I don't really focus on either low carb or low fat. My focus is eating at least 2 servings of fruit, 3 servings of vegetables and keeping the rest under my calorie goals. I do tend to avoid trans fat and anything with a lot of sugar in it.

My NP did test T3 and that came back normal. I don't know about rT3, I'll have to dig up my results and see. Thank you for, Lolo70, for bringing that one up. I'd never heard of it before.

"It's time for an intentional reset to allow for both physiological and psychological resets." -- Very insightful!

And YES for the thyroid check; 1/4 every woman has a condition.

Good luck, I'll look forward to your updates.

It sounds like this break did wonders for you, I'm so happy for you

I kind of took a small break from dieting while house-sitting this past weekend...from Thursday to today. I still watched what I ate, so I didn't go binging on things that were bad for me, but I didn't weigh, I didn't measure, etc. I made lean and light stuffed peppers (after calculating they came out to 287 calories per pepper), had salads with chicken and light dressing, etc. I nibbled on some candy, but I found that it didn't taste as good as I wanted it to taste, so I didn't eat a lot.

I didn't have my bathroom scale to weight myself (and my parents scale seems off), so I'll weigh myself tomorrow morning for the first time since Wednesday morning. It's ToM for me, so I'm still expecting some bloat from that, but I don't feel like I let myself go. As a rule of thumb, I don't like to not count calories for more than a day because I felt like I would be so tempted to go off plan and won't be able to get back on. But I don't think that's the case, and I'm ready to start counting again tomorrow.

Well, this was my last week eating at maintenance. When I started the diet break, I weighed 220. This morning, I weighed 222 which is unsurprising given that I had a very high sodium day yesterday. I reset my trackers today for a calorie deficit instead of maintenance.

I think an overall 2 pound gain was well worth the month of not trying to lose weight. It's hard for me to describe how much of a pressure relief this month has been. I had really been making myself crazy, particularly when I was eating at a calorie deficit and still not losing weight. I'm really hoping that this reset works and that I can start losing again.

Garnet well done for listening to your body and doing what you needed to do, 2lbs gained is not a high price to pay if you have seen so many benefits from your diet break. a lesson learned for all of us who may find ourselves in similar situations through our own journeys. thank you for sharing!

It definitely sounds like your body is happy with you right now. I took a planned weekend break from my diet about two months ago, and I had gained 5 pounds almost instantly, but it melted back off rather quickly. It was worth the push cause I ended up giving my body a break from ketosis, but I noticed that mentally I was still struggling with wanting to not eat the foods I was eating. Nothing tasted great in my mind when I was on the break.

I have another planned break coming up for a day for my birthday. I wonder how it's going to go.

I think it's wonderful to take occasional breaks. Weight loss is joyful but it's also exhausting. It also gives you a chance to practice maintenance by seeing whether you still have the same weaknesses, and for me it gets me used to watching calories even when I'm not particularly trying to lose. And it gives you a wonderful mental break. 2 pounds is nothing, you'll get rid of that before you know it and be back on your way.

I'm bumping this thread instead of making a new one.

I'm currently one week into my two week diet break (thanks to JohnP for sharing the info!). I scheduled it to fall in line with my vacation, which I am now back from and have one more week to go. Well, just 5 days really! It was really nice to not have to stick with my plan over vacation (I do 5:2, and doing a 500 calorie day while backpacking wouldn't be a good idea anyway). My boyfriend and I still tried to make better choices, swapping salads for fries and skipping meals when we weren't hungry, but man I ate some good food and drank my fair share of beer.

Now that I'm home, I'm trying to slowly move myself back into my normal routine but I won't do another fast until next Monday. So far I'm only .8 pounds above my low weight, and I suspect that's still water weight (with all the hiking I did, I think I still managed to lose!). I might get back to the gym this weekend, but honestly my body needs a rest after an active vacation, so I'm not going to let myself feel guilty about that!

I was having quite a few spells of lightheadedness and fatigue, so I'm curious to see if this makes a difference in how I was feeling. If I'm happy with the results, I'll schedule the next one in September. I like that this was planned, so I know I have an end date I have to stick to.

Anyway, I'll keep you all posted!

Thanks for letting us know how it's going.