Here are a lot of misconceptions I either once BELIEVED myself or that Iโve heard from clients/you guys!
๐ฅ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฒ๐บ๐ฏ๐ฒ๐ฟ: the goal of a reverse diet is NOT to lose weight, but to eat more food in order to restore your metabolism, hormones, relationship with food!
It can also help you to maintain your weight loss long term at more sustainable calories
OR it might mean gaining weight if thatโs what your body needs to restore your hormones.
It entirely depends on YOU, the individual.
How your body responds.
What your starting place is body fat % wise, hormone wise, metabolism wise.
What your relationship with food is like.
What your MINDSET is like going into a reverse.
If you need a reminder on what a reverse diet IS… I explain it all in this YouTube Video:
(Cause oh boy can ๐๐ฒ๐น๐ณ ๐๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ผ๐๐ฎ๐ด๐ฒ come into play if you donโt have your mindset right during a reverse!!)
Iโll talk more about how to start a reverse diet in my next post, but for nowโฆ
ONTO THE LIST!
I see a lot of women who come to me either with questions about reverse dieting or those interested in coaching PANIC at the idea of raising their calories even the TINIEST amount.
But if you’ve been dieting at 1500 calories… adding in 50 more will not take you “out of a diet” (or a calorie deficit) immediately.
You won’t even be at maintenance calories.
This means that EVEN though you’ve started to raise your calories… you will still be burning more calories throughout the day than you consume.
It will take awhile for you to reach maintenance calories if you reverse diet slowly!
As a coach, I DO love to show off radical Reverse Dieting transformations.
Is it possible to lose weight during a reverse diet? Yeah for sure.
But it all depends on your starting point.
Take the client on the far left for example, her weight BARELY changed between those two pictures (when she started with me at 1300 calories to the end of her reverse when we got her all the way up to eating 2060 calories!)
She started her reverse from a VERY low body fat percentage, meaning we wouldn’t have wanted to lose any more weight.
Take the client in the middle for example. SHE’S ONE POUND HEAVIER ON THE RIGHT. But she lost quite a bit of visible body fat. Remember the scale does not tell the whole story!
Finally the client on the far right is another great example of a reverse diet! From the far left picture to the middle we dieted & to the far right picture we reversed. We were able to maintain her weight loss while upping her calories!
(See the above pictures of client transformations for my story on how the scale went up for them! Yet they look leaner… remember the scale isn’t everything!)
If you feel hungrier during your reverse diet, that’s actually a sign that your metabolism is speeding back up! Your body’s hunger signals are imbalanced so your body will urge you to overeat. You can always choose to bump food/calories up faster, but the hunger is temporary.
If you flat out avoided peanut butter or cookies during your diet.
Refuse to keep candy in the house.
Or become anxious around certain kinds of food…
Your relationship with food needs work!
And during a reverse diet is the perfect time to work on it. You can test out adding one or two new foods a week.
IE buying a package of oreos and having a serving or two EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
You’ll probably find that after a week or two of this you don’t care about the Oreos quite as much anymore!
^Like I said. “I’m not dieting anyways so I might as well… [fill in the blank]” Can lead you to gain all the weight you lost back & more… or worse!
Keep flexibility in your diet, but try not to make it too flexible. I have a whole blog post on flexible dieting here!
Remember the goal is NOT to lose weight with a reverse.
The goal is to speed up your metabolism.
And a bit of overeating will not ruin anything.
For me personally, when I reverse diet after a bikini competition I NEED to gain body fat back!
The leanness required for me to step on stage is actually unhealthy & I typically lose my period when I compete. (Which is a big health no no)
So when I reverse diet I actually aim to put on body fat so that I can be healthy again!
๐๐ปWhat other misconceptions would you add to this?? Were there any that you believed or any youโd like further explanation on?ย
If you want to know more about reversing RIGHT NOW, head to the link in my bio to get the lecture on reverse dieting & raising your metabolism for ๐๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ค