What You Will Take Away From This Article:
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How to eat after a dieting phase
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The best way to increase your metabolic capacity
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5 factors that promote levels of leanness while adding calories over time
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Reverse dieting isn’t magic
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Practical applications
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Real life reverse dieting case studies
After weeks and months of dieting, it’s all finally coming to an end…
You have mixed emotions about the journey, you’re happy, your disappointed, this huge crescendo that was built up is now gone, and the million dollar questions is, what now?
What you usually see after a prolonged-very severe low calorie dieting phase is people just eating whatever is in sight, gain a lot of body fat, gain some muscle mass, increase strength, make improvements, and start training for next year’s show, vacation, photo shoot, what have you.
These days, science is starting to catch up and the research is showing that this may not be the most optimal way to come out of a prolonged-very severe low calorie dieting phase. Metabolic adaptations are common occurrences from long-term and low calorie dieting. It’s a self-defense mechanism our bodies react to and it’s part of our biology (1). The imperative thing we must understand is to mitigate these adaptations and not let them run loose like a wild fire. There is a lot of valid peer reviewed research to back this up. (2)
You may want to read this article HERE before you read this one to get an understanding of metabolic adaptation and better understand why reverse dieting may be needed.
The Dieting Phase is Over, Now What?
We touched briefly on what most people do after a prolonged-very severe low calorie dieting phase and that is just eating whatever is in sight, gain a lot of body fat, gain some muscle mass, and then get ready to diet down again next year.
The problem with this is when you have been dieting for so long and on such low calories, your metabolic rate starts to slow down (3,4) and you will eat more than your body can metabolize at that time and thus store fat.
Dulloo et al. found that classic studies of food deprivation and refeeding showing that more weight is recovered than is lost; a phenomenon referred to as post-starvation obesity or “fat over-shooting.” (5)
To support this phenomenon of fat over-shooting, Keys et al. Showed that after 12 weeks of restricted food intake, food levels were increased above the pre-starvation level, and this hyperphagic response persisted for several weeks after body weight reached the pre-starvation level, and contributed to weight overshooting mostly as fat. (6)
Moreover, Fleisch et al. found that after food rationing was abandoned and products were available again in larger quantities, food consumption and body weight rose rapidly. Fat over-shooting became evident after subjects gained 14 lbs. after rationing ended. (7)
As you can see the individual may increase body fat beyond baseline levels, yet retain a metabolic rate that has yet to fully recover. (8)
So then what do you do to get your metabolic rate back up to speed you ask?
Maybe consider increasing your metabolic capacity through reverse dieting.
Enter Increasing Your Metabolic Capacity through Reverse Dieting
Now that you understand why it wouldn’t be wise to go on a feeding frenzy after prolonged dieting for months, we’d like for you to consider increasing your metabolic capacity through reverse dieting.
We really like how Alan Aragon described reverse dieting, so we will quote him (9):
“The broad definition of reverse dieting is a gradual, incremental re-introduction of calories (mostly from carbohydrate) into the diet for a prolonged period after the dieting phase. There is no universal of official set of reverse dieting rules, but the general incarnation in coaching circles is to increase carbohydrate (and to a lesser degree, fat and protein) on a weekly basis, to the order of roughly 5-10g carbs/week (I’ve also heard of figures like 20g thrown around) until maintenance levels are hit, at which point a decision is made to either hold steady or continue bulking or surplus phase.”
Now that you have an understanding of what reverse dieting is, one of the popular claims is that reverse dieting increases metabolic capacity. In other words, it allows you to increase the amount you can eat (more emphasis on carbs and fats) while increasing your metabolic rate, recovering your hormonal profiles, and allowing you to get back to eating at maintenance levels without putting on an abundance of excess fat.
This allows you to diet again on higher calorie intakes (mainly from carbs and fats) and end off at a higher intake as well. Increasing your metabolic capacity has also been claimed to help mitigate some of the metabolic adaptations your body has induced after prolonged dieting for months on starvation-level calorie intakes.
Who’s going to have an easier time losing fat?
Subject A) Person who maintains their body weight on 3100 calories or
Subject B) Person who maintains their body weight on 1800 calories
Its subject “A” because they have a higher metabolic capacity and more room to work with reducing calories wise, right?
Even if you have to take a step back in order to take two steps forward, in other words even if you have to gain some fat in order to burn fat more efficiently in the future and sustain long term fat loss and overall health.
Aside from preventing post-dieting binging, one of the main claimed benefits of reverse dieting leads to higher calorie intakes (mainly through carbohydrates and fats) for maintenance. There are also claims of maintaining surprising levels of leanness during the reverse dieting period, despite adding calories over time.
There are at least 5 factors (see above video) that promote these levels of leanness while adding calories over time. (9, 10)
- Gradual Increases in Carbohydrates Facilitate Increases in Resistance Training Performance- More carbs means higher resistance training performance which can translate to an increased training energy expenditure. Paoli and colleagues recently saw a unique 22.6% increase in resting energy expenditure in a 22 hour post exercise period as a result of a protocol involving a rest-pause type of technique where heavy loads were taken to failure (11). These results would be reflective of trainees who are able to train progressively while maintaining a high intensity effort.
- Increase in NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) Occurring Alongside the Gradual Increases in Energy (Calorie) Intake- Levine and colleagues fed non obese adults 1000 calories above their maintenance needs for 8 weeks (12). On average, 432 calories were stored and 531 calories were burned. Nearly two-thirds of the 531 calories (336 calories) was attributed to NEAT. It seems that more added food over time along with more overall activity could lead to more calories expended throughout the day and a big factor in this is the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) where the body burns 10% of one’s 24 hour total daily energy expenditure just by breaking down and digesting food. (13)
- Increased Resting Energy Expenditure Associated with Gains in Muscle Mass- Through increased calories and progressive resistance training you will put on muscle mass and the more muscle you put on the higher your metabolic rate will be. (13)
- Return of Metabolic Rate Regulating Hormonal Conditions Towards Normal– Induced metabolic rate plays a big role in optimizing hormonal levels back to optimum levels. Especially thyroid activity, which is suppressed under prolonged dieting conditions, hence low carb diets. Pasquali and colleagues showed that carbohydrate intake can be a thyroid regulating factor independent of total calorie intake. (14)
- Combination of all Factors- It’s all cumulative and works synergistically One must realize that not everyone has the genetic metabolism to increase calories and stay lean. Some will respond different than others and this is where some trial and error will come into play.
These 5 factors explaining why you stay lean and look even leaner while reverse dieting seem very promising, but keep in mind the caveat to this claim of increasing your metabolic capacity is there is no peer reviewed or controlled interventions on this topic. Unfortunately it’s mostly hypothesis right now and just what we and others observed with clientele.
Reverse Dieting isn’t Magic
However, reverse dieting isn’t magic, and when poorly implemented can exacerbate the stresses of dieting, to further quote Alan Aragon (9):
“Given a scenario where someone’s daily maintenance carb target is 300g, using the lower incremental range 5-10g/week, if a contest diet ended someone off at, say 150g/day, then it could take a 15-30 weeks (almost 4-8 months) to arrive at maintenance level carb intake. Using the higher range of a 10-20g weekly carb increment, it would take nearly 1-2 months to hit maintenance carb levels. Ironically, the reverse dieting period has been described as being as difficult or even more so than the dieting period in terms of the will power and self-control required to not binge everything back. It’s also ironic instead of phasing into a more psychologically relaxed off-season phase, reverse dieting can have a tendency to perpetuate the obsessiveness inherent in the pre-contest phase. Therefore, for some competitors, there really is no actual break from dietary micromanagement, regardless of season.”
You have to realize that reverse dieting needs to have a strategic approach. For instance, reverse dieting should not be emphasized on becoming leaner or staying peak week shredded, it should be approached with an emphasis on the recovery of normal physiological, psychological, and behavioral state post-contest or dieting phase.
To quote Eric Helms and Eric Trexler (15):
“If an athlete’s contest preparation diet “ends” with a sizeable calorie deficit in place, very small increases in caloric intake and decreases in cardio post diet may continue to sustain a caloric deficit and a stage ready body composition. Therefore, doing so will also sustain the physiological and psychological stresses associated with contest dieting. If very small stepwise increases in caloric intake and decreases in cardiovascular training are to be implemented, they should occur after a substantial initial increase in calories and decrease in cardiovascular training.
This larger initial change has the goal of eliminating the calorie deficit and transitioning into a positive energy balance, which would more efficiently recover a healthy physiological and psychological state. Once weight has stabilized after this initial change, a gradual stepwise increase in calories and decrease in cardiovascular training can be implemented. Thus, one can still maximize total daily energy expenditure and minimize body fat accrual before the next competitive season without potentially exacerbating the psychological stress experienced by the competitor.”
This is the main reason that you must not take advantage of always slowly reverse dieting and focusing on aesthetics instead of emphasis on the recovery of normal psychological and behavioral state as well as metabolic recovery post-contest. As soon as the dieting phase is over, you want to put your body back into a positive energy balance and not hang around in a negative energy balance any longer.
Practical Applications with Reverse Dieting:
- Once you have gone from a negative energy balance to a positive energy balance by raising total calories from 15-25% you can try these recommendations below:
- Reverse dieting properly will allow you to start a dieting phase off by eating as much calories as you can and doing as little cardio as possible while still losing body fat.
- Slowly pull out cardio from your dieting phase as you should no longer be worried about expending more calories through cardiovascular aerobic work and should be focusing on resistance training.
- After a dieting phase, train with a properly periodized training protocol to help you avoid the post-diet weight gain by preventing or at least ameliorating the reduction in energy expenditure some people call “metabolic damage.” (16)
- Use context when reverse dieting. For example, if you are on severely low calories and have been dieting for a long time, don’t try and stay lean just for aesthetic purposes. On the contrary, if you have been dieting for 12 weeks and have some photo shoots in the next few weeks, then still reverse diet but be conservative about you calorie additions.
- During reverse dieting there will be a tradeoff you have to decide on. You will gain some fat and mainly muscle in order to get that metabolic capacity. There’s nothing wrong with using reverse dieting as a way to build muscle mass and strength.
- – Reducing protein by 10%
- – Increasing carbohydrates by 15-60% (depending on how metabolically slow you are)
- – Increasing fats by 15-25%.
- You can then add in calories slowly, shouldn’t be more than a pound or so a month of weight gain if you want to stay leaner.
- A good ballpark range to increase calories is by 5-8% depending on how aggressive or conservative you want to be with wait gain.
- You don’t have to add food every week or every other week, there’s nothing wrong with staying put for a while and letting glycogen levels gradually increase.
- Try not to get caught up with day to day weight fluctuations; you’re looking more over a course of weeks and months.
- Switch your mindset from aesthetics to performance based (lifting heavy and progressive overload).
So, after reading all of this, have you decided if reverse dieting works or not?
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Client Case Studies:
Disclaimer: The purpose of these client case studies is not to solicit our coaching services or display client’s that only respond well to Reverse Dieting. The purpose here is to show a different variety of responders from low, moderate, and high. The client’s that participated in this gave us their full permission and consent to post their results.
When it comes to reverse dieting we have observed that you have 3 types of responders:
- ‘Hyper Responders” which are metabolically faster and have a tendency to lose weight and get leaner while adding calories.
- ‘Moderate Responders” which are those that are in the middle of low and high responders who are metabolically average and tend to stay fairly lean and lose weight for a while, and then eventually after adding in so many calories over time they start storing body fat.
- “Low Responders” which are those that are usually metabolically slower and tend to gain weight, but not necessarily putting on tons of fat. It’s just their insulin sensitivity and metabolic rate is so low from dieting that the process takes that much longer and is slower.
So as you can see there are indeed low, moderate, and high responders when it comes to reverse dieting. Again there is no research that we are aware of to back this up, it’s simply observation and theoretical. But what helps support this is each responder’s genetic metabolism will dictate whether they are slow, moderate, or a high responder. At the end of the day genetics control your metabolism.
Enjoy the case studies we have put together for you.
Kali Lorenzetti
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 123 lbs.
Calories: 900
Waist Circumference: 28
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 128.5 lbs.
Calories: 1870
Waist Circumference: 27.5
Reverse Dieting length: 6 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 970 calories
Kim Fairbrother
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 129 lbs.
Calories: 1235
Waist Circumference: 24.5
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 130 lbs.
Calories: 1872
Waist Circumference: 24.5
Reverse Dieting length: 7 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 637 calories
Tyler Kirby
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 161.2 lbs.
Calories: 2100
Waist Circumference: 30.25
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 164 lbs.
Calories: 3125
Waist Circumference: 30
Reverse Dieting length: 7 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 1025 calories
Lisa Hlifka
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 144.4 lbs.
Calories: 1235
Waist Circumference: 27.25
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 147.6 lbs.
Calories: 1700
Waist Circumference: 27.5
Reverse Dieting length: 6 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 465 calories
Krystale Tyliakos
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 124 lbs.
Calories: 1435
Waist Circumference: 26
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 126.4 lbs.
Calories: 1830
Waist Circumference: 26.5
Reverse Dieting length: 5 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 395 calories
Zadia Danner
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 139 lbs.
Calories: 1270
Waist Circumference: 30
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 147.6 lbs.
Calories: 1800
Waist Circumference: 32
Reverse Dieting length: 7 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 530 calories
Henrik Kovaks
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 176.8 lbs.
Calories: 2540
Waist Circumference: 32.5
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 176.1 lbs.
Calories: 3113
Waist Circumference: 32
Reverse Dieting length: 5 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 573 calories
Kelly Smith
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 109 lbs.
Calories: 1165
Waist Circumference: 24
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 112 lbs.
Calories: 1622
Waist Circumference: 25
Reverse Dieting length: 12.5 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 457 calories
Reyes Preciado
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 154.8 lbs.
Calories: 2700
Waist Circumference: 34
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 162.2 lbs.
Calories: 3628
Waist Circumference: 36.25
Reverse Dieting length: 11.5 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 928 calories
Sadie T
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 109.4 lbs.
Calories: 1535
Waist Circumference: 27
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 109.6 lbs.
Calories: 1963
Waist Circumference: 27
Reverse Dieting length: 6 months
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 428 calories
Kelsey Lewis
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 130 lbs.
Calories: 1270
Waist Circumference: 24
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 137.5 lbs
Calories: 2,013
Waist Circumference: 25
Reverse Dieting length: 27 weeks present
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 783 calories
Jon McQueen
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 192 lbs.
Calories: 2,415
Waist Circumference: 33
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 214 lbs
Calories: 4,390
Waist Circumference: 35
Reverse Dieting length: 62 weeks present
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 1,975 calories
Sabine Guidon
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 128 lbs.
Calories: 1,355
Waist Circumference: 26.4
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 131.5 lbs
Calories: 1,725
Waist Circumference: 25.5
Reverse Dieting length: 12 weeks
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 370 calories
Sari Uski
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 142 lbs.
Calories: 1,520
Waist Circumference: 27
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 136 lbs
Calories: 2,055
Waist Circumference: 26.75
Reverse Dieting length: 16 weeks presently
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 535 calories
Claudia Alfaro
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 128 lbs.
Calories: 1,512
Waist Circumference: 27
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 123.5 lbs
Calories: 2,055
Waist Circumference: 26
Reverse Dieting length: 26 weeks
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 810 calories
Monica Vargas
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 126 lbs.
Calories: 1,300
Waist Circumference: 27.5
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 132.5 lbs
Calories: 1,705
Waist Circumference: 26
Reverse Dieting length: 24 weeks presently
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 405 calories
Stacy Carp
Stats Before Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 126 lbs.
Calories: 1,235
Waist Circumference: 29
Stats After Reverse Dieting:
Weight: 121 lbs
Calories: 2,095
Waist Circumference: 28
Reverse Dieting length: 34 weeks presently
Metabolic Capacity Earned: 860 calories
Checkout more success stories HERE
References:
- Maclean et al. Biology’s response to dieting: the impetus for weight regain. 2011
- Trexler et al. Metabolic Adaptation to Weight Loss: Implications for the Athlete. 2014
- Rosenbaum et al. Adaptive Thermogenesis in Humans. 2010
- Doucet et al. Evidence for the Existence of Adaptive Thermogenesis During Weight Loss. 2001
- Dulloo AG. Human Pattern of Food Intake and Fuel Partitioning During Weight Recovery After Starvation. 1997
- Keys A, Brozek J, Henschel A et al. (1950). The Biology of Human Starvation, Minnesota.
- Fleisch A. The Swiss Food Rationing Experiment. 1947
- Trexler et al. Metabolic Adaptation to Weight Loss: Implications for the athlete. 2014
- Aragon, Alan. AARR February/March 2014 Issue. http://alanaragonblog.com/aarr
- Sims EA. Experimental Obesity, Dietary Induced Thermogenesis, and Their Clinical Implications. 1976
- Paoli et al. High Intensity Interval Resistance Training Influences Resting Energy Expenditure and Resting Ratio in Non-Dieting Individuals. 2012
- Levine et al. Role of Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis in Resistance to fat gain in Humans. 1999
- Mifflin et al. A New Predictive Equation for Resting Energy Expenditure in Healthy Individuals. 1990
- Pasquali et al. Effect of Dietary Carbohydrates During Hypocaloric Treatment of Obesity on Peripheral Thyroid Hormone Metabolism. 1982
- Helms, Eric. Trexler, Eric. AARR Oct/Nov 2014 Issue.
- Hunter et al. Exercise Training and Energy Expenditure following Weight Loss. 2015