#refeeds

In the quest for weight loss, many of us embark on diets that often involve strict calorie restrictions. While calorie deficits are essential for shedding pounds, prolonged dieting can have its drawbacks, such as metabolic slowdown and decreased motivation. However, there's a strategy gaining popularity among fitness enthusiasts and experts alike: refeeds. Let's explore what refeeds are, why they're beneficial, and how you can incorporate them into your weight loss journey for optimal results.

What Are Refeeds?

Refeeds, also known as "diet breaks" or "refeeding days," are periods where you temporarily increase your calorie intake, usually by consuming more carbohydrates. These short-term increases in calories provide a break from prolonged calorie restriction and can have numerous benefits for both your body and mind.

Benefits of Refeeds for Weight Loss:

1. Metabolic Boost: Refeeds help prevent metabolic slowdown by signaling to your body that it's not in a prolonged state of deprivation. By temporarily increasing your calorie intake, particularly from carbohydrates, you can kickstart your metabolism and keep it functioning optimally.

2. Hormonal Balance: Calorie restriction can disrupt hormone levels related to hunger, satiety, and metabolism. Refeeds, especially those rich in carbohydrates, help normalize hormones like leptin, ghrelin, and thyroid hormones, promoting a healthier hormonal balance.

3. Muscle Glycogen Replenishment: Depleted glycogen stores in the muscles can lead to decreased energy levels and workout performance. Refeeds, with their higher carbohydrate content, help replenish muscle glycogen, improving energy levels and enhancing physical performance during exercise.

4. Psychological Relief: Dieting can take a toll on your mental well-being, leading to feelings of deprivation and frustration. Refeeds provide a psychological break from strict calorie counting and allow you to enjoy foods you love, reducing the risk of binge eating and increasing adherence to your weight loss plan.

5. Prevention of Lean Muscle Loss: In a calorie deficit, your body may break down muscle tissue for energy. Refeeds, particularly those rich in protein, help preserve lean muscle mass by providing a temporary increase in calories and protein, signaling to your body that it's not in a state of starvation.

Incorporating Refeeds Into Your Weight Loss Plan:

Now that we understand the benefits of refeeds, click on the link below to find out how you can incorporate them into your weight loss journey:

How to Incorporate Refeeds into your Journey!

Psmf Vegetable Sources

If you have been dieting for a long time, you may get intense cravings for your favorite “naughty” foods and your personal trainer or your other fitness friends may tell you to have a cheat day or a cheat meal. They would tell you that a cheat meal/day is necessary because it resets your metabolism and you should do it once a week or every two weeks. You may start to have a debate in your head: “Should I cheat or not?” Let’s first calm down a bit. You are not in a covenant with your diet so you won’t get in trouble if you do cheat, but would cheat meals really help you both physically and psychologically? 

Let’s talk about it. Does a cheat meal really reset your metabolism? Asking this question means one might have confused refeed meals with cheat meals. A refeed meal is an intentional planned meal that is used to reset your leptin levels and you can’t really eat your favorite foods with refeed meals because leptin mostly responds to carbs. When you have a refeed meal or day, you typically keep your protein macro the same and fat really low, while upping your carbs by 100 to 200g. Pizza, ice cream, burgers, fries, donuts, etc. are all both high fat and high carb foods, so you cant have them during a refeed. This means that unfortunately, cheat meals or days (unless you just really love high carb low fat foods) won’t really reset your metabolism. 

Cheat meals/days can be beneficial to you psychologically if you are looking at cheat meals/days from a standpoint of reward and power not guilt. Honestly I would recommend people change the word “cheat” into the word “reward”. When you eat your favorite meals with the idea of cheating you may feel guilty, lack of control, and maybe get a false excitement which can lead to binges later. 

Let’s talk about guilt and lack of control. When you feel that you are not good enough and you need to cheat to stay on your fitness journey, you may feel that you are controlled by food and are no longer coming from the standpoint of power. When you feel that you are not in control, the guilt may end up making you go on a full out binge. We always hear about jokes that when you eat an extra chocolate that is not part of your diet plan you end up eating the whole village. It does happen a lot in real life and often that guilty feeling is why people go on full out binges. 

What about false excitement? When you heavily restrict your diet and allow yourself cheat meals/days, your brain may get that extra rush from the idea of breaking your diet. We can be rebels sometimes and the excitement of not following rules combined with that of eating all of your “naughty” foods on that specific day may make you go on a full out binge because you may think, “There is no tomorrow! I better go binge now.” That strong brain chemistry rush can also make you constantly think about cheat meals or days which can lead to unplanned cheat meals or binges. 

However, if you can treat the idea of cheat meals/cheat days as a way to reward yourself and as a way to live life in balance, then you will be able to enjoy your favorite foods with joy and celebration. You are more likely to walk away form that experience with positivity and a real psychological break from your diet. 

If you are a perfectionist or can’t get the feelings guilt or false excitement from your head when it comes to cheat meals/days, then you might want to consider trying flexible dieting or intuitive eating. Both allow you to have freedoms when it comes to healthy eating. 

I will talk about both in my future videos, starting with my next talk video which will be about intuitive eating. 

So as I said , I used this Easter celebration to do my Carbs refeed session after reaching a plateau for already a month 1/2 (after being 7months on Keto) ! Soooooo I don’t know if I did it right but I followed markdiary so we will see! Eating more than 2000kcal a day and between 300and 400 carbs /day.

Was difficult and not going to do it again... haha  Hope that it will help to go under 58kG ! FINGERS CROSSED ! :$

Not emotionally feeling okay, I know it’s for my diet but psychologically it is difficult to see so many carbs ... 

Otherwise it has been a great family week-end :)