THE REVERSE DIET DEBATE: Eric Helms + Menno Henselmans vs. Layne Norton + Peter Fitschen

senecarr

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrul81qco8

Erfw7471

Thanks for posting this. I was just listening to Helms/Lee on a Biolayne podcast this morning.

GaleHawkins

These guys are well educated on the subject and it would be good for all on MFP to listen to this discussion. While I do not work out per say other than walking but this info is good science for all to know and can be of value to understand for all. I did not know we could diet in a way to increase the number of fat cells.

richln

Thanks for posting this. I respect all of these guys very much, but I didn't hear anything here that challenges my preconceived opinions.

The best anti-reverse argument I got out of it is that it is better to get back to a healthy hormonal environment as fast as possible to start making progress again. They acknowledge that this will probably result in a little more initial fat gain, but the tradeoff is worth it to get healthy faster. This is important for the bodybuilder who cuts to crazy low bf and needs to make the most progress possible out of a limited offseason, but not really as important for people who don't cut so deep and are not in a hurry to gain. The observation that most of their clients can't properly adhere to a reverse diet is probably due to their clients being mostly competitors going to really low bf.

The comments about "fat memory" existing as an analogy to muscle memory were interesting. I am looking to forward to Menno's new paper about metabolic adaptation, sounds like it should be good.

senecarr

richln wrote: »

Thanks for posting this. I respect all of these guys very much, but I didn't hear anything here that challenges my preconceived opinions.

The best anti-reverse argument I got out of it is that it is better to get back to a healthy hormonal environment as fast as possible to start making progress again. They acknowledge that this will probably result in a little more initial fat gain, but the tradeoff is worth it to get healthy faster. This is important for the bodybuilder who cuts to crazy low bf and needs to make the most progress possible out of a limited offseason, but not really as important for people who don't cut so deep and are not in a hurry to gain. The observation that most of their clients can't properly adhere to a reverse diet is probably due to their clients being mostly competitors going to really low bf.

The comments about "fat memory" existing as an analogy to muscle memory were interesting. I am looking to forward to Menno's new paper about metabolic adaptation, sounds like it should be good.

Menno's paper is what I most look forward to out of listening to it.
I was actually surprised that Layne's position seemed rather different from what has been portrayed as his position. It sounded like before his claim was that reverse dieting was necessary to fix hormones because the body won't recover metabolism and hormones for a long time, and that some of his female clients were gaining or maintaining on impossibly low calories. On the program he seemed far more willing to claim the issue for these clients is probably that the ultra low calories in prep phases was leading to them eating food that they weren't recording.

psuLemon

Tagging to watch later.

mattyc772014

Excited to see Menno's paper as well. I can see how reverse dieting can help someone that can binge than restrict calories. I can be at fault for that at times. So personally I can see how slowing things down can help with making progress.