how much of what we believe about regain actually comes from lowest effective dose threads
how much of what we believe about regain actually comes from lowest effective dose threads, and I want the answer with the reasoning attached rather than just the conclusion.
What maintenance actually looks like, from the people on this board who have been in it longest.
You find a dose or an interval that holds the weight with side effects you barely notice, and then you stop optimising. Weigh monthly rather than daily. Expect a couple of kilos of range and do not act on it. Keep the habits that did the work in the losing phase, because they are the part that has to outlive the dose.
The most common mistake described here is treating arrival as a plateau and pushing the dose to chase a number chosen at week one by a person who did not yet know what maintenance felt like.
Drifted up 13kg over a winter and panicked. It came back off without any change, which is apparently just what weight does.
Weigh monthly now. Best change I made in the whole run and it cost nothing.
Ask me anything specific. Anything general I will probably get wrong.
best — the order this archive was captured in
Body weight varies by a couple of kilos over days in stable people through fluid, glycogen and gut content. A range is not a trend.
What dose are you holding, and for how long now?
Stretched from seven to ten days and then to twelve over about four months. Appetite told me where the limit was before the scale did.
Stretched from seven to ten days and then to twelve over about four months.
This reframing is the most useful thing on the board for anyone approaching this phase.
the goal weight you picked at week 1 was a guess
Small fix — you have described interval stretching and called it a dose reduction. The exposure profiles differ.
Not convinced. Interval stretching changes your exposure profile, not just the total, and the two are not equivalent.
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the trials that looked at withdrawal are unambiguous about what follows
Stretching the interval, reducing the dose, or both?
That reads like a taper schedule and this board cannot hand those out.
This. The withdrawal data is not ambiguous and framing regain as a personal failure is both wrong and cruel.
Yes. The habits have to outlive the dose or the maintenance phase is just a countdown.
Push back: that is not a plateau, that is maintenance. You have arrived and you are describing it as a failure.
Push back: that is not a plateau, that is maintenance.
ilias_nakamura is right that stretching and reducing are different levers. Worth separating in every one of these threads.
Right — appetite returns before the scale moves, which is the early signal people miss.
Right — appetite returns before the scale moves, which is the early signal people miss.
Adding one thing — decide what maintenance looks like before you arrive at it.
monthly weigh-ins are enough at this stage
- 1This. The withdrawal data is not ambiguous and framing regain as a personal…7 comments in this branch · started by u/zeynep_mbeki