Reverse Diet

jamespeck89

Over the Fall and Winter I slowly increased my daily calories from 2000 to 2500, and stayed between 160 lbs and 165 lbs. Now I'm cutting back down to 2000 so I can cut body fat before running season. Has anyone else played around with increasing their metabolism to help them lose weight without going to extreme calorie cuts?

If so, what luck did you have? Do you have any advice?

admaarie

I somewhat reverse dieted in a sense. When I was losing fat I was in a long *kitten* deficit for about a year where I was eating 1500-1800 calories a day. I started increasing my calories but not gradually. I just went full force. I started at 2000, then 2200, and eventually ranged to 2300 where I noticed I had began gaining a bit of weight so I maintain roughly around 2000-2200 depending on a few things.
Now I’m slowly somewhat “cutting” again. I’m eating anywhere from 1800-2100 depending on hunger, activity and just how I feel. Not too strict with it.

I notice I’m losing weight at a regular rate. .5-1lb a week. Some weeks none if I eat more on geared towards maintenance for the majority of the week.

Overall increasing my calories and sticking to it allowed my body to have a deficit at a higher range versus the 1500-1800 calories I was eating before. Plus I’m just not as strict as I was either.

I would say just go for it. You’ll only find out what works through experience!

Talan79

I have a long history of chronic dieting so I somewhat attempted a reverse diet starting last summer. At first I was very diligent & kept a spreadsheet but then just kind of gave up on it. From August til now, I increased my calories by 300 and completely backed off of cardio. I was running about 20 miles a week on top of a 5 day lift split. In five months, I only gained 2.5 pounds. So I guess somewhat successful bc I went from tons of cardio to zero with little weight gain.
Plan is to start cardio again with modest deficit & cut slowly.

SleepMoveEatRepeat

I started my reverse last August until beginning of this year (to seed up my metabolism). I went from eating 1,400 cal and doing about 4hrs of cardio/week to eating 2,200 cal doing no exercise at all (I stopped doing cardio gradually and started lifted weights until beginning of November when I tore my hamstring while hiking).
When I ate more than 2,200 cal I would gain weight, and i did gain weight on purpose for a couple of weeks, towards the end of the reverse. I got to 2,300, stayed there for 2 weeks and then stopped. I went from weighing 145 lbs tô weighing 150 ( and the majority of the weight was gained towards the very last 2 weeks).
So my goal was to start my cut at 1,700 cal lifting weights 3x/weeks with minimal cardio. That's what I've been doing since the beginning of the year.
So far I lost only 2 lbs... some days I wake up and weigh myself and realize I weigh 4 lbs lighter, but then the next day I gain 5. My weight has been fluctuating so much since I started my cut! But the total average lost is 2 lbs.
Has this been happened to you too?
I don't know if the weight is stuck due to the fact that I'm lifting heavy weights and am constantly sore, or if it's because my metabolism is messed up (bit then I think, "how could that be if I were eating 2,200 cal without gaining weight, not too long ago"), or if maybe I need to play around with my macros, or start doing more cardio, or maybe I just need to be a bit more patient becasie maybe when the weight starts going down it really will?
2 weeks I started doing about 1.5hrs of cardio/week and still... no changes in the scale.. I'm so frustrated and confused, to say the least!
This week I will start eating 1,625 cal/day, will continue to lift heavy weights 3x/week and will do 1 to 1.5 hr of cardio besides my walks with my dog.
I'm lost for words.. just wish I would start seeing the weight (or measurements) go down to keep me motivated. My measurements went down just a little bit.
Anyways... has this been happening to you too? Do you think this is normal? How has your progress been since you started your cut?

jasonpoihegatama

SleepMoveEatRepeat wrote: »

I started my reverse last August until beginning of this year (to seed up my metabolism). I went from eating 1,400 cal and doing about 4hrs of cardio/week to eating 2,200 cal doing no exercise at all (I stopped doing cardio gradually and started lifted weights until beginning of November when I tore my hamstring while hiking).
When I ate more than 2,200 cal I would gain weight, and i did gain weight on purpose for a couple of weeks, towards the end of the reverse. I got to 2,300, stayed there for 2 weeks and then stopped. I went from weighing 145 lbs tô weighing 150 ( and the majority of the weight was gained towards the very last 2 weeks).
So my goal was to start my cut at 1,700 cal lifting weights 3x/weeks with minimal cardio. That's what I've been doing since the beginning of the year.
So far I lost only 2 lbs... some days I wake up and weigh myself and realize I weigh 4 lbs lighter, but then the next day I gain 5. My weight has been fluctuating so much since I started my cut! But the total average lost is 2 lbs.
Has this been happened to you too?
I don't know if the weight is stuck due to the fact that I'm lifting heavy weights and am constantly sore, or if it's because my metabolism is messed up (bit then I think, "how could that be if I were eating 2,200 cal without gaining weight, not too long ago"), or if maybe I need to play around with my macros, or start doing more cardio, or maybe I just need to be a bit more patient becasie maybe when the weight starts going down it really will?
2 weeks I started doing about 1.5hrs of cardio/week and still... no changes in the scale.. I'm so frustrated and confused, to say the least!
This week I will start eating 1,625 cal/day, will continue to lift heavy weights 3x/week and will do 1 to 1.5 hr of cardio besides my walks with my dog.
I'm lost for words.. just wish I would start seeing the weight (or measurements) go down to keep me motivated. My measurements went down just a little bit.
Anyways... has this been happening to you too? Do you think this is normal? How has your progress been since you started your cut?

Hi sounds like a lot of things going on! so you may have missed or overlooked something as you seem to have your diet and training down? Maybe water retention can make body weight going up and down so fast! The fact you had been building muscles could be why your not seeing the body weight fall off, where running is catabolic!

Talan79

There is some water weight gain that happens when you start a lifting program. With little weight to lose, it’s gonna be a slow process.
I weigh daily, and use a 7 day average. I had no loss for 2 weeks then a drop by 1 pound. So maybe I’m averaging 1/2 pound a week which is fine for trying to lose 5-8 pounds at my size.
It’s gonna take time. Be patient & consistent. I don’t expect to see much in terms of scale changes until maybe 8 weeks in due to fluctuations.