Why You Need To Reverse Diet
Key Takeaways
Maintaining a healthy body fat percentage is important because it supports:
Reproductive health + libido
Insulation and temperature regulation
Survival
The benefits of a successful reverse diet include:
Faster metabolism
Increased NEAT
Higher work capacity
Improved digestion
Eating more calories with minimal fat gain
Muscle gain
How not to reverse diet:
Going back to your pre-diet calorie intake
Continuing to eat very low calories
Eating very little protein
Eating a diet that consists primarily of ultra processed foods
Reverse dieting is a balancing act - The goal is to eat enough calories to “speed up your metabolism” and reduce hunger levels, but not so many that you regain the fat that you lost.
Reverse dieting requires patience and finesse. With a dialed-in nutrition and training plan, it can be made simple.
Full Story
Close the coolers and pour out the PBRs. It’s time to stash away the swim trunks and bikinis and finally break out the hoodies, sweats, and pumpkin spice lattes. Hot girl/boy summer is coming to a close, and, regarding your future fitness goals, you might be left wondering, “where do I go from here?”
Where you go, my friend, is into a reverse diet.
If you:
Trained hard and reduced your calories to shed fat
Dropped a moderate amount of weight (5-25lbs) over the winter and spring
Kept your calories way too low and your activity way too high to maintain your physique -in an unsustainable way - over the summer
Are now wondering how to increase your calorie intake while minimizing fat gain
...you’ll want to read on.
If your summer fitness goals were focused more on performance, energy levels, mental health, pain reduction, or anything else that doesn’t involve posing for snapshots by the lifeguard stand in perfect lighting, you can stash this article away for when you’re in a similar situation.
*Trigger warning*
This article is primarily centered around aesthetics. How someone looks in the mirror - through strategic muscle gain and fat loss- is an important component of fitness for many people. If you’re not in a place to focus on your physical appearance or it causes you stress - and you would instead prefer to focus on other aspects of health and wellness - you may want to skip this one.
I Don’t Even Know You
I don’t know the first thing about you. I can’t tell you exactly how to approach your fitness goals because I don’t know your story. I don’t know your:
Goals
Age/gender/height/weight
Fitness history
Future plans
Life stress
Current calorie/macronutrient intake
I don’t know, yet. (If you’d like personalized, 1 on 1 coaching, we can talk about that).
In general, the following advice is valuable information - if I do say so myself - that will help many of you develop a roadmap for your fitness future. Because my tips are big picture concepts, take them with a grain of salt. Integrate these principles with your history and goals to best apply them to your personal situation.
Blame The Media
If the idea of setting a goal to gain weight just feels weird, you’re not alone. If you’re wondering why you think that way, it’s because society and social media has beaten into your mind the outrageous idea that “you should always be extremely lean because it’s healthy, sexy, and fun!”
Why does everyone want to be so lean, anyway? Who decided that 5% body fat was attractive? Why does the term “six-pack” refer to chiseled abs instead of just a bundle of Bud Light?
Blame the media. Today, you can find unrealistic body standards on display at every turn. Magazine covers, television, and advertisements are the worst offenders. Here are some examples of what I’m talking about:
Commercial for a powder you put on you food that makes it too bitter to eat. Seriously.
Everyone wrongly associates the “magazine cover, ab vein, 4% body fat” appearance with good health. “Wow, that guy or gal doesn’t have an ounce of fat. Surely they must be in awesome health.” In reality, unless you’re the genetically gifted .01%, attaining, let alone maintaining, such low levels of body fat comes at a severe cost.
There is nothing more valuable than your health. Being healthy allows you to be more confident in your own skin, prevent disease, and live life to the fullest. No if’s, and’s, or but’s about it. However, good health does not look the same for everybody. Having extremely low levels of body fat does not mean you’re healthy.
When Fat Loss Is Harmful
Maintaining very low levels of body fat -less than ~10% for men and ~15-20% for women - for a prolonged period of time is not optimal. In fact, for most people, it’s downright dangerous and dumb. Just a few of the physiological reasons that it’s important to maintain a healthy body fat percentage include:
Reproductive health + libido
Insulation and temperature regulation
Survival
Losing significant amounts of weight and keeping it off for the long term is tremendously stressful. For the majority of human history, losing a lot of weight meant that calories were scarce and death was imminent.
Although death by starvation is not a concern for us in modern society, the physiological cues ingrained by millions of years by evolution hold true. Your body will not be happy or perform optimally if it is too lean for too long.
The Goal Is To Gain Weight. Yes, I’m Sure.
If you accomplished your goals of losing fat and staying lean over the summer, outstanding! Fat loss is no easy task and I’m sure you turned a lot of heads on the beach. However, if you’re suffering from poor mood, hormonal dysregulation, or extreme hunger, you need to regroup and change your plan. All are signs that you’ve been too lean for too long. It’s time to reverse course and regain your health.
Are you worried that your summer body you worked so hard to chisel out will disappear as quickly as your fading tan lines? Don’t be concerned. In fact, swapping out your six pack for some extra muscle is the best move for your body and will set you up for success down the road.
The benefits of a successful reverse diet include:
Faster metabolism (increased BMR, of the amount of calories you burn at rest)
Increased NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis. Another way we burn calories)
Higher work capacity (ability to work out harder and longer)
Eating more calories with minimal fat gain
It’s intimidating and might even feel wrong, but the goal for many of you over the next couple of months is to gain weight. Not just any weight, though. Just like the goal during a diet is to lose as much fat and as little muscle as possible, the goal during a reverse diet is to maximize muscle gain and minimize fat gain.
How Not To Reverse Diet
Reverse dieting is a balancing act. You want to eat enough calories to “speed up your metabolism” and reduce hunger levels, but not so many that you regain all the fat that you worked so hard to shed. There is no one right answer, but there are some that are definitely wrong. These include:
Going back to your pre-diet calorie intake
Continuing to eat very low calories
Eating very little protein
Eating a diet that consists primarily of ultra processed foods
Reverse dieting correctly is not easy. Doing it well requires patience and finesse. However, with a dialed-in nutrition and training plan, reverse dieting can be made simple.
Wrap Up
Now that we’ve set the stage of when and why to reverse diet, it’s time to create a blueprint and outline the most important principles. On Thursday, in part two, we’ll discuss:
The 5 most important steps to reverse dieting
How to know when to stop your reverse diet
What to do after reverse dieting
How I can help you create a personalized reverse dieting plan
For all that and more, tune in next week. If you have any questions in the meantime feel free to reach out below or shoot me an email at solokasfocus@gmail.com
Sources:
SHAPE Magazine - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/19703317104201523/
Men’s Health - https://pocketmags.com/us/mens-health-magazine/september-2019
Lose It Commercial - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk9WptRQWoE&ab_channel=Surf%27sUpStudiosCaliforniaUSA
GIF Sources: Jimmy Will 30Rock Kevin
(giphy.com)