Can diet breaks help increase fat loss and preserve muscle?

Are diet breaks beneficial for fat loss? What is a diet break? It’s simply a break from dieting for a week or even two weeks in some situations and the individual takes calories up from a deficit to their maintenance calorie level. This does extend the dieting period overall but has some tremendous benefits? But is increased fat loss and muscle preservation one of them? Well, not exactly like we once thought. I was very fortunate to be a contributor on this study that we did back in 2019 at the University of South Florida during my masters program. We looked at 38 resistance trained females and split them into two groups. Group one did a 25% cal deficit for six continuous weeks. The second group did a 25% calorie deficit but every two weeks they took a one week diet break where they brought their calories back up to maintenance. So instead of six weeks total, this group went for eight weeks. Still only six weeks in a calorie deficit though. What were the findings? No significant advantage in terms of increased fat loss or muscle preservation in the group that did the diet breaks. So does this mean diet are not beneficial? Absolutely not. They can be extremely beneficial when it comes to controlling hunger and avoiding over eating, as well as from a psychological standpoint to break up the monotony of dieting. Diet breaks are just another tool in the tool box for you to use under the right circumstances. I still use them with my clients and will continue to use them when the situation calls. Coaching inquiries: [email protected] @coachdavidmathas #diet #dieting #dietbreaks #weightloss #fatloss #caloriedeficit #maintenancecalories #coachdavidmathas #biolayne #teambiolayne #macros #physique #muscle