To Start- What is Reverse Dieting?
A Reverse Diet is the act of slowly increasing your food intake to promote long term weight management. Reverse Dieting helps restore circulating hormone levels and energy expenditure - recovering your metabolic rate.
*In other words, IT SPEEDS UP YOUR METABOLISM AND LETS YOU EAT MORE FOOD. IT IS THE ULTIMATE HAPPINESS.
It actually gives your metabolism a boost. With reverse dieting, you’re slowly and steadily increasing your calories & minimizing the amount of fat you gain to up your metabolism. You’ll get to consume more calories without the extra weight.
Important Things to Know First
BMR- The number of calories you burn to simply exist. Sitting on a chair, blinking, sleeping; these all require calories.
TDEE- Total Daily Energy Expendature. These are the calories you burn on “purpose”. Yes, walking and talking count but also thing about your gym sessions, bike rides, maybe a fitness class.
When you diet for a good amount of time, eventually, you will hit a plateau. For most people, this results in an ongoing yo-yo diet. A plateau is hit and we all think, “what can I do differently that will work?”. Then we think of all the short cuts we can, right? Keto, Low calories, Calories in Calories out, more cardio, etc. . .
What’s actually happening
When you eat less, your body instinctively starts preparing for famine in several ways:
Digestion slows, so your body can absorb as many nutrients as possible. This increases energy in.
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) declines. That’s the amount of energy you need to live when at rest. This reduces energy out.
Exercise becomes more difficult because you have less available energy. (If you’ve ever tried to do an intense workout on a low-calorie diet, you know what exactly what we mean) So you’re likely to burn fewer calories through activity.
You also expend less energy through exercise - as your body gets smaller, it doesn’t require as much fuel—and your metabolism also adapts to make you more efficient. This also reduces the number of calories you burn through movement, resulting in less energy out.
You can only diet down so much until your body thinks that this is the way things will be forever. When you begin to add a small number of healthy calories in week by week and keep your training intensity either the same or boost it, you will kick that plateau, you will notice a body composition change, an increase in energy and stronger numbers in the gym.
Now, let me give you a real life example of how and why this works.
(Surprise, it's me) But I will always give you the truth and speak nothing of anything I don't not know for a FACT.
Between March 2020 I went from an average of 155 lbs to 180 lbs. This was due to switching to a work from home position and focusing on strengthening my powerlifting numbers only. Now, I am back to my normal lifestyle. I lift weights 5-6 days a week. I walk an average of 3K steps per day (we’re workin’ on it ok). I eat a very clean diet. I count macros. Eat high protein. Drink a gallon of water a day. Y As like many people going through the same situation, my instant “in the moment of panic” reaction is, i’ll add in more cardio and bump my daily steps up to 7K per day! Calories in vs Calories out right? WRONG. What happened? Absolutely nothing. I actually GAINED weight. I was tired, overworked, moody, and most of all I was HUNGRY.
I dug back into my years of nutrition experience that I somehow forget for myself and realized- I am NOT eating enough. If I consume 1600 calories a day and actively work even harder, my body thinks we’re going downhill FAST! I took my calories up to 1700, then 1800, then 1900. I added some slight intensity to my weight lifting sessions since we were now properly fueled. MY BODY IS HAPPY. I am 5lbs down.
Now let me explain how you can REALLY reap the benefits of a reverse diet. Eventually- let's take me for an example- I will get to the 2100-2300 calorie per day mark. When I reach that mark and steadily eat 2100-2300 calories for about a month, teaching my body that this is what we are doing now- What happens next?
When you reach that higher calories mark and you are ready to see some real body composition improvements, we can safely reduce calorie intake as a “cut” and see some significant, healthy, sustainable fat loss. As I stated before, you can only diet down so much before your body stops you from getting further. But now that we start higher, our body is not starving, we are still performing and happily eating while seeing improvements!
Reverse dieting is not new. It’s been around for a long time and is very popular with body builders who compete and are looking to restore their metabolism again. This is a diet that anyone can follow and see results.
Where and How to Start? Email EzEatsMeals@gmail.com and we are more than happy to write a macro-based plan for you, based on our lifestyle. Or, reach out to a local nutritionist for assistance.
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EAT GOOD- FEEL GOOD. LIVE BETTER.
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