WHAT HE DID & HIS RETROSPECTIVE OBSERVATIONS.
After 9-ish months of ‘maintenance eating, various trips including an NYC/LA food tour. I wanted to get a little leaner before Bali which is now 3 days away. I told myself I’d stop when it got too difficult, or I reached 74kg. This morning I was 74.0 and things were getting a little hard so the ‘diet’ ends today. This is the 4th time I’ve done a mini cut but the first without any Calorie tracking. This result took place over a 35-day non-tracking fat loss period with zero Calorie or macro tracking. In total, about 3.5 kilograms was lost via what was honestly very sub-par adherence levels.
WHAT I DID
-Chose more filling, low-Calorie-per-bite wholefood options and ate almost exclusively in that way.
-Ate to conservative hunger satisfaction. Slowing things down helped.
-Aimed to be aware of internal hunger cues. Drank zero/low-Calorie liquids if unsure.
-Implemented a few strategies to drive hunger and food focus down.
-Encouraged activity by choosing to walk more when the option was available.
-Ensured I ate a decent dose of a protein-dense food 3-4 times a day.
-Kept lifting weight like normal.
-Swapped one of my meals with a protein bar.
-Weighed portions of when I remembered / could be bothered.
-Did 2-3 day refeeds by simply eating more carbs from mostly the same foods when I felt things got hard enough and/or my mannerism became slightly zombie-like. (Did this mostly to self-experiment I will discuss this further below)
OBSERVATIONS & THOUGHTS
-It was easy. But an informed understanding of food and dieting is required for this approach to work.
-Pre diet perceptions of ‘enough food to feel normal’ become false once you are a few days in.
-I honestly wasn’t actually that compliant. Not having any numbers or tracking made staying adherent harder and created many non-adherence opportunities where I did slip up.
-It’s a far less invasive, more convenient way to diet and achieve fat loss.
-Using food selection and all of the above to control energy balance is absolutely effective.
-My daily scale weight fluctuations were vast compared to past diets I’ve done. Not sure if the fact this diet had zero tracking was at play. Trusting the process and objectively looking at trends over time helped me stay sane.
THOUGHTS ON THE REFEED SELF-EXPERIMENT THING.
I’m not a fan of short refeeds, or any form of Calorie cycling, high-low days etc and this little text further cements that stance. I prefer consistent energy intakes over a week. But in the name of ‘testing’, I thought I’d play with doing a multi-day refeed whenever...
1. I felt cravings and hunger start to notably affect me.
2. I felt like my spontaneous activity levels dropped from diet-induced lethargy.
I ended up doing my first 2-3 day refeed at day 21, then once a week thereafter. Totalling 3 refeed instances over 35 days.
-I did notice cravings drop the during and one day after the refeed.
-I noticed a feeling of more energy during and one day after.
-But these positive effects only lasted 24 hours at most after the refeed was over.
-I felt doing the refeeds created a negative headspace despite my best logic.
-I didn’t think the short 2-3 day refeeds were worthwhile. I don’t believe any physiological benefits occur unless it’s for more than say a week. But I do think they may offer some psychological/mental benefits in certain people.
My stance on short refeeds remains the same. I still prefer to keep on dieting, therefore reaching the goal sooner, so the diet is shorter and maintenance eating can resume sooner. With that strategy maybe I would have finished at 25 days instead of 35.
All in all this was a great little experiment. It’s truly liberating to know I can not only maintain weight but also achieve great fat loss without any Calorie tracking business especially because I’ve had a history of disordered eating behaviors.
Sign up for the next intake of the FNC Macabolic Mini Cut starting August 11th