Chapter 2: Common Dieting Experiences

PLATEAUS: If you’ve ever dieted (been in a calorie deficit), chances are you’ve probably experienced a plateau-where your body stops changing. Our body’s job is to adapt to it’s environment. It has several mechanisms in place to adapt & maintain energy balance (homeostasis) Especially in times of scarcity (too little food) This might be frustrating when trying to lose weight, but let’s learn one reason why we plateau:

After an extended period of time being in a calorie/energy deficit, or being in a severe deficit, ONE of your body’s defense mechanisms is to adapt by adjusting the rate of its metabolic functions in order to prevent any further change-Known as metabolic adaptation. In other words, your metabolism “slows down” as a means to accommodate the reduced amount of food/calories and you plateau/stop losing weight. *to learn more about the various defense mechanisms that occur when we diet aggressively or for long periods of time, I highly suggest “Fat Loss Forever” written by Layne Norton & Peter Baker

It is generally recommended that a fat loss phase/dieting phase/calorie deficit should NOT exceed 12 consecutive weeks. If you are chronically under eating (1500 range or below) you likely struggle to lose body fat, & experience digestion disruption/discomfort & lethargy. It’s likely your body has become resistant to fat loss by slowing down it’s metabolic rate to help prevent further/ rapid change from being in a catabolic state/malnourishment.

I strongly encourage your main priority be to break the cycle of chronic under eating & increase your food to a more optimal range for several months, before pursuing goals of fat loss. (REVERSE DIET! I’ll talk more about that very soon!)

EATING BEHAVIORS:

If your eating behaviors are strongly tied to psychological or emotional challenges, seek help from a therapist who is experienced with eating behaviors. In my experience, it is quite common to use food as a way to regulate stress. Whether it manifests as being overly restrictive, or overly indulgent. This is nothing to be ashamed of-it’s just a learned behavior triggered by a stress response. Your nervous system does its job to keep you regulated and safe with these stress responses, and with more self awareness, it can be an opportunity to lead you towards more self compassion & ultimately change your behaviors / stress responses. There are many online therapists available & I think it’s an incredible way to experience therapy!

I would like to offer some perspectives:

-food is so much more than calories/numbers.

-food is nourishment & essentially offers us an opportunity to experience life in a fuller capacity by being in good health.

-food doesn’t need to be deemed good or bad. You can permit food to just be food, vs categorizing food in absolutes. As you develop more self awareness through tracking your food, you’ll be able to make more informed choices & appreciate each food for what it is.

Chronic Restriction

: If you’ve been constantly trying to diet because you assumed that’s what was required of you to achieve the physique you’re after-then I hope this book excites you and inspires you to enjoy more FOOD and use the tool of tracking macros to ensure you’re getting ENOUGH nutrients.

Aside from possible apprehension, if you can commit to the increase in food, you will likely experience positive changes & SIGNIFICANT improvements to your sleep, mood, and energy and body composition. Just as our body’s can adapt with lower calories, it can also adapt to more. This is a MUCH more optimal place to be before pursuing a diet.

The intentional increase in food is referred to as a REVERSE DIET. It depends how severely you’ve been restricting & for how long, but generally an increase of 50-200 calories per week is a good rule of thumb for a reverse diet. But if you’re having a hard time adhering to the small incremental jumps, I’d highly recommend immediately pulling your calories up to a range you can maintain right away. (Example: Rather than going from 1400, to 1500 the next week….to 1600 the next week…to 1700, etc. which can be difficult to stick to-You could just jump right to 1700 calories & go from there. (approximately a 20% increase in calories) *& remember WEIGHT gain is not synonymous with FAT gain.

“How BAD do you want it!?” Culture: Being in a fat loss phase/calorie deficit is already a difficult task, and should be approached with strategy and wisdom. (Which I hope this book will give you!) And if you’ve been chronically under eating-your pursuit for fat loss entails more time suffering than it should. I speak from personal experience. I was always trying to adhere to 1400 calories, until I couldn’t. I thought I just needed to want it more & be MORE rigid with myself. And I’d be trapped in a cycle of being “on” and “white knuckling” it through my days, and then being completely “off”-until it was time to “get back on track-“ which I thought meant adhering to 1400 calories and suffering. Reverse dieting opened up my eyes and drastically changed my quality of life for the better. (I.e. I learned a smarter method, not a harder method)

Here’s a good rule of thumb: Ensure your initial deficit calories are not lower than a 20% reduction from your estimated maintenance range. Ex: Katie begins her dieting phase/calorie deficit at 1760 calories. This is 440 calories less than her maintenance calories (2,200) which is a 20% reduction.

Initially reducing your calories more than 20% is generally considered more aggressive and puts you at greater risk for metabolic adaption. (I.e. your metabolism will “slow down”) This is common. Most diets work because they often entail steep caloric deficits-often achieved by removing an entire Macronutrient (no carbs, no fats, etc.) or extreme reductions. Also known as crash dieting. *for more in depth teachings of metabolism, “Fat Loss Forever” contains invaluable insight!)

So once the significant weight loss occurs: (which can also entail precious lean tissue loss. Remember weight loss is not synonymous with fat loss)

People are often left with sub optimal results & no acquired skills or habits after they diet. They’re essentially left with two options: continue to adhere to the extreme restriction/rules, (which is rarely sustainable) OR don’t adhere-And be back to where you started. Or potentially worse off than where you started, and left with frustration and a damaged relationship with food and yourself.

Sound familiar? Well There is GOOD NEWS. And there is a MUCH better approach to food-an approach that allows you to integrate the values and preferences of nutrition that you already have, whilst also allowing you to achieve your goals with significantly less suffering. (Tracking your macros!)

With the understanding of energy balance, you should already start to see that you have abundant food options.

“WILL MY MAINTENANCE CALORIE RANGE EVER CHANGE?”

YES. it can absolutely change. Your needs, your goals, and your lifestyle will inevitably change throughout your life. And what great news that we can influence variables & even increase our calorie needs.

Examples: (powerful photo example on the next page!)

-Perhaps you decide you want to work towards building more muscle tissue (which costs more energy to build and will require an anabolic environment / calorie surplus) Once you’ve reached your satisfactory level of muscle development, This will likely result in a maintenance calorie range that is higher than it previously was. (Muscle tissue also costs more energy to maintain) I.e. there is more of you to maintain.

-Or perhaps you’ve lost a significant amount of weight. Your new maintenance calorie range may be less than it previously was, as there is less of you to maintain.

-And as we previously mentioned, perhaps you’ve been chronically under-eating, your body has likely slowed down its metabolic functions to prevent any further change & your maintenance calorie range is lower than normal. Symptoms may include chronic fatigue, loss of period in females, brain fog, inability to lose weight, higher body fat with low food intake, poor recovery from exercise, poor sleep, & hair loss. I.e. malnourishment)

-After spending time reverse dieting and more nutritious foods, your body composition will likely not suffer and your maintenance calorie range will have increased because your body adapted (as it’s designed to do) to the increase in food. Win win.

HARD TRUTH: Metabolic rates and capacity for calories will vary person to person. There are some people who can maintain their composition with 3,000+ calories daily, while others need to stick with a more conservative range. But we CAN influence many variables that determine our calorie needs.

Scale + weight obsession: Here we have my own unglamorous photos. I want you to notice several things here:

Your body can experience the same WEIGHT (i.e. gravitational pull) But look VERY different depending on your composition. (Muscle to fat ratio) You can clearly see I have more body fat and less muscle on the left. And yet my weight is the same as the right. Weight is only one small part of data. Don’t get hung up on it.

Many would assume I “lost weight,” from left to right, but in fact I had to SPEND TIME reverse dieting, and GAIN weight (through building muscle and yes, accumulate SOME body fat) which allowed time for my body to adapt to more calories.

I was then in a much more optimal place to start dieting, as I could now diet / lose fat at a higher calorie range, AND I had more muscle, so my fat loss phase revealed a lot more of my muscular development.

154 lbs 2019

This was when I was trying very hard to adhere to to 1400 calories a day. Typically I only hit around 80-90 grams of protein a day. I know this because I would still track my food, but I was solely focused on calories.

Maintenance calorie range: 1600

154 lbs 2022

This was after spending all of 2020 in a maintenance/surplus range, doing 2 competition preps (dieting) and 3+ years of eating sufficient protein. (This is NOT how I look year round!)

Maintenance calorie range: 2400

And a strong word of advice: BE OKAY WITH AN ESTIMATE and the idea of a calorie RANGE. Even with concise food tracking, we should always assume some small amount of human error, or labeling inconsistencies.

You DO NOT need to get hung up on exactness or perfection to make changes to your physique or benefit from the data you collect through tracking.

For example, if your estimated daily maintenance calorie range is 2,200 calories and one day your tracking app shows you’ve consumed 2,343 calories-relax. You’re still within range.

WHAT IF NUMBERS & TRACKING ISN’T FOR ME?

A general approach, will produce general result. There is nothing wrong with this. Even tracking for a short period of time & learning what your estimated calories are, can improve your self awareness which may help you improve your health. Taking an intuitive approach to your nutrition should be practiced whether you’re tracking your macros or not, if you ask me-But having a foundational knowledge of energy balance + macros is invaluable.

I’m not writing this book to suggest you should track your food forever. You definitely don’t need to. You could do it for several months & likely gain a lot of helpful insight into your behaviors & overall health. Not to mention, after you’ve spent time tracking your food, you might find your food selection and portion habits stay with you, whether you’re tracking concisely or not. (This is assuming your calorie and macro targets are set appropriately. I’ll teach you all about how to establish what your macros should be in the next couple chapters! Stay with me!)

BUT If you are eventually looking to achieve more specific body composition goals, this will warrant a more specific approach. What can be measured can be managed. And I assume this is why you are here!

But if your aim is to make general improvements towards your health, and you do not want to collect regular data (weight, measurements, etc.) or track your food. I have a few simple tips:

-Aim to eat more PROTEIN than you normally do. Usually I see people under eat this macronutrient. (Eating more meat, and ready to drink protein shakes is a great start.) You’ll learn this soon, but protein is an essential macronutrient (whether you want to be an ultra muscular human or not- it’s essential that we get enough.)

-Eat more fruits and vegetables. (Select ones you actually like)

-And lastly: Stop the endless pursuit for the BEST caffeinated beverages and replace it with a designated time window for more SLEEP! (I’m not saying no caffeine. I love caffeine. I’m just saying it will never be a replacement for sleep.)

Only calories is a great place to start. After all, in the hierarchy of variables that influence your *body composition (*generally referring to the body fat and muscle of a body) calories are KING.

But within that hierarchy, we can ALSO influence our body composition (quite significantly!) by being strategic with our macros. So now let’s explore the next tier of the hierarchy: MACROS!