Reverse diet - does it work

alexmose
alexmose Posts: 792 Member
in Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
Anyone have any luck slowly boosting calories while lifting to increase metabolism? Did it work for you? Wondering if it’s right for me. Currently 22 female 5’3’’, 114 lbs, 19.8% bf, following a Muscle Building Routine 4 day Upper/Lower split for 6 weeks. Eating 1500-1600 maintence. 2-3 cardio 30 mins/day per week.

Replies

  • ecjim
    ecjim Posts: 1,001 Member
    Just adjust your calories so you gain 1-2 lbs per month. With a proper weight training program , a lot of that gain should be muscle. Keep your protein intake up, be sure you get enough fat, eat some carbs & don't forget the veggies.
    What weight program are you following?
  • alexmose
    alexmose Posts: 792 Member
    ecjim wrote: »
    Just adjust your calories so you gain 1-2 lbs per month. With a proper weight training program , a lot of that gain should be muscle. Keep your protein intake up, be sure you get enough fat, eat some carbs & don't forget the veggies.
    What weight program are you following?

    A Muscle Building Workout Routine. Posted in the lifting thread under advanced.
  • middlehaitch
    middlehaitch Posts: 8,486 Member
    I just posted this on another thread.
    Don’t know if it will help give you an idea of how to start upping your cals in a reverse diet as mine was accidental, unplanned.

    I’m 5’1 and maintain between 100-105 lbs. I’m in my 10th year of maintenance.

    Because I am older I was initially given 1200 cals for sedentary maintenance, plus I ate back 200 cals for an hours exercise.

    I use to eat back 100% of the calories from MFP but by the time I had hit maintenance ( it took a year to lose 30lbs) I knew my personal data well enough that I could round it out to 200cals.

    For the first while I followed NEAT and ate back 200 only on exercise days.
    I then changed to TDEE and did 1400 cals every day.
    That gave me extra energy so I burnt more cals during daily activity, and probably upped my exercise intensity a tad.

    The more calories I burnt; more calories I got to eat.
    Back to upping my cals in a NEAT method, extra on exercise days.
    More energy, transferred to TDEE

    This went on for a few years, now I estimate that I eat a TDEE of about 1700-1800 cals (don’t log anymore) mainly gardening, walking and bodyweight right now.

    Once the yoga, lifting, and a couple of classes are picked up in the fall I am expecting another small bump in my cals.

    It has been very interesting and slow calorie increase, but with a bit of forethought I could have planned it, and probably had it happen faster.

    The increase in NEAT has been subtle, no all of a sudden walking the 3km to the grocery store then back, just getting up and doing something instead of putting it off. I’m still quite the sloth.

    Sorry that was so long, hope it helps.

    Cheers, h.

Categories