reverse dieting: what is it and how do i know when i need to do it?
Reverse dieting is one of those terms that gets a lot of questions. People have heard the term but it feels really confusing and they don’t really get what it is, who it’s for or when to use it. So that’s what today’s blog post is going to break down: a step by step guide to understanding reverse dieting so you know if it’s for you and when and how to use it.
But, to give you quick summary, reverse dieting is a strategy that’s used to help women whose daily calorie intake has become pretty low to slowly increase their calories without gaining weight so they can maintain their weight loss or maybe, eventually, go back into a fat loss phase.
Most women have spent a VERY large portion of their lives dieting. In some ways, it has become a way of life. Jumping from one meal plan or 30 day challenge to the next, often eating VERY little. Most diet plans are focused on quick results which means they have you eating less than 1500 calories a day.
Which means if you are constantly on a diet, your body, over time, has gotten used to eating 1500 calories (or usually less), each day. And it has adapted. What does that mean? Well it means your body has gotten really good at using those 1500 calories for whatever it needs. Which means at a certain point it becomes much harder to lose weight at that calorie intake and very easy to gain weight. Which also means if you need to lose weight, you need to eat even less—which feels nearly impossible, and quite honestly IS nearly impossible.
Before we fully dive into what reverse dieting is, we need to quickly talk about how weight loss and weight gain happen. When a person loses weight it is because their body is in a caloric deficit. This means that they are intaking less calories than their body needs in a day. When a person gains weight, they are in a caloric surplus which means they are intaking more calories than their body needs in a day.
So if you’re on a diet, consistently eating 1200-1500 calories a day, you will lose weight. But eventually one of 2 things (or sometimes both) happens:
The rate of weight loss really slows down or stops (because your body has gotten use to that calorie intake and now it’s not a deficit, but the new normal)
You are so miserable eating so little food that you swing back the other way, start eating a lot more very quickly and gain the weight back
This is where reverse dieting comes in.
Reverse dieting is the process of very slowly and strategically increasing your caloric intake so your body adjusts its “new normal” to a higher calorie intake. This allows you to maintain your weight loss while eating more food OR it allows you to continue pursuing weight loss (if you NEED to) while being able to eat more food.
The concept is simple but not always easy to do. Here’s what it looks like:
If you know you are eating around 1500 calories a day, you would add 50-100 calories to your daily intake and maintain there for 1-2 weeks. Then add another 50-100 calories a day and maintain there for 1-2 weeks. And so on. Until you are at a caloric intake level that feels sustainable.
By doing this very slowly and methodically, your body has time to adapt to your intake. It is able to use the calories you’re giving it without storing them as fat the way it does when we drastically increase intake over a short period of time.
If you’ve spent any time on my blog or website you know I am not a coach who supports calorie counting long term—some people use it in very strategic, limited circumstances. So this strategy is used in very specific situations—and can also be done by focusing on portion size rather than calories. This would look like bumping up the amount of protein on your plate at one meal a day for 1-2 weeks, and then adding on another meal.
If you’re in a place where you are chronically eating under 1500 calories and are feeling stressed about losing weight or gaining weight back, let’s connect. This is what online nutrition coaching is all about!
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