However I am afraid of going over 3000 cals per day. My maintenance calories are roughly 2500/day, so plus 20% of that would equal 3000. What do you think?
Don't worry about going over maintenance, you are supposed to. Another general rule of refeeds are that the shorter duration of the refeed then the higher % over maintenance you should hit. If you do a full day or less then you should get a good bit over maintenance. If you went 36-48 hours then you would shoot for less calories each day.
What is your weight right now and how are you determining what your maintenance caloric intake is? I think a lot of us underestimate our maintenance due to the kind of foods we eat. If you eat a bad diet then you will put weight on at less than maintenance intake. Whereas a very good diet with proper timing and ratios can allow you to go over maintenance without gaining fat. I mentioned this in another thread already but I went at least 500 calories over what I "thought" was my maintenance for 2 weeks and I put on zero fat. Either my maintenance intake assumptions were wrong, or my eating methods allowed me to eat more. Whatever the reason the fact is I am able to eat more than I imagined when my intake follows some basic guidelines.
On the last refeed I felt sick at the end of the day, I couldn´t eat one more cookie or whatever that was sweet, which is a good thing, cause it gets you going through the week. I did not eat fatty stuff though.
This is exactly what I was saying. If you ate till you felt sick then you ate about as much as you could possible eat. The fact that it helped you get through the next week is proof that it worked because obviously leptin levels were boosted and your cravings subsided. If you weight at the end that week is less than the weight at the end of the previous week then I'd say it's working. Could you lose more weight if you skipped the refeed? No doubt in the short term you could, but in the long term this method is better for overall metabolism, thyroid levels, muscle mass and the ability to keep the weight off in the end.
One last thing as I already mentioned. Simply try eating some fat on your refeed day and see what happens. Some of us are telling you to keep fat low while others are saying don't worry about it. The only way to know for sure is for you to try it yourself. The absolute worst that can happen is that you may overshoot the calories a bit and put back on some of the weight that was lost the previous week which is hardly a long term set back. The best that can happen is that you continue to lose weight and won't have to worry about your refeed plan from now on.
Sometimes we just have to try things for ourselves to get the final answer. I gave up listening to other people's recycled advice long ago and decided if I had a question to be answered then I would find out for myself. I don't care if a so-and-so mod tells me that fat on a refeed day is bad. If I eat like shit one day per week and I'm still losing 2 pounds of fat a week then I'd say it's damn well worth it. I can say with absolute confidence that when I have a full day, unadultered refeed once per week that I experience the best results on my diet. Maybe if I was an aspiring pro or even an amateur bodybuilder dieting down for a contest then perhaps maybe I'd be more scientific with diet. But since I'm just a normal guy that wants to look better than 99% of the population then I think what I'm doing is the best route. I see no need to suffer needlessly for weeks on end when I can get the same results for far less work.
Oh btw you said you lived in portugal. Is it true that you guys eat a lot of salt cod.. er bacalhau?
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