if you are A If you’re a normal person, you probably don’t like diets.
All diets are different and some are more sustainable than others. So how do we get off the diet?
“The reverse diet is more dessert than meal,” says Leslie Bonche, Kansas City Chiefs sports nutritionist, RDN, MPH. “It’s something you do after you’ve lost weight, not during it.”
To lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit. That means you should eat fewer calories than you burn. A reverse diet, as the name suggests, does the opposite. This concept allows you to increase your daily calorie intake without gaining weight once you’ve decided that the diet is over.
This concept is commonly used by bodybuilders and those who participate in heavyweight sports such as wrestling.
What is a reverse diet?
Let’s do some backup.
Reversing a diet means the existence of a regular diet. The most basic diet is a calorie deficit, or eating fewer calories than your body is burning. Once the diet is over, the reverse diet is the idea that you can add more calories to your daily intake without adding fat.
For that, you need to increase it little by little. I usually add 30-100 calories a week for a few weeks until I get back to my new found baseline. For those unfamiliar with counting, this is a negligible calorie. A spoonful of yogurt, half an apple, or 1-2 bites of chicken all have about 30 calories.
Why Reverse Diet?
There are two main reasons why people reverse diet.
The first is to overcome the weight loss plateau.
Our bodies adapt to the amount of calories we consume and the amount of energy we burn as a protective mechanism (to prepare for starvation and what may come next). They act as guardrails against your weight in either direction, not only to keep you from gaining too much weight, but also to keep you from losing too much weight.
please think about it. Your body doesn’t want to waste, so it adapts to consume less energy because less energy comes from food.
“We don’t have enough energy in our bodies right now, so we have to find ways to survive with less energy,” says Don Saladino. men’s health Advisor and celebrity trainer. Our bodies do this, in part, by shutting off thermogenesis of non-motor activities, such as squirming or shaking our legs when we’re nervous. It’s a small movement that you do throughout the day.
When you eat less, your body stops this kind of movement to try to conserve energy and not burn too many calories. By adding more calories in small doses, the body feels safer as it gets more energy, thus increasing its activity and promoting calorie burning.
“Increasing calories gradually and slowly after weight loss, rather than increasing calories abruptly, can prevent a decrease in resting energy expenditure. , you can eat more,” Bonchi says.
Many people struggle to fight weight loss plateaus, but according to Bonchi, these struggles are perfectly normal, and the science suggests that reverse dieting can help you reach the other side of the plateau. There is no proof.
“Body fat loss is a series of steps, not slides,” Bonch says. We recommend that you monitor your intake of water, fiber, and protein.
Another reason reverse diets are used is to slowly eliminate large calorie deficiencies. This is common in the bodybuilding world and in heavyweight athletes. Often times, the nature of their profession requires these athletes to run into a very severe deficit. gets quite a shock.
“[Their diet] Affects recovery. Affects sleep quality. It affects your mood,” says Saladino. “[It will affect] The way you move, and your energy during your workout. ”
It’s like stepping into a cold pool. Taking your time with each step allows your body to adapt to the cold. If you dive head first, your body will start shaking and your limbs will soon hurt.
Adding food one step at a time prevents shocking the system.
How do you do a reverse diet?
There are several schools of thought on how best to reverse diet. It mostly depends on what your diet looked like before you planned to quit.
Bodybuilders and athletes typically track macronutrients rather than caloric intake. This is because you need to ensure adequate protein intake in order to build muscle for sport. So, when doing a reverse diet, someone might add 10 grams of carbs, 10 grams of protein and 3 grams of fat to their diet each week. This adds about 107 calories to your daily allowance.
If you’re not a macro tracker and prefer to diet on a calorie basis, reverse dieting typically adds about 30-50 calories per week. Bonci recommends adding “fill, not fill” foods because it’s hard to do and too arbitrary for most people.
This means aiming for added calorie volume.Vegetables like celery, tomatoes, and broccoli are all high in water and will keep you feeling full all day long. Bonci recommends filling yourself up with salads, vegetable soups, and salsa-based veggies.
Do reverse diets work?
Everyone is different and needs different things.
If you’re training for a bodybuilding competition, or if you’re aiming for a specific weight class in boxing or wrestling, and you’re strictly controlling your intake, the opposite diet may be an option.
But if you’re an average person looking to lose body fat and gain confidence, Bonchi recommends a more aggressive metric for making diet decisions. It means staying full with food and ensuring adequate protein intake and hydration.
“Think of progress rather than suppression, with awareness, quality, quantity and consistency as a way to optimize body composition through the maintenance of lean body mass,” she says.
No matter who you are or what you’re training for, it’s always best to consult a nutritionist or doctor before quitting a diet.
Cori Ritchey, NASM-CPT, is Men’s Health’s Associate Health & Fitness Editor and Certified Personal Trainer and Group Fitness Instructor. You can find more of her work on HealthCentral, Livestrong, Self and more.
