Diet breaks are an important element to any long term fat loss plan. Simply put, a diet break is a planned break from eating in a calorie deficit. When on a diet break, your overall food intake will be similar to a maintenance level (amount of food required for your body weight to stay as is). Eating in a calorie deficit for long periods of time with no breaks can be exhausting mentally and physically; weight loss can begin to stall and frustration will ensue. Lets explore all of the reasons why implementing diet breaks can help us with long term fat loss goals.

1. Your Body’s Adaption

Without getting too scientific, when eating in a calorie deficit for long periods of time your body will begin to adapt and change its metabolism. What does this mean? Your body will begin to get used to functioning on less calories per day and will eventually burn less overall calories throughout the day. When this happens, weight loss and fat loss can stall and lead to a plateau. Taking a 1-2 week break from a calorie deficit and eating at a higher calorie level can help restart or “jump start” your metabolism. Returning to a calorie deficit after a diet break, can help break you out of your plateau and allow you to see more progress and results.

2. A Great Mental Break

When weight loss and fat loss goals get aggressive, it can sometimes be hard mentally to constantly be eating low food intakes, feeling hungry, fatigued, tired, moody etc. Knowing that you have a diet break coming up where food will be higher, can make the hard days feel more manageable if you have something to look forward too. It will help alleviate any restrictive feelings and help with longterm adherence to fat loss/weight goals.

3. A Long-Term Lesson

Diet breaks are good practice for what life in a maintaining lifestyle will be like. Dieting and losing weight is something that everyone focuses on but no one really focuses on life after the diet and how to keep the weight loss without gaining it all back. Taking brief diet breaks throughout a fat loss/weight loss journey can help be a good teacher for what life will be like once you’ve met your goal. Learning how to maintain your weight while still in the process of losing weight is a bonus and will make transitioning from a diet phase to a lifestyle phase that much easier.

Are they any downsides to diet breaks?

While there are no official downsides or negatives of diet breaks there are two things that you should be aware of before taking one:

• The scale can fluctuate upwards. The scale will always fluctuate but be mindful that eating more food means more sodium and fiber which can lead the body to hold onto more water weight which you would see reflected in the scale. (Not a big deal at all! Just something to be aware of)
• It can take a bit longer to reach your overall goal, but in my opinion slow and steady wins the race – losing weight too quickly can lead to it coming back on quickly

I personally love diet breaks and implement them regularly for all of my clients, I’ve had clients see great results by using them. When I am working in a fat loss/weight loss phase, I always take frequent diet breaks. Even though it may take you a few extra weeks to get to your goal, its always a much more enjoyable and easier to be consistent over long periods of time.