Hey food groupies, welcome back to the Bite Me Nutrition podcast. If you're listening, hello. If you're watching, hello, I've started putting this on YouTube so you can actually see the bright aggressive colours if that's what you like. Today I'm gonna be talking about diet breaks. It's a topic I've been getting lots of questions about and I think it's a really important topic to cover. So I'll go through, I don't know, I haven't planned this at all, but I'll obviously explain what they are, talk about whether we should be using them, how we should be using them.

kind of giving away whether we should be using them. And whatever else pops into my brain as I'm talking. I don't love the phrase diet break and I'll unpack that in a little bit, but essentially a diet break is you having a break from being in a calorie deficit. Calorie deficit meaning you're consuming less calories than you need, which is resulting in some fat loss. Now consuming less calories than you need over a longer period of time results in some fatigue and some kind of negative adaptations that your body makes, right? It's not...

something to be scared of, but it's something to be aware and mindful of. And well-timed and well-executed diet breaks can be a really good way to kind of protect against that and prolong your ability to stay in a deficit and therefore potentially increase your success reaching your fat loss goals. So I've kind of answered the question of whether you should use them. Yes, I think most people would really benefit from structuring them as part of your bigger fat loss plan.

As a soft rule, soft, soft rule, I think if you've got at least five kilos to lose, you're probably going to need at least one diet break, sometimes more, right? Now, you're having a period of time away from the deficit. So ideally you're at maintenance. You don't really want to go into a surplus where you're going to sort of gain weight if your overall goal is to lose weight. So you want to return to maintenance. And the reason for that is to kind of clear some of those negative adaptations that have happened. Now, depending on the length of the diet break, it may not

kind of clear all of them, it might just sort of give you a little bit of a break from them. But even if it's a shorter diet break, it still can be beneficial mentally, which is incredibly valuable, right? You don't have to necessarily get physical benefits if you're getting the mental benefits. So a diet break of about a week or maybe two weeks is probably not gonna do heaps physically, but it's gonna be great mentally. And that could be enough, right?

Jonathan Steedman (02:21.9)

And so that's an important thing to note. There's no defined length of time that a diet break is. It could be one week, could be four weeks, could be. I would argue that longer than four weeks is not a break. You've just moved into a phase of maintenance, which is also totally fine, but for definition's sake. So cool. That's a diet break. The reason I don't like the phrase diet break is I feel like it implies a little bit that you just kind of go crazy. Hey, Gecko. You just kind of throw caution to the wind.

and have a holiday from eating like an adult. Now, hopefully, before you've gone into a fat loss phase, you've spent some time building good structures, good habits, you've got a great relationship with food. so, you know, getting out of a deficit. So we talked about something in the program called the escape plan. It's kind of a structured way to get out of a deficit. You know, if you've done something like that, then the diet break is totally fine. You just add a few more, add a bit more food, maybe some extra different foods. But ultimately, things still stay

relatively calm, it's largely more energy. What throws people out in a diet break is when they kind of just have a hard stop on those structures and those habits that they kept during the deficit. And they go into just sort of reckless abandon of eating whatever they want. And I do think that the phrase diet break can reinforce that style of approach a little bit. So in the past, I've used language like diet deloads, if you're into strength training, you know, you'll understand why the deload language can work.

rest phases, investment phases, because that's the other thing sometimes. Going to a diet break for some people can feel like a waste of time or feel like you're delaying your goal, but it can often be an investment in subsequent fat loss, in more successful future fat loss. So rest phase, investment phase, diet break, diet deload, whatever you want to call it, it's essentially you returning to your maintenance.

Side note, if you've returned to maintenance and your weight pops up and then plateaus, you're doing it right. If you've returned to maintenance and your weight pops up and then steadily creeps up, you're not at maintenance, you've gone too hard. That's a topic for another time, though. So in terms of when you should use diet breaks with people, again, in the program, we talk about red flags of dieting. And these are things that I want you to be looking out for. They may not happen to everyone. They're going to feel a bit different for everyone.

Jonathan Steedman (04:48.074)

I'm not suggesting that when one of these things happens, you immediately need to go to a diet break. But if they're kind of happening regularly, a bit more of a pattern, then it might be time to have a bit of a break. The other thing you'll notice as I go through this list is that they're what's called multifactorial, which is a big word we use to sound smart. And essentially, what it means is there can be multiple explanations for why you're feeling these things. So I don't want you to immediately jump in, it's the deficit. I need to stop.

There are other explanations as to why this might be happening. So one of the big ones can be a bit of disrupted sleep. hopefully you can appreciate why sleep can also be disrupted by so many other things. Changes are generally a loss or a reduction in libido. Once again, lots of other reasons why that could be happening, but one of them could be being in a deficit for too long.

If you are someone who really enjoys training or exercise or just movement in general, and for the last like week or two, you just haven't, you've really struggled to get there. That can also be due to being in a deficit for a bit too long. Again, even I'm very fortunate. I love training and there's still days that I don't feel like training. But a day or two here, a day or two there, that's not necessarily because I've been in a deficit too long. It's just life, right? So if it's a pattern though,

That would be one I would look out for. Man, that gecko is going nuts. I really hope that's coming through the microphone. I'm just gonna sound like a lunatic that's talking about a gecko. There's a gecko in my shed, or probably several geckos, but that's also where there's no spiders in my shed, so that's good. Anyhow, another really big one I see is episodes of uncontrolled overeating. Now, two things on that. Yeah, you might be thinking, you mean binges, right? I don't like using the word binge lightly because it is actually a...

a term used in the eating disorder space. has an actual kind of definition. I know we use it kind of casually and that's okay, but try not to. So I'm thinking more of like, I had a roll of chocolate, another roll of chocolate, I ate the whole block, right? Or I had a snack, 30 minutes later, I had another snack and I another snack and I had like this snack-cidents as we call them, that just kind of bigger.

Jonathan Steedman (07:05.44)

I guess a blowout. I don't know if I like that phrase either, but if that has happened once kind of randomly again, could be a whole host of reasons why it could be stress, could be fatigue, could be, you you missed your afternoon tea or all of those things. But if it's starting to happen consistently again, maybe a sign that the body needs a break from being in a deficit. What are some other ones? changes in menstrual function. Now loss of period is definitely one, but that's also something that you should

go speak to your doctor or a dietician about that because that's a little bit more serious. Well, it's very serious, but kind of early stages of that are changes in your menstrual cycle, typically a lengthening of your cycle, particularly if you are regular. So if you notice your cycle is a little bit late, each kind of cycle or it's lengthening each time, that could also be a sign that potentially you need a break from being in a deficit. So we've got sleep, we've got libido, we've got desire to train, we've got episodes of uncontrolled overeating.

and we have changes in menstrual function. They're the main ones. Now there are other more severe things, but like again, I don't wanna like that, that's medical speak. those would be the ones that I would be looking out for. And if you're experiencing any of those, it's probably time to get out of your deficit for a time. Now, how frequently and how long your diet break should be is definitely very varied and up to the individual. I would suggest,

I would suggest a minimum period of time of at least a week, and I probably wouldn't go too much longer than three to four weeks, just because you're kind of wasting your, not wasting, but you're significantly prolonging your fat loss journey if you go for longer than that. And you're probably not getting, I doubt you're getting significant physical benefits by staying at maintenance for longer than four weeks, if the end goal is fat loss. So I'd say one to four weeks.

How frequently you should do it again is very varied. You might want to base it on those red flags that I spoke about, or you might want to be more structured. I've done that with really good success with some people of just having two weeks in a deficit, one week at maintenance kind of structured. So regardless of how they feel at end of those two weeks, they go into maintenance and they know that having that kind of pattern really helps them feel good about what they're doing. But it can be very much up to what you want. Now.

Jonathan Steedman (09:26.252)

Obviously we need to be careful the more time, the more diet breaks you have in your fat loss phase, the longer that fat loss phase is because you're spending time at maintenance. but we also need to juggle the fact that being like having these diet breaks could also make it more likely that you actually attain your goal, right? Because you're, resting and you're going again. So you need to find that balance between don't want to take too long. know, you want to get to your goal, but you also don't want to.

kind of push through when you shouldn't and snap and then not arrive at your goal at all. So I think that's everything. I think I've covered all of the diet break things that I wanted to cover. In summary, they're great. They're to be used wisely, but not liberally, but kind of liberally, I guess. And if I didn't answer your questions, make sure you send me a stern message or like a nice message, just asking the questions that I didn't answer.

Otherwise, I'll chat to you guys next time.