What Is Reverse Dieting?
November 1, 2018
What Is Reverse Dieting?
Sometimes we overdo it when it comes to dieting. In this world of crash diets with severe calorie restrictions, people are intaking dangerously low amounts of food that help them lose weight but wreck their metabolism in the process, losing a ton of muscle mass and bringing their metabolism to a very low point. Then, when the weight is lost and the dieter tries to eat in a normal calorie range, the weight comes back. With a sluggish metabolism and little to no muscle mass, the maintenance of the weight loss is almost impossible. The weight comes back on and the dieter is right back to where they started.
Does this sound like you? Are you unable to maintain any weight that you’ve lost? Do you keep cutting your calories in an effort to lose weight and then find it’s impossible to keep the weight off? Then it’s time to reverse diet.
Reverse dieting is the process of slowly but surely increasing the amount of calories your body takes in over time in an effort to regain muscle mass and rebuild your metabolism without shocking your body into gaining weight. It also helps to increase the amount of carbs in your diet as well since a lot of dieters nowadays are following a low carb diet. It takes patience but over time you’re able to eat in a normal calorie range while maintaining the weight you’ve lost.
Everyone’s body reacts to reverse dieting differently, but the idea is to add between 30 calories and 250 calories every week to your diet. Some people prefer to add a large amount in the first week, others prefer to start small, it all depends on what you can handle. So let’s say you’ve cut your calories to 1,200 calories a day. The first week of reverse dieting you add 30 calories a day for a daily calorie count of 1,230 calories. The next week, you add 40 calories, the following 50. This continues until you’ve reached 2,000 calories, slowly but surely.
Now, reverse dieting only works if you continue to track your calories and your macros and increase your carb intake. Reverse dieting does not work if your added 30 calories comes in the form of a Reese’s Peanut Butter and it certainly can’t be guesstimated. But if you approach reverse dieting with the same control that you used to diet, you’ll be able to maintain your weight and reestablish a healthy metabolism in no time!