Identifying Metabolic Crashes

[Adiakritos]

Scale finally hit 160.0 this morning.

Last week I was at 1500 calories and got to 160.4.

This week I set my calories at 1475 and increased % of carbs and lowered fat. Seems to be working.

Feeling pretty anxious and hungry around 2-3 pm as I’d have eaten most of my food by then.

Then I hit the gym at 5 and slam a protein shake right after then salad with tuna final meal.

[Adiakritos]

Had 1 cheat MEAL on Friday night. It was quite large. Orange theory on Saturday to burn like 750 calls in 60 minutes which prob burned like 1/4th of that meal. Anyway, this morning I weighed in at 161.5. I suspect it's all the food that's in my colon and the water I've been drinking and any glycogen that's been taken up by the muscles as I also look fuller. I also definitely look leaner, despite the higher weigh-in. I think by Sunday this week I should weigh lower than 160 at some point. I'm going to reduce calories again to 1450 for good measure and keep the training static. I also am replacing a lot of regular meats with things like seitan and tofu to reduce my animal product consumption. So far, I'm still able to keep macros and calories under control while making that transition.

[Adiakritos]

159 lbs. Definitely looking more defined. Since switching to 100% plant-based I feel a very 'sustainable' hunger. Not hunger pangs, but just a dull sense of hunger. However lots of gas. I actually beat my lifting records from previous weeks. Next target is 158 lbs.

Biggest help in my entire journey so far has been having 1 core lagging metric to track, which is total weight. Second core lagging metric has just been the mirror. I already know my lead measures now very explicitly which are my total calories, macros, lifting sessions, and cardio sessions.

[Adiakritos]

Progress picture

IMG_4406.jpg

[AdamWW]

Progress picture

Attachment 9339693

Looks like 16.5% to me

[Adiakritos]

Looks like 16.5% to me

Could be. I don’t measure for that anymore. Just using the mirror and scale to see when I have visible full 6 pack.

[Quasimofo170]

GJDM. Going through a cut right now and am doing similar methods. Cut cals and just watch scale and mirror.

[Adiakritos]

157.8lbs this morning. Not sure why the big drop but whatever. I did add asparagus to diet and I peed a lot last night so probably a drop in a lot of water. I definitely look a tad leaner as well.

[LegendKiIIer]

I'm around your same weight, I started at 189. I noticed that 1500 cal was the sweet spot for losing weight. I tried 1700 (+ doing cardio) and my weight didn't move at all. It's weird how much 200 cal made a difference.

Congrats on your progress.

[Adiakritos]

I'm around your same weight, I started at 189. I noticed that 1500 cal was the sweet spot for losing weight. I tried 1700 (+ doing cardio) and my weight didn't move at all. It's weird how much 200 cal made a difference.

Congrats on your progress.

Thanks man

Yeah I’m hovering around 1450 cals right now. Definitely the leanest I’ve ever been my entire life. I can see the definition all over my body and it’s ****in awesome. Hardly any of my clothes fit anymore.

[illriginalized]

So generally what has worked for me consistently is 8 weeks of below maintenance calories, then 1 week of maintenance calories, then back to below maintenance calories.

Rinse and repeat.

If I push more than 8 or 9 weeks, I will plateau, the longest I’ve plateaued was almost 3 weeks until I learned about cycling below maintenance and maintenance calories. The process is slower but the benefits outweigh anything in extreme cutting.

For example, strength loss is minimal, hunger pangs are non-existent, lean mass loss is very minimal, and overall energy is still solid. I can still push it to 3 hours in the gym with a mixture of heavy lifts and conditioning (prowlers for example).

Watch this, in fact absorb as much as you can from Mike Israetel: