When you're cutting, how often do you have refeed days, and how big is the calorie spike? do you still stay with the 40.40.20 ratio?

I find that refeed days are more effective with carb cycling diets. If you're diet is moderate to high in carbs, it's unlikely that your glycogen stores will be depleted enough for refeed days to do what it's supposed to do.

My "refeed" days are probably the wimpest refeeds that anyone on here has, but I do them once a week just to have alittle variety in my diet. Calorie wise, there is only about a 150 calorie difference if that. Like I said...wimpy. :lol: This week I did two refeeds back to back because I was sick.

Macro wise, from highest to lowest in carbs is 42.9 % , 31.6 % and 22.9 %. These numbers are never exact on a daily basis. Sometimes I'm just not in the mood for grapefruit or whatever is suggested, so I'll have a pear or something in it's place.

I can function with no problem on the "low" and "no" carb days, but I try to keep the no days to a maximum of 2 days since I've added HIIT and extra cardio throughout the week. For the rest of the week, I hang with the low days as it's not too many carbs or too little.

They're more appropriately called "cheat days," unless you are truly "re-feeding" by purely over-eating on health foods.

You either cheat or re-feed; which are you speaking of?

They're more appropriately called "cheat days," unless you are truly "re-feeding" by purely over-eating on health foods.

You either cheat or re-feed; which are you speaking of?

well, I'm trying to cut, so i doubt its a good idea to have a whole cheat day.

i am a complete beginner to the whole refeed,,
i am cutting and may refeed.

is it a boost in carbs? or all together calories?

can you give me a slight run down....

The whole re-feed is normally associated with low-carb diets, or any other diet that lacks a part of their macros for a certain period of time. (I.E- low carbs for 6 days and an all out carb-fest on the 7th day)

Cheating is more like a once a week treat. Some go all out and eat anything they want for one day, regardless of macros. Others simply have a cheat meal.

I got carried away with cheating and it put my hard work in a hole for a couple of weeks. Furthermore, it brought me back to some of my old eating habits.

There's nothing to back it up, but some say the logic behind "cheating" is to "shock" your metabolism, and if anything, speed it up.

I don't think refeed days are beneficial from a diet perspective in most cases.

That said, I do them, but refer to them as cheat days. If I'm dieting on, say, 3000 calories/day (I train a lot), then my cheat day could easily be 4000.

Regarding ratios, I never pay much attention to them anyway.

When you're cutting, how often do you have refeed days, and how big is the calorie spike? do you still stay with the 40.40.20 ratio?

The problem with refeed days is that people tend to look at them as boosters of metabolism, and they simply aren't. If the body were that fast to adapt to a caloric intake, then you'd be screwed the first day of cutting calories. The reality is that it takes the body several days, even weeks, to adjust to a new level.

So first, there are physical benefits from refeeding such as replenishing glycogen stores, plus some theoretical growth hormone, thyroid, and other interactions that take place. But for the most part call it for what it is - a cheat day, or an excuse to eat junk. Few people are disciplined to simply eat more clean calories and that's fine, some nutritionists and strength coaches think eating junk every once awhile is perfectly fine.

On the other hand, if you truly are looking to avoid homeostasis/slowdown of your metabolism, the most effective way I've found to do this is to have a refeed week.

That's not to say you go overboard and eat junk. My refeed weeks are clean food, but they are the single most effective way I've found it possible to maintain rapid fat loss.

When I dropped from 212 to 179 in 12 weeks and did it eating an average of 300 grams of carbohydrate per day, I used this concept.

Basically I knew I could maintain at x calories, so my weeks would look like this - let's say 2400 is what I maintained weight at:

Week 1: 2200 calories
Week 2: 2000 calories
Week 3: 1800 calories
Week 4: 2300 calories
Week 5: 2200 calories
Week 6: 2000 calories
Week 7: 1800 calories
Week 8: 2300 calories

etc. Basically the longer weeks of higher calories were great. Let's get the facts straight: just because I bumped calories to maintenance doesn't mean I suddenly stopped burning fat or gained it back. If anything, those weeks gave me extra recovery, allowed me to put on more muscle mass, and recharged my battery so that when I dove back into a lower calorie week I was able to burn more calories and shed the fat more quickly.

People here know I am a huge fan of the DietPower software. With that software, the cycles were easy. I would simply set a goal to lose 10 pounds in 3 weeks. Inevitably my calorie budget would slowly dwindle as my metabolism slowed, but I'd make it through 3 weeks and drop the weight. Then, I'd set another week at maintenance - i.e. a goal of staying the same weight for 7 days. My calories would jump (i.e. in the example, going from 1800 to 2300 is a huge leap) and I'd feel almost like I was gorging myself but in the end I'd still drop about a pound during that week. Then, I'd set another 3 week goal to lose 10 pounds again, etc.

The extra few pounds comes off from water and electrolyte manipulation before the photo shoot - while I was 179 on the day of the shoot I was probably more in the 182 range if I hadn't manipulated my sodium/potassium/water intake to get rid of any puffiness for the shoot - in fact this is what I quickly rebounded to after the shoot.

I have the entire 84 day program, including every single bite of food and workout, journaled in case you're interested, just PM me and I'll send you the link.

Jeremy

But for the most part call it for what it is - a cheat day, or an excuse to eat junk.That's what I think they are, too. I do them because they are fun and something to look forward to, but if I was trying to get thin and my life depended on being ripped, I'd not do them. I bet most pro bodbuilders don't and most elite endurance athletes, or really any athlete that requires a low body fat does them either except as a treat.

I like Jeremy's approach on this. Unfortunately I'm not quite disciplined enough to do a whole week at lower (or higher) calories, so my cycles are more like 2-5 days. I also find it hard to stay 500kcal below maintenance for more than 3-5 days at a time.

Basically I refeed at about maintenance - maybe cheat just a little (like 1-2 beers or 200-300kcal of pastry or ice-cream) on 1 meal in 7-10 days and go a bit over. Having some extra sweet potato outside of the workout window or 1/2 cup of yogurt + fruit + PB is usually enough of a 'cheat' for me to satisfy cravings.

Complete cheat meals definitely don't help my progress, but for me calorie cycling does seem to have benefits over trying to maintain a certain deficit for extended periods of time, both mentally and physically.

Don't you guys think you're being a bit patronizing by assuming he's just looking to cheat? I didn't find any evidence of that in the OP, and furthermore there are a multitude of people (including John during a recent iteration of his cut diet) that cycle carbs and make use of refeed days and/or meals.

djfiraga89: I limit carbs to grapefruit and veggies 5 days a week, on the other two I add an additional refeed meal consisting of complex carbs and healthy fat only which boosts my intake considerably. Like has been said, refeeds are most useful on carb restricted diets, and they don't represent just eating more food; the extra should come mostly from the complex carb sources that have been lacking all week.

What I would do is look up a diet that makes use of refeeds, so you can get an idea of how and why they are used. I pattern mine after the refeeds in "The Cut Diet" as well as sample diets available on Beverly International's website.

Don't you guys think you're being a bit patronizing by assuming he's just looking to cheat?I don't mean to imply he's intentionally cheating, I just believe that upping calories above the weight loss calories functions in a similar manner. A person may intend to have them functional and support overall weight loss, but 9 times out of 10 (or more!) the person who doesn't bother with that and continues on their cutting cal will end up leaner.

Yeah, I just noticed the 40/40/20 breakdown, rendering refeeds pretty pointless. I know refeeding helps me out bigtime when I near the tricky ending of a cut, but that's because I'm severely restricting carbs otherwise and never going above maintenance even on refeed days.

The problem with refeed days is that people tend to look at them as boosters of metabolism, and they simply aren't. If the body were that fast to adapt to a caloric intake, then you'd be screwed the first day of cutting calories. The reality is that it takes the body several days, even weeks, to adjust to a new level.


Hi Jeremy, I'm confused by your post.

Why is it then that repeating a cycle of 3 low carb days followed by 1 high carb day is so effective for so many people in losing fat?

Tom Venuto describes it in BFFM as the "most effective fat burning technique EVER!"

I think "refeeds" and "cheats" are often pretty abused, but I think refeeds have their place in some cutting diets.

This article (http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=230cheat2)goes into it pretty well.

Generally, I think they're best when you've been quite carb and calorie restrictive for awhile, and you stick to refeeding with carbs, and not fat.

I'm on John Berardi's extremely carb-restrictive "Get Shredded" diet, and I have a refeed day coming up. I'm personally looking forward to protein pancakes, a bowl of oatmeal, and a bowl of fibre1 cereal. I'm also going to have a two or three slices of pizza from a really nice pizza place, right after my squat workout.

Note that on a normal diet all those foods except the pizza would all be pretty decent meals to have, so I wouldn't have a "refeed day." Although Berardi, for example, is a proponent of "90% compliance," meaning that if you eat 6 meals a day, 7 days a week for 42 meals total, you can miss about 10% of those, or about 4 meals. These can be missed meals or cheats or whatever. Now one cheat isn't a three course dinner at a buffet, unless you want to do that only once a week instead of four times a week or something (I think I read on his forum that this is what he does with his friends every Sunday night)

ive been doing a cut for the past 6 days and its been extreme low carb, nearly no carb at all.

i also run a caloric deficy and do cardio.

tomorrow morning i am going to have my first refeed, which for me means eating MAINTENANCE calroies
but some carbs that i am soooo looking forward to ;)

low carb diets are really taxing on your system imho, i can clearly tell the lack of energy and focus,
heavy duty ..