Oct 16, 2018 | Nutrition
Eating at a calorie deficit takes its toll after a while. You feel hungry all the time, crave high-calorie foods and fat loss slows down. When this happens, most people turn to cheat days or cheat meals. But this can actually offset a lot of the progress you’ve made.
In this article, I’ll explain why you should turn to a diet break when you feel fatigued from dieting and how this can help prevent fat loss plateaus.
What Happens As You Get Leaner
When you’re in a calorie deficit, you’re technically underfeeding your body. You give it less energy than it requires so it will have to start using body fat as “fuel.” The human body is adaptive, so if you constantly underfeed it, it’s going to adapt by burning fewer calories and making you more hungry to increase the desire to eat. In nutritional sciences, this is known as ”metabolic adaptation”.
Your metabolism basically starts ”slowing down”, so your body can maintain its current shape while you’re consuming fewer calories. From a survival point of view, this makes sense. Your body adapts to the scarcity of food, so it’s able to survive with a lower daily caloric intake.
But when your goal is to lose as much fat as possible, this isn’t favorable. To lose fat, you need to consume fewer calories than your body burns. So if you are in a deficit and your body starts burning fewer calories, you’ll be losing less fat.
This is the main reason why it becomes harder to burn fat as you get deeper into your fat loss phase. A study by Columbia University found that daily energy expenditure can drop anywhere from 8% to 28% after 5-8 weeks of dieting.
So in an extreme case, an average-sized male who burns 2500 calories a day, could be burning just 1800 (2500*0.72) calories a day after a few months of calorie restriction. Now, I must note, such great drops in daily energy expenditure are not common. But it’s clear that metabolic adaptations can have a noticeable effect on how your fat loss phase develops.
How A Diet Break Can Help
If you want to keep losing fat smoothly without “starving” yourself, you need to make sure your daily energy expenditure doesn’t drastically drop over time. Because if it does, you will have to further lower your caloric intake and/or do more cardio to keep seeing good fat loss progress as you advance.
So we know that if you’re in a calorie deficit and are losing fat, your body will start burning fewer calories over time. For most people, this is inevitable since you also need less energy to maintain and move around a lighter body. But we can likely slow down the metabolic adaptations from dieting by occasionally taking a diet break.
We can distinguish a diet break into two types:
- Refeed days
- Week(s) off from a calorie deficit
Refeed Days
Research indicates that the adaptations your body goes through in a calorie deficit are partially regulated by the hormone leptin. The longer you’re in a calorie deficit, the more your leptin levels drop. This in return causes you to feel more hungry throughout the day, burn fewer calories and basically makes you feel depleted.
Research shows that overeating on carbs (like during a refeed) significantly increases leptin levels and, thus, may help slow down some of the metabolic adaptations that typically occur in a fat loss phase.
But keep in mind, just one day of eating more carbs won’t magically ramp up your metabolism. All it likely does is slow down the adaptations your body already is going through.
The benefits of a refeed are mostly psychological.
A refeed provides a controlled break from eating at a calorie deficit. When it comes to fat loss success, dietary adherence (being able to stick to your diet) is by far the most important factor. So, to make your diet more sustainable, having strategic refeed days in which you can enjoy more food helps.
At the start of your fat loss phase, a good way to use refeeds is by autoregulating them. When you notice your workouts start suffering due to low energy levels and/or you have a social event coming up, have a refeed day.
As you’re deeper into your fat loss phase, you can implement refeed days more frequently (1-3x a week, scale upwards the leaner you are) since you tend to have increased hunger and energy levels take a hit.
During a refeed day, you eat close to your average maintenance level (number of calories you typically burn per day). There’s no need to complicate this day. Consume enough protein, hit your calorie targets, and have more foods you enjoy.
Week(s) Off From a Calorie Deficit
I like to keep my fat loss phases short and effective. The longer you stay in a calorie deficit, the more your metabolism slows down and the more susceptible you are to losing muscle. But if you have a good amount of body fat to lose, it’s nearly impossible to get lean within a few months.
After months of restricting calories, the metabolic adaptations you’ve gone through add up and you may need to diet more aggressively (decrease calorie intake further and perhaps add cardio) to achieve fat loss.
When this happens (usually after 8-12 weeks), it’s best to take a 1-2 week diet break before intensifying your diet. A diet break of 1-2 weeks gives your body the opportunity to reverse the metabolic adaptations its gone through.
Again, the human body cares about survival. A constant stream of calories for 1-2 weeks is more indicative of food availability than just 1-2 refeed days. So it makes sense that an extended diet break is more effective for reversing metabolic adaptations than a refeed day.
A diet break should be kept simple, it is nothing more than an extended refeed day:
The goal with this diet break is to help you increase your daily energy expenditure near its former levels and provide an extended psychological break from eating at a caloric deficit.
Because of the possible reversal of metabolic adaptations during a diet break, you’ll generally notice that you can return back to your regular caloric deficit after a diet break and lose fat effectively again. This way, you can prevent the endless drops in caloric intake over time while trying to lose fat.
Weight Gain & Diet Breaks
After spending a considerable amount of time in a calorie deficit, some people are hesitant about eating more. Oftentimes this has to do with the fear of regaining some of the lost weight. But I want to remind you that to look and feel better, we should care about fat loss, not weight loss.
Once you start eating more food in general during a diet break, it’s possible you gain some weight. However, if you eat around maintenance calories, the gained weight is not fat and temporary. One contributor to slight weight gain during a diet break is your muscle glycogen levels being refilled.
Muscle glycogen is the primary fuel source during high-intensity exercise. Having periods in which you eat more carbs will help refill muscle glycogen stores. This, in turn, may help you train harder. So it’s a good thing.
Another possible contributor to slight weight gain during a diet break is that you’re gaining back some lost muscle. So unless you are gaining excessive weight (more than 1% of your total BW in a week), I wouldn’t worry about the temporary fluctuations in weight during a diet break. Slight weight gain is to be expected.
Final Words
That’s it regarding diet breaks! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave them below, I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
Also, if you’re planning on doing a fat loss phase soon, I recommend you check out my “Fat Loss Checklist”. It covers the key points you need to consider before starting your fat loss phase. You will receive the checklist when you join my mailing list by filling in the form below!
Nov 8, 2016 | Nutrition
We all know someone that is super strict about how many meals he/she eats per day, but has no control over the number of calories those meals contain. This is a classic case of “missing the forest for the trees.” In this article, I will show you why meal frequency does not deserve as much attention as many people think and what you should focus on instead.
Meal frequency, Energy Balance and Fat Loss
The energy balance describes the relationship between “energy in” (calories consumed) and “energy out” (calories burned).
- If the number of calories consumed is higher than the number of calories burned, you gain fat (positive energy balance).
- If the number of calories consumed is lower than the number of calories burned, you burn fat (negative energy balance).
The scientific law of thermodynamics shows that energy can’t be destroyed, only transformed. So a surplus of energy has to be stored (fat gain) and an energy deficit needs to be ”compensated” by internal reserves (fat loss).
This is relevant because no matter how many meals you consume a day, the energy balance eventually dictates whether you will lose or gain fat. Research is very clear on this:
- A study by the University of Ottawa compared consuming 3 meals with 6 meals a day while matching total caloric and macronutrient intake. They found no difference in terms of fat loss.
- An extensive research review done by French scientists found no significant difference in weight loss when consuming 1 to up to 17(!) meals a day while matching total caloric intake.
As you can see, meal frequency doesn’t seem to affect fat loss whatsoever.
How about your metabolism?
Contrary to common belief, consuming multiple small meals a day does not boost your metabolism, and consuming a couple of big meals a day does not harm it. Multiple studies show that meal frequency has no significant effect on your metabolism and total daily energy expenditure.
Also, not eating for a while won’t make you go into “survival mode.” Research shows that your metabolism starts slowing down after approximately 60 hours of fasting. I don’t think anyone reading this will ever fast for 60 hours straight.
Meal Frequency, Intermittent Fasting, and Muscle Growth
For decades, bodybuilders have been telling us to spread protein requirements equally throughout the day. To do this, you will need to consume multiple smaller meals (typically 6). This claim is understandable since muscle protein synthesis is an energy demanding process. Muscle protein synthesis basically is the ”muscle-building process”.
There’s research showing that consuming protein frequently is more effective than having just a few protein servings. The problem with many of these studies is that total protein intake is not matched between the groups.
Those who consume protein more frequently tend to consume more protein in a day compared to those who only have protein in a few meals.
That likely is part of the reason why we tend to find greater muscle growth when higher protein feeding frequencies are used. Up to a certain point, higher protein intakes simply make you gain more muscle.
But when protein intakes are matched, a 2013 meta-analysis led by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld shows that how much protein you consume is far more important than when you consume it. Here’s a quote out of this research paper:
Perceived hypertrophic benefits seen in protein timing studies appear to be the result of an increased consumption of protein as opposed to temporal factors. In our reduced model, the amount of protein consumed was highly and significantly associated with hypertrophic gains. (Schoenfeld et al. 2013)
Research regarding intermittent fasting also shows that a high meal frequency is not a necessity to build muscle. Individuals who do intermittent fasting consume no calories for the bigger part of the day and reach their nutritional needs in 4-10 hours.
Not eating for 14-20 hours may sound horrible for muscle growth, but there’s evidence showing it’s similar to eating regularly throughout the day, as long as total caloric and macronutrient intake is matched, of course.
What about fasted training?
Muscle breakdown increases during fasted training. The fact that you get a great anabolic response after breaking your fast, may offset the increased breakdown during training. This would help explain why intermittent fasting has been shown to preserve muscle as effectively as eating regularly throughout the day.
As far as workout performance goes, it depends per person. There’s research showing that fasted training has no significant effect on workout performance, but your personal experience may be different.
The Bottom Line on Meal Frequency
Hopefully, this post has made it clear that meal frequency has a negligible effect on fat loss, metabolic adaptations, and muscle growth. As long as you reach your nutritional needs for a given day, meal frequency won’t make or break your progress.
Therefore, how many meals you should consume per day mostly depends on your personal preference. Pick a meal frequency that is most enjoyable for you and you can stick with it.
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Oct 5, 2016 | Nutrition
Low-carb diets have gained great popularity the past several years. Even though I’m skeptical about any diet that has the word ”low” in it, many have achieved great results from this way of eating. So it seems like low-carb dieting really works.
That said, hundreds of diets work. The question is, whether it’s superior to other forms of dieting or not. Giving up carbs is not easy for many of us. So if we all decide to go low-carb, then there needs to be an additional benefit.
By using the currently available scientific research on this matter, we will draw an objective conclusion on whether or not low-carb dieting is the most effective way to burn fat.
Insulin, Your Worst Enemy?
Low-carb diets supposedly work better for fat loss because you are keeping your insulin levels most of the time.
Insulin is a hormone that is released after consuming carbohydrates and protein. Among other things, this hormone is responsible for nutrient partitioning. Meaning, insulin transfers the needed nutrients to tissues (including fat tissue) after food consumption.
Once insulin is released, your body’s ability to burn fat is suppressed and you will most likely store body fat.
Before you start throwing out all of your chicken and rice, you need to understand that your body is not in constant “fat-burning” or “fat-gaining” mode. It constantly switches from gaining fat after you feed it to burning it when it’s needed.
This graph by Weightology showcases this quite well.
To clear all potential confusion regarding this graph, read the simple example below.
You consume 800 calories at 3 PM and it gets absorbed in 4 hours (rough estimate). Your body will gain a part of it as fat because in those 4 hours your energy needs are not 800 calories, but more around 400 calories if you burn 2500 calories per day (2500*24/4=417). During periods of fasting (which can be as small as a couple of hours), your body will start burning fat because at that time there’s no external energy source (food) available.
If throughout the day you burn more fat than you gain, you’ve lost fat (and vice versa, of course). This is simply achieved by maintaining a caloric deficit. This forces your body to burn more fat than it gains OVERTIME.
Low-carb diets minimize insulin spikes
During a low-carb diet, you primarily eat fat. Research shows that high-fat food sources don’t trigger a significant insulin response. Since insulin is seen as the only hormone that triggers fat gain by many, it seems logical to think that you won’t be able to gain much fat if you keep carbs and protein low. After all, lower insulin levels equal less fat gain, right?
Not really.
First of all, research shows that your body is capable of gaining fat when insulin levels are low. If this wasn’t the case, you could eat unlimited amounts of dietary fat and stay lean. Fat gain due to excess dietary fat occurs through an enzyme known as ”Acylation Stimulating Protein”.
Second of all, fat breakdown also gets suppressed after eating dietary fat, just like when you get an insulin spike. In both cases, this happens due to the suppression of the enzyme ”hormone-sensitive lipase”.
And last but not least, research by the Scottish Agricultural College shows that higher insulin responses do not have to equal more fat gain over time. Fat accumulation is not a response to insulin spikes from carbohydrate consumption, it’s a response to systematically eating at a caloric surplus.
So, for healthy individuals, insulin is not something you should constantly worry about. Spiking insulin by consuming carbs or protein will not make you a “fat-gaining machine.”
Comparing Low-Carb To Its Alternatives
In theory, it doesn’t seem like the theoretical ”fat-reducing” benefits of low-carb diets hold much truth. But what matters most are the eventual results you achieve from low-carb diets. That’s what we’ll be looking into now.
By looking at low-carb research, we see that many studies find low-carb diets to be effective for weight loss. This is quite logical since low-carb diets deplete muscle glycogen (glucose stored in muscles).
This, in turn, will make you a few pounds lighter. It’s safe to say that this kind of weight loss is not what you are shooting for. Actually, weight loss, in general, shouldn’t be your number one concern.
Most of us want to improve body composition (less fat and more muscle). So ”more weight loss” doesn’t equal a better end result, more fat loss and muscle preservation does.
Why not all studies are useful
We know through a large body of evidence that a high protein intake is beneficial during any fat loss phase. This enables you to preserve more muscle and burn more fat over time. So protein has to be relatively high for optimal results, regardless of whether you go low- or high-carb. In this article, I show you how much protein you should eat per day.
The studies that suggest the ”supremacy” of low-carb diets, didn’t take the importance of protein intake into consideration. In this study, a low-carb, high-protein diet was compared to a high-carb, low-protein diet. The low-carb group did better, but was this because of the low-carb or the high-protein intake?
To answer this question, we need to turn to studies that equate protein intake between groups.
A multitude of experimental studies have been done and they show that when calories and protein are matched there is no significant difference in fat loss between low-carb and low-fat diets.
Here are a few more examples:
- Research by the Harvard School of Public Health, found no significant difference between low, moderate and high-carb diets.
- Research by the University of Arizona, found no significant difference between a low- and high-carb diet.
- Research by the Arizona State University, also found no significant difference between a low- and high-carb diet.
Basically, a low-carb diet is generally beneficial for fat loss due to an increase in protein intake. So as long you consume sufficient protein and are in a caloric deficit, it doesn’t seem like your carb and fat intake matter all too much for fat loss, which is great because it allows flexibility.
So, Is Low-Carb Useless?
While writing this article, I have assumed that you are in relatively good health, train often, and are not severely obese. If that’s true, it’s highly unlikely that you will achieve inferior results by eating carbs.
But some people genuinely find it easier to get lean by using a low-carb approach. If you are one of them, you should feel free to maintain a low-carb diet, as long as it consists of mostly nutrient-dense foods.
For example, in this study, some volunteers lost more fat with a high-carb approach, whereas some volunteers lost more fat with a low-carb approach. On average, low-carb dieting doesn’t deliver superior or inferior results, but you might find that this is different in your case.
When insulin resistance comes into play
If you’ve been severely overeating on carbs (or in general) for the last couple of years, research shows that there is a great possibility that you are experiencing issues with the metabolization of carbohydrates.
If you can relate to this, research shows you can benefit from reducing your carbohydrate intake. This likely has much to do with the fact that severely obese individuals often are insulin resistant.
Final Words
Whether you choose to maintain a high-, moderate- or low-carb diet, you will be able to achieve great fat loss results if you are in a caloric deficit and consume sufficient amounts of protein.
If you want to learn more about how you can determine your macronutrient needs and how to approach your fat loss phase, I recommend you check out my free “Fat Loss Checklist.” I will send it to your email if you fill in the form below.
Sep 8, 2016 | Exercise, Nutrition
Muscle growth doesn’t come quickly to us natural lifters. That’s why you want to cherish every pound of muscle you build. The last thing we want to do is lose a significant amount of muscle during a fat loss phase.
If you approach your fat loss phase incorrectly, this can occur. But as you’ll see in this post, it’s more than possible to preserve muscle well while you are in a fat loss phase.
How Fat Loss Affects Muscle Growth
When your body is in an energy deficit, it will have to tap into its energy reserves. The most obvious reserve to turn to is body fat. This is why your body gains fat when you overfeed it, so it can use it in times of food scarcity.
But body fat isn’t the only energy source available that is used to balance out an energy deficit. For instance, research shows that protein breakdown also increases when you’re in a calorie deficit.
The human body builds (protein synthesis) and breaks down (protein breakdown) muscle proteins every day. If the number of muscle proteins you’ve built exceeds the number of muscle proteins you’ve broken down, you’ve built muscle.
In a calorie deficit, research shows that protein synthesis rates drop and protein breakdown rates increase. This negatively affects the amount of muscle you build and can potentially make you lose muscle if your approach is too aggressive.
There are 3 main factors that can minimize (or maximize if you do it incorrectly) the negative effect an energy deficit has on muscle growth.
- Caloric intake
- Protein intake
- Resistance training
We’ll discuss how you can use these factors to your advantage, one by one.
Caloric Intake
You’re probably thinking that I’m going to tell you to ”maintain a small deficit” or ”keep fat loss very slow”. I’m not, the slower you’re losing fat, the longer it takes to reach your fat loss goal. Why is this not beneficial for muscle growth, you ask?
Well, research shows that the longer you’re underfeeding your body, the more susceptible to muscle loss you become. That’s why you don’t want to drag out your fat loss phase if there is no need to.
That said, severe calorie restriction is also not the answer (unless you’re morbidly obese). Research by the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences shows that muscle and strength loss is significant when non-obese individuals eat way below their caloric requirements.
So how many calories should you eat to maximize muscle preservation while still losing fat rapidly?
A good starting point is found in a scientific review paper, which was designed to provide evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilders (people like you, who want to gain more muscle and lose more fat).
They found that losing 0.5-1% of total body weight per week is a good starting point for those who want to improve their body composition. This generally can be achieved by maintaining a calorie deficit of roughly 20-25%. Like in this study, in which athletes lost an average of 1.2 lbs per week by maintaining a deficit of 24%.
Protein Intake
The role of protein during a fat loss phase is very simple: it increases muscle preservation and keeps you full for longer. That’s why it’s highly beneficial to maintain a somewhat high protein intake during your fat loss phase.
But most people take this the wrong way. Because a higher protein intake is beneficial, they think they should stuff themselves with protein every 2-3 hours. This is not necessary.
A 2017 systematic review indicates that consuming as low as 0.7g/lb. (1.6g/kg) of body weight is able to maximize muscle growth. If you want to err on the safe side of things and make use of the satiating effects of protein, you can feel free to consume more protein in a day.
Resistance Training
The human body is quite fascinating. It’s able to survive in extreme circumstances due to its adaptive capabilities and efficiency.
It won’t hold on to muscle tissue that is not used for an extended period of time. It sees this as unnecessary extra weight, which costs energy to preserve. For the same reason, you won’t just build muscle.
You need to give your body a reason to preserve and eventually build muscle. You provide this stimulus simply by using your muscles in training. This helps explain why research by the Washington University shows that weight training increases muscle preservation in calorie-restricted individuals.
To maximize muscle preservation and perhaps even build muscle during your fat loss phase (depending on how close you are to you are to your genetic limit), you need to train for progressive overload.
The training you perform in the gym is considered a stress that forces an adaptive response. Your body adapts to training by building bigger and stronger muscles so that it can deal more efficiently with the provided training stress in the near future. So for consistent muscle growth to occur, you need to constantly challenge your muscles beyond their present capacity (a.k.a. Progressive Overload)
Final Words
As you just read in this blog post, you do not need to go to any extremes to preserve muscle during a fat loss phase. As long as you eat at an appropriate deficit, consume enough protein and train regularly, you will not lose muscle.
If you are interested in learning more about maximizing your muscular potential, check out my new eBook “The Art & Science of Muscle Growth. This book translates the currently available scientific data about muscle growth in “Basic English”, so everyone can start implementing an evidence-based approach to training and nutrition.
Aug 24, 2016 | Nutrition
We all like to eat high-calorie foods that are not nutrient-dense once in a while. It’s human, we enjoy good food and crave it after not having it for a period of time. But eating too much on your cheat day or cheat meal can offset some of the progress you’ve made in that same week.
Many maintain a diet that’s so strict that they have to cheat once in a while to remain sane. In this post, we’ll discuss how cheats days can affect you and why you would want to approach your diet differently if you feel the need to constantly cheat.
The Big Downside of Cheat Days
Fat loss is dictated by something called the ”Energy Balance”. If you consume fewer calories than you burn (caloric deficit), your body will have to tap into its fat stores to balance out this energy deficit. If you eat at a moderate deficit for the first 6 days of the week and then devour every snack you see on Sunday, your weekly caloric deficit will be affected.
Let’s take an imaginary person named Bob as an example.
Bob has been sticking to his calories and macros all week. It’s Sunday and he feels like he deserves to eat whatever he wants. After all, 1 day of clean eating won’t get him ripped, so how can 1 cheat day ruin his progress?
With a bit of simple math, I can show you exactly how it can ruin Bob’s progress.
So let’s say Bob:
- Burns 2700 calories a day.
- Maintains a calorie deficit of 20%, this is a daily calorie deficit of 540 calories (2700*0.2 =540).
- Maintains this deficit from Monday till Saturday. So far, this puts Bob in a weekly deficit of 3240 calories (540*6=3240).
Now Bob goes ahead and eats whatever he wants on Sunday (I’m talking ice cream, pizzas, french fries, all that good stuff) and ends the day with 5500 calories consumed.
Believe it or not, Bob just undid almost all of the progress he has made the last week.
This cheat puts Bob in a caloric surplus of 2800 calories on Sunday (5500-2700=2800). So Bob went from a weekly deficit of 3240 calories to a weekly deficit of 440 calories (3240-2800=440) in just one day.
Let’s assume it’s true that we burn 1 lb. of fat with a weekly deficit of 3500 calories (research shows that this is not always true, it depends on the person, but it’s close enough). Then the amount of fat Bob has lost in that week is minimal, even though he’s been so strict all week.
This is what happens to a lot of people. They feel like they’re stuck because even though they eat “clean” all week with just one cheat day, they just won’t burn a noticeable amount of fat.
But My Cheat Days Aren’t That Bad
Research shows that an average restaurant dish in the US contains around 1200 calories. Chocolate covered donuts contain around 330 calories a piece. So if you just eat 2 restaurant dishes and 3 glazed donuts, you’re already at 3400 calories. As you can see, the calories add up quickly.
So, if you’re not tracking what you eat on a cheat day (most don’t), there’s a great chance that you’re eating way more than you’re supposed to. Especially if you’ve been craving high-calorie food all week.
However, if you are tracking what you eat and making sure you’re eating around or slightly above maintenance, then such a cheat day will not have an impact on your weekly calorie deficit. But let’s be honest, usually, we just stuff ourselves with whatever we crave on cheat days.
What To Do Instead
If you feel like you need a cheat day to stay sane and enjoy foods you like, your diet is probably too restrictive. For most people, there is plenty of room in your calories to consume a few snacks you enjoy. You just have to plan correctly so you stay in that caloric deficit.
There’s no need to restrict yourself from all the foods you like during a fat loss phase. There’s not a single type of food or macronutrient that will make you fat. Overeating makes you fat. A funny experiment by a nutrition professor at the Kansas State University showcases this quite nicely.
The professor went on a two-month diet. In this diet, he was mostly eating Twinkies, Nutty Bars, Oreo’s, and lots of other snacks. While doing this, he maintained a caloric deficit of about 800 calories and lost 27 pounds.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you should mainly eat snacks to burn fat, but it means that you can consume snacks you enjoy and still burn fat if you fit them into your calories.
This is essentially ”flexible dieting.” The benefits of flexible diets are simple: you have a healthier relationship with food and you enjoy what you eat.
This helps explain why research shows that flexible dieters don’t experience as many symptoms of eating disorders, mood disturbances, and excessive concerns with body shape when compared to “rigid dieters.”
Final Message
Cheat days are not the answer if you want to have an enjoyable fat loss phase. Consuming foods you enjoy is key in every fat loss plan. It ensures you enjoy the process towards your goal, which is important if you want to sustain your healthy habits.
In this post, I discuss ”refeed” and “diet breaks.” These are superior alternatives to cheat days and have some benefits for fat loss. If you like to (slightly) overeat once in a while and still burn a significant amount of fat, then short diet breaks may be what you’re looking for.
Free Fat Loss Checklist
If you enjoyed this article and would like to learn more about effective nutrition for fat loss, check out my free “Fat Loss Checklist.” It covers the most important points you need to consider prior to embarking on a fat loss phase. You can get instant access to the checklist by filling in the form below.
