Reverse diet

emmoen

I am trying to reverse diet as I was on a very low calroie diet followed by 2 days of water fasting last week. I am up to 1300 calories a day but I feel all I do is think of food, prep for food, determine calorie intake and then eat again. I feel my life is revolving around food. I am happy with my weight right now and I expect it to go up some since I am increasing my calorie count again but I am not sure if I am doing it right. any tips would be great.

heybales

Each week, increase about 150-200 cal extra daily. So next week 1450-1500.

Mentally keep a note that even if you went over true maintenance by that much at some point - it would take 18 to 23 days to slowly gain 1 lb of fat.

So anything fast is merely water weight. (or differences when weighing)
Some of it is the original water lost fast when starting a diet.

And keep weight range as goal - not a single number - drive yourself batty with water weight fluctuations.

And learn MFP's lesson regarding weight maintenance which is life lesson.
You do more you eat more.
You do less you eat less.

Seasons change as well as plans and schedules - therefore change the eating amount too as needed.

The need to focus so much on food will go away once at maintenance calories and you have an idea of types and amounts of food you can have.

Talan79

Look up Holly Baxter and reverse diet on YouTube. She is a dietitian & has done some bodybuilding shows & reverse dieted twice & documented it weekly.
You may need to add calories slower depending on how your body responds.

Cahgetsfit

why are you reverse dieting and not just going straight back up to baseline calories? Just curious is all.

sijomial

There isn't a single "right way".
My right way is to jump straight from losing to maintenance.
Some people prefer to steadily increase their calories over weeks, that might be their right way.

It's also not a given that increasing calories to maintenance levels will lead to weight gain, it doesn't for me as I don't go low carb when cutting weight. (The weight bounce out of proportion to calorie increase is predominately a water weight increase from storing more carbs.)

I appeared to have a little adaptive thermogenesis after my main weight loss but it corrected itself with a couple of months of eating at maintenance, didn't need any nurturing or intervention.

The thing to keep in mind at maintenance is there's no rush to get it perfectly right straight away, you have the rest of your life to adjust and fine tune things.

emmoen

Cahgetsfit wrote: »

why are you reverse dieting and not just going straight back up to baseline calories? Just curious is all.

The reason I decided to reverse diet is because I want to add calories without returning to old ways. Previously, I would lose weight and just return to the way I ate and gain everything back... NOT THIS TIME! I really do not know what my maintenance calories range is as this is the first time I successfully achieved my goal so I want to take it slowly to develop good habits and proper portions as I find my right maintenance calorie intake.

emmoen

Talan79 wrote: »

Look up Holly Baxter and reverse diet on YouTube. She is a dietitian & has done some bodybuilding shows & reverse dieted twice & documented it weekly.
You may need to add calories slower depending on how your body responds.

Thank you... very helpful!

Cahgetsfit

emmoen wrote: »

Cahgetsfit wrote: »

why are you reverse dieting and not just going straight back up to baseline calories? Just curious is all.

The reason I decided to reverse diet is because I want to add calories without returning to old ways. Previously, I would lose weight and just return to the way I ate and gain everything back... NOT THIS TIME! I really do not know what my maintenance calories range is as this is the first time I successfully achieved my goal so I want to take it slowly to develop good habits and proper portions as I find my right maintenance calorie intake.

Fair enough. I have struggled with the same thing as you. The key is to NOT return to the old ways!!! I prefer to use a TDEE calculator (eg tdeecalculator.net ) and work it out there. Then I only enter 1 calorie for exercise here on MFP. This gives me more calories to eat than the MFP thing. ANd I don't need to worry about eating back exercise or not.

Also, I have found that the key is to keep track of the weight regularly as as soon as you notice more than one kilo fluctuations (like 2-3 kilos), then reduce calories for a little bit until you get back to the sweet spot. You will eventually find that sweet spot. For example - the calculator tells me I will maintain on ~2000. I set my diary to ~1900 because then, on the weekend, if I eat 2500 on one day then doesn't matter because it's saved up from during the week. So far so good this time around.

Also, this time around I didn't go slowly up - I went straight back into maintenance. my weight went up 1 kilo - but that's normal more glycogen in muscles from all the carbs. I still look the same in the mirror.

Good luck!

pierinifitness

@emmoen, like your NOT THIS TIME! and identify with it 100 percent.

emmoen

pierinifitness wrote: »

@emmoen, like your NOT THIS TIME! and identify with it 100 percent.

I am so tired of failing at something that is just as important as my family and my kids. I must take care of myself to fully take care of them. So I tried everything different this time. I started by finding a convenient portion control but tasty meal plan... which help me to realize the importance of eating 5-6 small meals a day vs 2-3 large meals.....followed by hiring a personal training because sometimes you just need that extra guidance to be pushed out of ones comfort zone.. followed by joining a challenge which motivates me to work hard on both nutrition and exercise to get my money back... NOW... I personally have to apply it all now that I have the confidence and knowledge to do it!