I had heard the buzz of a reverse diet just after I graduated college. There were some videos starting to circulate the internet about the concept of slowly increasing your caloric intake to minimize fat gain and improve several factors such as metabolism, strength, and relationship with food.
The concept of these factors sounded amazing to me and I wanted all of them. But I could not fathom eating more and not doing absurd amounts of cardio. In my head, this only worked for people blessed with fast metabolisms.
Fast forward more than 5 years later and I’ve had a total change of heart. All of the dieting and disordered exercising I overloaded my body with was not working. It wasn’t until a friend inspired me to try it and work with a coach. At that point, I had nothing to lose. You can read more about my reverse diet story here.
I’ve had great success with my reverse diet and have achieved the maintenance my body thrives on. Below I share what a reverse diet is, how it works, and then some very important considerations before starting one.
What is a reverse diet?
There is a lot of information out there on the reverse diet and ancillary anecdotes touting its benefits. There are also plenty of folks who are not a fan of this dieting concept.
One can argue there are not enough studies to implement a reverse diet in good faith. However, like with anything scientific, the more interest and anecdotes that arise, the more likely companies and scientists will be to study this more.
While I am not here to tell you why you should do a reverse diet, I want to share reasons to consider it and reasons not to. Simply put, a reverse diet works this way:
- You determine your base caloric intake. Aka, what you are eating now.
- You estimate and apply a cadence of caloric intake.
- You continue until you hit maintenance.
That is a super high-level way of looking at a reverse diet. It can be a bit more complex, but I personally do not believe it should be complicated. It should work with you and your needs.
How does it impact your metabolism?
When searching for the ultimate goal of a reverse diet, one of the most common results you will find is to improve your metabolism. While I do agree with that, I believe it is to get to maintenance. When you are at your unique body’s maintenance, you really can’t improve your metabolism anymore.
Think of it this way, if you were to put an average sedan car up against a racecar, it’s fair to believe that the racecar will beat the sedan in a race, hands down. If the sedan is in optimal condition with the best fuel possible and the racecar is not in its best possible shape, there is a small chance the sedan can win. But likely, the racecar will still have a better advantage.
Your metabolism is similar to the sedan. You can have an optimal metabolism with the best fuel, rest, and exercise, but it can only go so fast. It wasn’t designed to be like the racecar and that is totally okay. I give you this analogy so you don’t have unrealistic expectations of increasing your metabolism to that of a teenage boy’s level or a professional athlete’s. It isn’t going to happen.
However, you can use a reverse diet as a tool to optimize getting your optimal metabolism and feel your best. Because let’s face it, we all want to feel and look good. So why not work towards your body’s best metabolism in the stage you are at and maintain it? Sign me up!
How does a reverse diet work?
A reverse diet works by slowly adjusting your body to more calories in a manageable way. It considers where you start calorically (and macros typically) then increases the amount you consume over a period of time until you hit maintenance.
Some people have a very linear increase in calories where they increase 50-100 calories every week or other week over a period of time. Others are a little more of a pause-and-go style where they may increase by a certain number of calories, let their body adjust as long as they seem fit, then continue. It is the same concept as the former but takes into account individual body response more.
My coach had me do the latter where she would up my calories anywhere from 100-200 at a time. However, sometimes it would be 2 weeks between changes, and other times it could be a full month. We made sure to pay attention to my biofeedback to ensure my body was responding well. I.e. I was recovering, able to eat more food comfortably, and not gain drastic amounts of weight.
I will note that it is normal to gain weight and I will have a post about that soon. However, weight gain on a reverse diet should be minimal and if you are coupling your reverse diet with adequate rest and exercise, weight gain should more often be muscle and water, not fat.
When is a reverse diet finished?
Typically, you know you have finished a reverse diet when you have reached maintenance. Simply put, maintenance is determined by:
- No real increases in weight (+/- a few pounds/fractional kilos on a day-over-day basis)
- Your measurements stay the same (think arms, waist, hips, and thighs amongst others)
- You are satisfied with the amount of food you eat and are not starving or stuffed.
These are just a few very tangible data points that can indicate maintenance. This can be a difficult place to determine if you have never understood what maintenance is for you. I’ve struggled with this concept before and I will be posting about this topic soon to help shed some light.
Reasons to consider a reverse diet
Now that you have a basic understanding of a reverse diet, let’s look at considerations to begin a reverse diet.
1. You have been in a deficit for too long
Raise your hand if you have eaten less than 2000 calories a day for as long as you can remember. Now, how about most if not all of your adult life? Yeah, this was me. I was in a yo-yo deficit for almost all of my 20s. I went from not enough food, say 1800-1600 calories, to really not enough food, roughly around 1400-1000 calories at times.
A healthy deficit (diet, cut, shred, etc.) should not (a) be severe and at absolute max less than 500 calories below maintenance. Ideally, it shouldn’t be more than a few hundred calories. And (b) it should be no longer than a few weeks so your body can benefit from the shock of the deficit but not get used to it and slow down your metabolism. Being in a deficit for too long is usually considered after several months with no periods or rest/maintenance.
This can put a lot of stress on your body and have to severe metabolic and hormonal damage. Likewise, that stubborn fat you keep trying to cut down to won’t go away. Your body will try to hold onto it as long as it can. Likewise, it’s much harder to retain muscle when chronically dieting.
Fun fact, muscle burns fat. More muscle burns fatter. So if you can’t maintain your muscle, you will have a really hard time burning that extra fat. Likewise, your muscles need more fuel to be able to perform and burn fat. So chronic dieting actually has the opposite effect.
2. You would like to repair your relationship with food
If you have severely disordered eating that is impacting multiple areas of your life, I highly encourage you to see a professional. It’s okay to ask for help and get medical treatment. However, if you fall into the situation that many people have as a product of diet culture, you probably view food as a good/bad or positive/negative consequence.
Food=fuel. I would guess most people understand that concept. Yet, magazines, tabloids, social media, commercials, you name it, have subtly or blatantly talked about food in a toxic way and implied that you need to have more willpower or follow this exact diet to lose that 20 lbs you need to shed. This is amazing marketing but terrible for self-esteem.
I, like many others, have been affected by this many times and it created a lot of insecurities around how I viewed food. It became a reward and punishment depending on where I was at that moment. But we deserve better.
Food should fuel your body and make you feel good
You should also be able to like what you eat. That is an amazing luxury we are blessed to have in this day and age. Starting a reverse diet will naturally teach you how to nourish your body because it deserves it, not because you earned it.
I have found with a reverse diet I lost cravings for things I used to restrict and think were off limits because I realized I can have those items from time to time and there is little to no consequence. That is not to say I allow myself to eat cinnamon toast crunch every day just because. I mean if I wanted to I certainly see no reason why I can’t. But when I am in the mood I have it occasionally and move on.
This took me time to get to this point but so did a reverse diet takes time. It’s an evolution and you can evolve to feel neutral about food. That is ideal and it is possible.
3. You are not hitting your body-related goals
I will preface this to say it’s assuming you are under-eating. It could be the case if you are in maintenance mode, but more often than not it is related to being in a deficit.
You can have many goals and there can be many reasons why you aren’t hitting them. However, if you are not losing weight, not increasing in strength, not recovering well, etc. likely you are not able to because you don’t have enough fuel in your body.
The dreaded plateau is common when people don’t have much weight to lose or are not hitting any new PRs (personal records) in the gym for weeks or months. Now there are so many variables related to these so diet can only loosely be applied here. But it is not without merit.
Remember how I mentioned if you don’t fuel enough to grow your muscles they will struggle to burn fat? Well, those last 10 lbs (hopefully in fat) you are trying to lose or that extra 10 lbs you are trying to add to your overhead press could very much be due to the fact that you don’t have enough fuel to support these goals.
By slowly adding more caloric intake, you give your muscles the opportunity to operate and grow. Thus, they can burn more fat and increase their capacity to lift.
4. You want to do a cut
This sounds counterintuitive. But think about it. You want to do a cut (or whatever you want to call it) to lean down but maintain your muscle. If you are already in a deficit or just not fully at maintenance, doing a cut will be a lot harder and feel harder. Why, because your body is already strained and now you are asking it to do more.
Imagine you are eating 2500 calories a day. If you do a cut of 250 calories per day that get you down to 2250 a day and seems fairly manageable. That could be just swapping out oil in your cooking for steaming/roasting or omitting the glob of peanut butter you usually put in your smoothie for powdered pb.
Now imagine you are eating 1500 calories which isn’t a lot, to begin with then you cut to 1250. I would guess you probably swapped these items out already, now you have to get more drastic and possibly cut out a meal or make them tiny. That is really hard and hanger will kick in.
If you are eating that 1500 a day, you reverse up to 2300 over 3 months successfully then cut by 250, you still will lose the same amount of fat as when you were in the former scenario, but it will be way easier because you aren’t as hungry and are more likely to stick to your cut. Then you can reverse back up or higher than 2300 calories and keep the benefits of your cut.
5. You just finished a cut
On the flip side, if you just finished a cut you need to ease your body back into maintenance. Going from a deficit for a few weeks straight back into your maintenance macros too quickly could put on unwanted fat. If you cut down to 2000 calories a day from 2500 calories over a few weeks, you can’t expect to jump back to 2500 calories without consequence.
By doing a reverse diet post-cut, you can ease your body back up to maintenance while minimizing any fat gain or even muscle loss.
6. You want to improve your metabolism
I talked about this earlier, but basically, a reverse diet can help get your body to its optimal metabolism. By getting to your unique maintenance, you are putting your body in the best position to optimize its metabolism. And an optimal metabolism is able to weather the storm better. That vacation you have coming up, well you can rest assured a little indulgence will have little to no effect on your body if you are at a healthy metabolism.
7. You want some control
I don’t mean this in a control freak kind of way. But if you are put off by the idea of an “all-in” approach. In case you have not heard of this concept, it is where you just eat whatever you want whenever you feel hungry. It can be a great approach for some people. If you do a Google search you will see plenty of stories where people rave about it or denounce it.
I have no opinion because I have never done one and have not researched it much. This approach, similar to the reverse diet, aims to achieve the same goal of ramping up your metabolism. However, the reverse diet is far more controlled which can give a feeling of safety because you are not varying your caloric intake as drastically.
8. You don’t want to gain fat
Notice I said fat. You may gain weight on a reverse diet. But you also may gain weight while not on a reverse diet. Same with losing weight. However, a reverse diet is strategic so as to not put on fat while trying to improve your metabolism.
It is possible to gain fat, but it is far less likely if you are slowly increasing your calories, resting, exercising, and noticing that your measurements are staying roughly the same. Likely, if you are following a structured (but not rigid) reverse diet protocol, you will gain minimal to no fat and ideally, any weight gain will be muscle and water weight. Both are not bad things and arguably good things!
When you should consider not doing a reverse diet
9. You just came off a reverse diet
Maybe this is self-explanatory, but if you just did a reverse diet and hit maintenance you probably want to stop to maintain that maintenance. You could keep going up but at some point, you will be bulking because your body can only metabolize so much relative to your size and muscle mass.
Your caloric needs can go up over time as you put on muscle. And I do recommend going through cycles of a reverse diet along with cuts, bulks, and maintenance all depending on your goals.
If you are just trying to get to maintenance or maybe heal your relationship with food, you can stop and stay at that place when you get to that point. All of this can change but it is important to know when to start and stop a reverse diet.
10. You have a medical condition or special dietary needs
I hope this is implied but it’s important to note. If you have medical reasons or dietary needs that could be impacted negatively by a reverse diet it is not recommended to start one. This being said, always consult with your medical provider before starting any new diets especially if your body is more sensitive to these kinds of changes.
11. You have a history of disordered eating
I touched on this earlier but this should go without saying that a reverse diet can be very triggering. This post has been more to the point but there is a huge emotional component to a reverse diet that I talk about in other posts. Eating more food, seeing any bodily changes, and other factors can be triggering to someone that has struggled with disordered eating. Please seek help if you are struggling and consult a professional before considering a reverse diet to make sure it is safe for you.
12. You don’t want to
Obviously, you shouldn’t do something if you don’t want to. But I know what it is like to feel pressured by diet culture to get on the wagon of the next diet trend. And though I genuinely believe in the benefits of a reverse diet, I don’t think it is for everyone. If you did read this whole article and still don’t want to do one, that is cool by me. Thanks for taking the time to read and make your own decision.
These considerations helped me when trying to take the leap into a reverse diet. Not all of them applied to me at the time and some of them still don’t. But my hope is to cover as many bases as possible to give you the most information in a digestible post.
If you have any other considerations I did not list, please share below. Likewise, I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you for your time!
