LL On Post-Diet Maintenance

Hi All,
I alluded to it on Tuesday, so now I’m curious to hear your personal post-dieting stories.

Rapid regain? Long term maintenance? How’d you refeed? Did you go aggressive, or with small sustainable changes?

I’ll be around for a couple hours, but I’ll also check over on the Velocity Diet thread… and check back-in at times tomorrow.

LL

Dr. Lowery,

I’m going to be coming off a 12 week diet phase in a couple weeks. At the end of the diet phase my calories will be at 2200 (I’m about 205). Is a 200-300 calorie increase per week too much?

LL,

What are your thoughts on the Velocity Diet? I’m finishing it up next week and I’ll be down about 15 lbs in 28 days. It has recently crossed my mind that I might be in trouble when I gradually return to normal eating as far as my metabilism goes. Any suggestions to transition off?

BTW - I’m 6’1" at 200 lbs around 11-12% BF. I’ve been doing between 1500-1800 calories on the V Diet. I’ve been taking 4 HOT-ROX twice per day, 1 gram protein per lb of bodyweight, and using Surge during/after weight sessions. I’m planning to gradually add solid foods and increase cals by 200-300 every 4 days or so. I assume I should keep taking the HOT-ROX during the transition. Should I increase cardio temporarily to offset the added calories and rev up metabolism? Thanks for your input.

[quote]jka_72 wrote:
LL,

What are your thoughts on the Velocity Diet? I’m finishing it up next week and I’ll be down about 15 lbs in 28 days. It has recently crossed my mind that I might be in trouble when I gradually return to normal eating as far as my metabilism goes. Any suggestions to transition off?

BTW - I’m 6’1" at 200 lbs around 11-12% BF. I’ve been doing between 1500-1800 calories on the V Diet. I’ve been taking 4 HOT-ROX twice per day, 1 gram protein per lb of bodyweight, and using Surge during/after weight sessions. I’m planning to gradually add solid foods and increase cals by 200-300 every 4 days or so. I assume I should keep taking the HOT-ROX during the transition. Should I increase cardio temporarily to offset the added calories and rev up metabolism? Thanks for your input.[/quote]

Hey; I’ve been off the V-Diet for about 6 weeks now. I haven’t really kept a food log much; and I actually started drinking again; but I’m still the same waist size with about an extra 6lbs on me (I did take 1-ad for 3 weeks though). So as long as you’re smart there should be no issues.

Typically, a 200-300 kcal per day increase each week is reasonable. This kind of bump-up every two weeks is done by some refeeding guys as well.

[quote]mroussell wrote:
Dr. Lowery,

I’m going to be coming off a 12 week diet phase in a couple weeks. At the end of the diet phase my calories will be at 2200 (I’m about 205). Is a 200-300 calorie increase per week too much?[/quote]

jka_72

Thanks for the re-post. Things I like about Chris’ Velocity diet are 1.) more moderate kcal reduction 2.) focus on fiber 3.) increased PRO to a gram per lb. 4.) dietary fat manipulation

As far as the benefits of a temporary protein shake based diet, I posted this on another thread…

I thought I’d keep this post-dieting thread open tonight by describing my
own experience - post competition diet. Call it a one-time blog narrative, but it may stimulate some questions. (And feel free to go on a tangent.)

After doing reasonably well in regional-level bodybuilding in 2003 (runner-up Mountaneer Cup and 5th in NPC Mr. Midwest), I was determined not to “blow-up”, either in water weight or fat mass.

After getting my body fat percentage down far enough to reduce my usual leptin and thyroid concentrations, I knew I’d have to be cautious…

LL,

what are your thoughts in re-introducing carbs into a lower carb diet? What kind of carbs do you prefer for the post-diet period (fruits, beans, grains) etc?

To make a long story short, I slowly reintroduced kcal back up to 2800 (staying below my pre-diet sloppiness at 3000 kcal/day including Holiday junk food) over a period of perhaps six weeks. (I did have one initial celebration pig-out including caramel silk pie - something I will now love forever).

As I expected though, I just couldn’t maintain the gumption to keep the cardio ramped up to what it had been (up to 75 min. pre breakfast and another 30-45 post-weights). I consciously didn’t want to continue at that pace anyway. I did keep up the low-intensity cardio most days for about 4-6 weeks though.

I filled-out nicely, as expected over the first month but by 12 weeks post-diet I was pretty much weighing my usual 205. Was I fatter than before I had begun my gradual 20+ week diet? I can’t say definitively but my % fat was very similar.

Still, I have concerns over reaching extreme leanness, as multiple competitions and interspersed weight gain looks a little too much like yo-yo dieting to me.

And many of us know the consequences thereof…

LL,

Not really a post diet maintainence question (I’ve never trimmed down - maybe I should try it one day), but a supplement question. I’ve read different reports saying that Inosine works and that Insoine doesn’t work. What’s your take on the whole Inosine supplementation thing?

…Ultimately a higher percent fat and “awakened” pre-adipocytes (previously immature fat cells now capable of full grown, differentited
triglyceride storage).

This is why I don’t plan to get leaner than 8-10% during annual fat loss efforts from now on. Admittedly 6% is okay for many persons but that means a body weight nearly 10% below normal for me - enough to result in “starvation mode” and undue regain of fat with each effort. Especially dangerous as I enter my late 30s.

watson2K5,
To be honest, I haven’t seen literature specific to this but it’s logical that since low-carb diets can induce a relative glucose intolerance in the body, reintroducing beans and other low-G.I. carbs, as you suggested, could be prudent.

massif,
I know there was a study in IJSN, back before 2000, suggsting no ergogenic effects after a week or two.

On top of this, and however anecdotal this may sound, I can tell you that during the height of inosine marketing (the first time around, several years ago), there were many people I spoke to who were unimpressed.

If there’s new data floating around or a new use for inosine other than “energy and performnace”, I’d like to hear about it, though. Got anything good?

[quote]Lonnie Lowery wrote:
…Ultimately a higher percent fat and “awakened” pre-adipocytes (previously immature fat cells now capable of full grown, differentited
triglyceride storage).

This is why I don’t plan to get leaner than 8-10% during annual fat loss efforts from now on. Admittedly 6% is okay for many persons but that means a body weight nearly 10% below normal for me - enough to result in “starvation mode” and undue regain of fat with each effort. Especially dangerous as I enter my late 30s.
[/quote]

Dr. L,

Good stuff about the consequences of yo-yo dieting. I work alot with the “normal” population and am always looking for good reasons to tell they why yo-yo dieting is bad. Any other reasons? Or texts you could refer me too? Thanks.

LL,

2800 cals to maintain? What was your pre-comp number?

LL,

What are your experiences with clients or your personal thoughts about loose skin? Some say its a fact of life after losing a bunch of weight and there’s nothing one can do about it (other than surgery, of course). Others say one simply needs to keep losing weight and get down around 5-6% body fat to eliminate the problem.

When someone gets their BF into the low teens and still has loose skin, are they fooling themselves if they keep pushing toward losing more body fat to eliminate the problem.

Your thoughts?

sam747,
Honestly, I don’t keep tight track of total kcal intake during much of the year. I was probably eating about 3000 kcal daily, as I mentioned.

There was a time that I ate 4500 kcal daily but as a 35 y.o. I don’t do that anymore. (And I don’t think many persons realize how much “clean” food this can be!) I don’t have the metabolism or frankly the time to go there, especially since I’m not looking to get much bigger and heavier overall (blasphemy, I know).

The truth is, however, that since my competition, I’ve behaviorally stayed in too much of a lower-cal, lower-carb mentality and I’m changing that as my more recent sport endeavors demand.

jka_72,
Truly loose skin (and skin tone in general) are cosmetic things that A.) yes, probably require surgery if excessive enough and B.) are unlikely to change much even if one could get his/ her overall body fat very low. Skin is not the same thing as subcutanaeous fat.

It’s true that “stubborn areas” will hold onto fatty deposits longer but they can eventually be affected after other body parts are already much leaner in appearance.

Still, we need to stay realistic as to what is actuaul adipose tissue and what is skin per se. We can burn (oxidize) most stubborn fatty deposits at some point but no amount of cardio will “burn” skin, eh?

Alrighty,
I’m out for the night.

LL

[quote]Lonnie Lowery wrote:
massif,
I know there was a study in IJSN, back before 2000, suggsting no ergogenic effects after a week or two.

On top of this, and however anecdotal this may sound, I can tell you that during the height of inosine marketing (the first time around, several years ago), there were many people I spoke to who were unimpressed.

If there’s new data floating around or a new use for inosine other than “energy and performnace”, I’d like to hear about it, though. Got anything good? [/quote]

Hi LL

No, nothing good to report. The only thing that looked promising was preliminary reports that inosine can “suppress proinflammatory cytokine production and mortality in a mouse endotoxemic model”. Now, I don’t know what that means, but it looked promising.

I just moved house and found an old bottle at the back of the cupboard. I remembered taking it regularly with no effect, but if I took it in a once off fashion (like once a week before rugby games), it seemed like I had limitless energy. I thought I would see if there was anything to back my experience up.