Reverse dieting: What is it? Who is it for? How to do it correctly!
By Martin Ebner, head PT and sports nutrition specialist at Ebylife
"Pass the buttermilk, doughnuts, and deep-fried lard pies, I'm on a reverse diet," said no one ever!
Sorry, but if you stopped in to read this blog hoping for a way to lose weight by sitting on the couch and eating pizza, I've got some bad news for you! Reverse dieting is indeed a real thing, but it is not a diet plan based on binge eating. It is a dietary strategy that involves slowly increasing one's calorie intake after one achieves their ideal body composition while avoiding the yo-yo effect. I wish we had a better word or phrase for it, but it's become a thing, so there you have it.
What is Reverse Dieting?
So you've done the hard work of weight loss. All the calorie counting, all the cravings, all the cardio, all the treats and desserts you've passed on, have all contributed to a significant amount of fat loss for you. Congratulations! But now what? Is this a short-term success where you have less energy while you wait to yo-yo back towards weight gain, possibly obesity? Should you stay on a restrictive diet, running a daily calorie deficit, shunning carbohydrates, all the while terrified of gaining weight? Not necessarily!
Or perhaps you're on your way to your ideal body weight, but seem stuck, like you're fighting an uphill battle against a slow metabolism. Many believe that one's body settles into a metabolic rate known as one's "body-fat set point." This school of thought suggests that one's body weight falls into a steady-state at the level of body fat the body finds easiest to maintain. However, it's possible to wake up your metabolism and ultimately lower this set-point through a process known as "reverse dieting."
Reverse dieting is the process of slowly and intentionally increasing your calorie intake after you've reached your ideal body weight following a low-calorie/calorie-deficit diet and/or increased activity level. The extra calories are added over a lengthy period of time at a rate that prevents you from regaining body fat. You slowly increase your metabolic rate by allowing your body time to slowly adjust to small, incremental increases in your food intake.
This results in a more efficient and "revitalized" metabolism with minimal fat gain. The ability to have a higher calorie intake while increasing your protein intake will allow you to slowly build muscle mass, raise your energy level, and get your nutritional needs met.
Metabolic Adaptation
Reverse dieting works because it recognizes the body's starvation response. Chances are that if you've been on a weight loss program, you've dealt with "metabolic adaptation." Remember the frustration of the scale "getting stuck" on a certain number, no matter how much you reduced your number of calories? When you experience significant weight loss, your body starts trying to conserve energy by reducing the number of calories it burns. A prolonged calorie deficit can put your hormones, mood, mental health, metabolism, and general well-being out of whack. It can make you feel "hangry" (hungry/angry), have less energy, and increase your food cravings. These effects can cause you to stop losing weight and may make you feel so miserable that you abandon your weight loss efforts and regain the weight.
The human body is not designed to be in diet-mode forever. One must strategically alternate caloric deficit phases as well as weight maintenance phases to decrease metabolic adaptation. Maintenance is just as important, if not more crucial than being in a deficit to provide the proper nutrition and fueling for daily activities.
NEAT
Unlike "NIFTY" (Non-Injurious Fat Trimming Yoga), "NEAT" (Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) is basically the energy expended when we're not purposefully exercising. It is our baseline energy usage for just being alive (basal metabolic rate), plus the energy expended doing our basic daily tasks. It does not include the energy used for sleeping, eating, sports, or exercising. Even when we're doing "nothing," our body's cells and organs are doing their thing: growing, repairing, secreting, pumping, breathing, etc. This is why sometimes doing nothing can be its own reward. However, Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis, NEAT, aIso includes the energy expended walking to work, typing, performing yard work, cooking, brushing your teeth, and even fidgeting. (Don't laugh, fidgeting can burn 350 calories per day!)
Everybody's body is different and even trivial physical activities can increase one's metabolic rate, or NEAT, significantly. An article found on PubMed states that it is not surprising that NEAT explains a vast majority of an individual's non-resting energy needs. Disease researchers have found an important link between culture and NEAT. Unsurprisingly agricultural and manual workers tend to have high NEAT, whereas office and factory workers tend to have lower NEAT. Physiological studies demonstrate, intriguingly, that NEAT increases with overeating and decreases with under-eating. In other words, cutting calories decreases one's metabolic rate. The less you eat, the less energy you burn. The bottom line is, your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) decreases as you eat less, leading to a maddening leveling off of bodyweight no matter how many fewer calories you eat.
The Endocrine Response
According to an article from Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition called Metabolic Adaptation to Weight Loss: Implications for the Athlete, low energy intake and minimal body fat are perceived by the body as indicators of food unavailability. This is also referred to as the starvation response, mentioned earlier. During lean times when food was scarce, our ancestors evolved ways to conserve energy. This perceived lack results in an endocrine, or hormonal, response aimed at conserving energy and promoting energy intake. This "scarcity hormonal response," created by low body fat and low caloric intake, may lead to one gaining weight and losing muscle mass.
Many hormones are responsible for regulating body composition, energy intake, and energy expenditure:
Thyroid gland hormones, especially T3, are known to play an important and direct role in regulating metabolic rate. Low body fat and a calorie deficit lowers thyroid levels resulting in decreased non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) and overall metabolic rate.
Leptin, synthesized primarily in fat cells, gives the body information about both short and long-term energy availability. It regulates energy expenditure and inhibits hunger. A short-term calorie deficit along with a lower body fat level decreases leptin, leading to decreased energy expenditure and increased hunger.
Insulin plays a crucial role in inhibiting muscle protein breakdown and regulating macronutrient metabolism. High levels of insulin convey a message of energy availability and are associated with appetite suppression. However, the starvation response decreases insulin, thereby increasing appetite and muscle loss.
Ghrelin functions to stimulate appetite and food intake. It has been shown to increase with fasting and decrease after eating.
Testosterone, known primarily for its role in increasing muscle mass, may also play a role in regulating fat gain. Changes in body fat have been inversely correlated with testosterone levels. The body's scarcity response lowers testosterone leading to decreased muscle mass and fat gain.
Cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone, works with certain parts of your brain to control your mood, motivation, and fear. It also influences macronutrient metabolism and can cause muscle protein breakdown. Too much stress, like that associated with a restrictive diet, can mean weight gain and loss of muscle mass.
Results from a number of studies indicate a general endocrine response to very-low-calorie diets that increases hunger, reduces metabolic rate, and threatens the maintenance of lean muscle mass. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that these unfavorable levels in circulating hormones persist even after one's reduced body weight goal has been reached and one's active weight loss regimen has ceased.
How to Implement a Successful Reverse Diet
1. Estimate Your Current Calorie Intake:
You will need to track your food intake for a week or so to know roughly how many calories you consume each day. All packaged foods list the calorie content on the nutrition label. For fruits, vegetables, meat, take-out, and food purchased in bulk, this handy link with the straightforward name will help you: Calories.info.
To help you with this, you're going to need a food scale. They're inexpensive and very helpful. Ok, ok, simmer down and un-roll your eyes! I'm not suggesting weighing every meal every day, far from it. However, many products list their calorie content by weight, e.g. "one serving size is 4 ounces." or if you’re in the UK, in grams. Well, how the heck are you supposed to eyeball 4 ounces or 20 grams? By weighing a portion equal to your usual portion size, you can estimate how many calories you usually consume from this food. This will help you tremendously with portion control going forward.
For example, perhaps you have a bowl of granola and yogurt every morning to start your day. The box's nutritional label says that there are 100 calories in 33 grams.
Place the bowl you usually use for your meal on the scale.
Use the control knob to "zero out" the needle.
Pour your usual helping into your usual bowl.
Note the weight of the granola.
Estimate the number of calories in that portion. Use a calculator if needed. For example, you poured out 75 grams of granola. 75 gr/33 gr x 100 calories = 227 calories.
Do the same with the yogurt, using its nutritional label. Let's say that comes out to 100 calories.
Your daily bowl of granola with yogurt is about 337 calories.
Do this for all the food you eat for a week.
2. Increase calories SLOWLY:
First, establish your baseline macros: protein, carbs, and healthy fats.
Set your protein intake target at 1 gram per pound of body weight. If you weigh 175 pounds, your protein intake should be 175 grams of protein a day.
Calculate your daily protein calorie intake. Since there are roughly 4 calories per gram of protein, a 175-pound person would need about 700 calories a day from protein. (175 x 4 = 700.)
Subtract your protein calories from your current total-calorie intake to determine the remaining calories. If your current calorie intake, from above, is 2000, then you'd have 1300 calories to spend on carbs and healthy fats. (2000 - 700 = 1300.)
Decide how to spend those extra calories: carbs or healthy fats?
Begin by adding roughly 50 - 100 calories per week. That's not a whole lot. A slice of bread has about a hundred calories! So does an egg, or a slice of cheese, or three large carrots, or one medium apple. This small increment may seem a little silly at first, but like I said at the beginning, you're not going to be pigging out on junk food. Choose which macro group, carbs, fats, or a little of both, to add your 50 - 100 extra calories from. Choose wisely! Is one extra slice of cheese going to satisfy you like an apple, some carrots, or an extra scoop of granola?
Monitor your weight and visually track your body composition. If you begin gaining weight too quickly, hold off from adding higher calories for a week or two. This will help prevent you from gaining weight or extra body fat and help you to stay within a healthy weight range. This also makes it much easier to lose body fat if you decide to cut down again.
3. Engage in Weight Training:
If you have been engaging in cardio, thinking that it will help reduce your body fat, slowly begin to phase it out. Cardio is an effective tool for fat loss, but long sessions of steady-state cardio do little to build muscle. And since fat loss isn’t the goal anymore, it's better to spend your time using those calories for building muscle and jump-starting your metabolism. A high amount of cardio can also contribute to metabolic adaptation by stressing one's body, leading to the less favorable effects listed earlier. Don't go cold turkey either! Simply reduce your sessions by a few minutes each week.
Related article: Cardio Vs Strength Training: Before, After, or Separate Days?
If you're not already, begin a weight lifting regimen. Consult your gym staff or a professional trainer for guidance. If you're already hitting the weights, begin increasing your sets and/or the number of sessions per week. Weight lifting 3 - 6 days a week is a great way to build muscle, which increases metabolism not only in the short term but also over the long run. The best thing you can do while reverse dieting is lifting challenging weights consistently each week. Since you’ll be eating more food than you’re used to and returning certain hormones to their normal levels, you should feel considerably stronger in the gym than you did when you were dieting and pounding out mile after mile on the treadmill.
Muscles require a lot of maintenance calories. By increasing your strength, you're increasing your daily calorie requirements which is one of the reasons why reverse dieting works. Lifting heavy weights is the best and most powerful stimulus for building muscle which will significantly improve your metabolism. The more muscle mass you add, the more calories your body will require to maintain them. And if you slowly increase your calorie intake at the same time, your body won't think there's a drought or famine and so it won't go into metabolic adaptation.
Related article: Muscle Growth: 12 Essential tips to build more muscle
4. Track Your Changes:
A couple of times per week, weigh yourself in the morning, after urinating and before eating or drinking anything. I would also suggest measuring, taking photos, and recording in a logbook how you’re feeling in terms of your body composition and energy levels. Especially measure your waist, belly, and bicep circumferences. These are trackable signs of your progress and indicate if you are having a successful reverse diet.
Recording your average weight changes over the weeks will help you evaluate your macro intake and decide on your next increase, if necessary. If you see a large jump in weight gain over a one or two-week period, you may want to throttle back a little on the rate at which you increase calories. On the other hand, if you maintain your current body weight, or even lose slightly, bump up your carbs and/or fats.
The goal of weighing and measuring is to help you find the perfect balance between maximizing your calorie intake and not gaining body fat. If you're a bodybuilder, you will especially be interested in optimizing your maintenance calorie level so as to build muscle as much as possible. As you go, you can reassess your goals. You can decide to level off to remain at the same body weight or you can decide to continue increasing your caloric intake and build more muscle mass. Either way, you'll be able to enjoy eating more food than on your previous diets.
Note: if you feel that weighing yourself or taking body measurements regularly could have a negative impact on your mental health, don’t bother. An equally beneficial form of monitoring your progress is through look and feel.
The Bottom Line
To review:
No deep-fried lard pies!
Low(ish) body fat and a low-calorie diet can induce metabolic adaptation or the body's starvation response.
When in starvation mode, the body decreases its basic energy requirements (NEAT), metabolism, and muscle mass, but increases the hormones responsible for feeling hungry.
With calorie counting and a little math, you can ramp up your metabolic rate.
You can cut down on cardio and concentrate on being a bodybuilder.
You can eat more!
The biggest downside to a successful reverse diet is that it requires a serious commitment. Yes, reverse dieting works, but it involves a lot of work, planning, and tracking. And TRUST! It can feel counter-intuitive, like turning up the thermostat to cool off the room. However, bumping your metabolic rate out of starvation mode will pay significant dividends to your quality of life in comparison to being on a restrictive diet and the mentally taxing yo-yo effect of weight gain/weight loss. In the end, you'll enjoy a higher quality of life, have more energy, and look great!
Bonus
Reverse dieting works by starting at your current caloric intake and going from there. However, if you're curious about what your calorie intake "should be" and how many calories you "probably" burn in a day, I've included some information from previous blogs below.
1. Estimate your basal metabolic rate (BMR):
You can use this handy formula from Healthline.com to estimate your basal metabolic rate (BMR): (Weights are in pounds and heights are in inches)
BMR for men = 66 + (6.2 x weight) + (12.7 x height) – (6.76 x age)
For example, a 40-year-old, 180 pound, 6-foot-tall (72 inch) man has a BMR of 1,829.8.
(BMR = 66 + (6.2 x 180 lbs) + (12.7 x 72 inches) – (6.76 x 40 years) = 1,829.8).
BMR for women = 655.1 + (4.35 x weight) + (4.7 x height) – (4.7 x age)
For example, a 40-year-old, 150-pound, 5 foot 6-inch-tall woman has a BMR of 1,429.7
(BMR = 655.1 + (4.35 x 150 lbs) + (4.7 x 66 inches) – (4.7 × 40 years) = 1,429.7).
This means that, at rest, this man would burn approximately 1,830 calories in a day and this woman would burn approximately 1430 calories in a day.
2. Estimate Your Activity Level:
The Healthline.com article offers this handy short-cut for guesstimating your activity level:
1.2, or sedentary (little to no exercise)
1.375, or lightly active (light exercise 1–3 days per week)
1.55, or moderately active (moderate exercise 3–5 days per week)
1.725, or very active (hard exercise 6–7 days per week)
1.9, or extra active (very hard exercise, training, or a physical job)
For example, a postal worker who walks all day for their job would have an activity level of 1.725 depending on the length and difficulty of their route.
A desk worker who walks several times a week for exercise would have an activity level of 1.55.
3. Estimate your TDEE:
Your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, TDEE, is the summation of your BMR and your activity level.
TDEE = BMR x activity level
A 150-pound female who is extra active will will have a TDEE of 2,716 calories
(equation: 1,429.7 (BMR) x 1.9 (activity level) = 2,716 calories).
A 180-pound male who’s moderately active will have a TDEE of 2,836 calories
(equation: 1829.8 (BMR) x 1.55 (activity level) = 2,836 calories).
The following table gives you an idea of how many calories are burned in 30 minutes:
| Task | 125 lb Person | 155 lb Person | 185 lb Person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walking at 4.5mph | 150 | 186 | 222 |
| Mowing the lawn | 135 | 167 | 200 |
| Gardening | 135 | 167 | 200 |
| Washing the car | 135 | 167 | 200 |
| Walking at 4mph | 135 | 167 | 200 |
| Walking at 3.5mph | 120 | 149 | 178 |
| Playing with the kids | 120 | 149 | 178 |
| Grocery shopping (with cart) | 105 | 130 | 155 |
| Cooking | 75 | 93 | 111 |
| Sitting in meetings | 49 | 60 | 72 |
| Light office work | 45 | 56 | 67 |
| Computer work | 41 | 51 | 61 |
| Standing in line | 38 | 47 | 56 |
| Reading | 34 | 42 | 50 |
| Watching television | 23 | 28 | 33 |
| Sleeping | 19 | 23 | 28 |
