Yes. Yes they do.
Diet breaks can be beneficial for long term fat loss maintenance.
This 16-week study found that diet breaks (eating at maintenance levels every 2 weeks for a week or two) caused a 4.3 kg greater weight loss compared to the group that did not have any diet breaks. The group that did not take diet breaks also lowered their metabolic rate so that they were burning about 400 less calories per day!
I had one of my favorite clients, Steve, try it out.
I had never tried it before with a client, but we decided to give it a go since the evidence was strong.
Steve simply took his reduced calorie allotment, and added about 250 calories back.
He would hold this calorie comsumption for a week, then go back to his normal restricted allotment for 2 weeks.
He was facing a plateau in terms of fat loss, but by implementing diet breaks, he broke through, continued to lose weight at a faster rate, and didn’t even have to exercise more.
The metabolism is an amazing thing. Don’t let your metabolism slow down during caloric restriction.
Keep it going with diet breaks.
Check out Steve’s Testimonial below, and also if you’re considering a coach to level up in your career, there is no one better than Steve. Find out more about him and what he does here.