this new binging issue at day after the 90 day frame, so to me, this means my hormones may be out of wack.

Any input would be appreciated.

[JuliusPleaser]

Oh and the only thing I took supplement wise has been coffee pre-workout and amino acids.

I've been on 200mg of Cyp TRT and nothing else; no fat burners or anything.

[GirlyGymRat]

Looks like it is working for you. I think the key is switching protocol when hit the dreaded plateau!

[Myers]

For me it works this way , i was on classic caloric deficit for some time till i hit like 13% then i started carb cycling , down to like 11% now , when i hit 10% i might start keto if i wanna go any lower , i'm on 400 mg test e currently , week 9 is almost over

[JuliusPleaser]

It certainly may be one, which is why to me it sounds nice on paper to take a week off to restore hormones then hit it back

[JuliusPleaser]

The only change I made recently was making my macros 40/40/20 p/c/f but keeping the higher carb day at 40/50/30... But this progam is more like calorie cycling instead of carb cycling because I'm never no-carb or low carb...

[JuliusPleaser]

anyone else have an opinions on this?

[numbere]

anyone else have an opinions on this?

Have you recalculated your maintenance calories recently to account for your recent weight loss?

If you've lost 15lb then your TDEE has likely moved to a lower amount.

[--->>405<<---]

I didn't read the article but taking a week or 2 break and running maintenance cals and then continuing on isn't a terrible idea.

What is ur goal?
Are u on any drugs?
Do u have a deadline of any kind?