Reverse Dieting: Discuss, please

arditarose wrote: »

kkenseth wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

Okay. Yeah. I do this...most of us on here do this. For some reason I thought it was about adding calories beyond maintenance.

I slowly added calories back into my diet as well as I got close to maintenance....but I'm not sure I believe what I'm hearing about metabolism changes. I can't believe they were that significant while I was eating at a deficit vs. When I increased slowly. Am I wrong?

I agree with you about the metabolism changes. For us at least. I wonder about these women and men who are training like crazy in a deficit for a year or more at a time without taking a diet break though.

Well i think its kinda sad when people do that.
I eat what i need.
There are days i just eat more because i need more. I can feel it...and the rule is..as long as you go back on track the net day..and dont eat above maintenance level than it is ok.

[/quote]

Reeeally? Thats good. Makes me want to keep adding a bit more calories.[/quote]

well it is not only the adding of calories really slowly
It is keeping my training's calories up that level too
Which means fitter and stronger automatically..it is harder.

I know when i started walking i easily could get 600 to 700 calorie burns a day. Now when i am lucky 250 to 300...i have to push for that. So a realllyyyyy brisk walk lol

i started more swimming about 450 to 500 a day
and slowly it went down and down. it is now between the 330 and 380 daily And the standard for me is 300 a day minimum or rather 1800 minimum a week ( is my half pound too )

arditarose wrote: »

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

Well mine is not just a couple calories its closer to a couple hundred it seems
But i wait and see, soon my turn to get tested

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

Reeeally? Thats good. Makes me want to keep adding a bit more calories.[/quote]

well it is not only the adding of calories really slowly
It is keeping my training's calories up that level too
Which means fitter and stronger automatically..it is harder.

I know when i started walking i easily could get 600 to 700 calorie burns a day. Now when i am lucky 250 to 300...i have to push for that. So a realllyyyyy brisk walk lol

i started more swimming about 450 to 500 a day
and slowly it went down and down. it is now between the 330 and 380 daily And the standard for me is 300 a day minimum or rather 1800 minimum a week ( is my half pound too )

arditarose wrote: »

TheOwlhouseDesigns wrote: »

Well mine is not just a couple calories its closer to a couple hundred it seems
But i wait and see, soon my turn to get tested

Oh I get you. Yeah, if anything I do less exercise now. Smart, I know.

well i dont believe in the whole damage part

But when you restrict yourself that much you lose muscle and as we know muscles burn calories
So the less muscles you have the less you burn also

So keeping up my strength and trying to lose or at least maintain muscle helps me keeping up the calorie burned a day.

All i can say is that this is working for me perfectly
I lose a lot slower the last 2 months of course
But i lose in inches pretty good.

waist from 44 to 32 today, hips from 48 to 36
and legs and arms too lol

So who knows i think everybody has to do what they are comfortable with and works for them.

arditarose wrote: »

I mean, when I was going into maintenance I upped my calories 100 calories per week. Is that reverse dieting? I didn't think so. I thought it was when you did that, but then started to EXCEED maintenance, slowly, somehow magically increasing your TDEE.

The part I bolded is what I've seen discussed as reverse dieting.

1. Eat at TDEE.
2. Add 100 calories to your daily maintenance goal and eat that new goal for a week or two.
3. ?????
4. Your TDEE is now 100 calories higher.
5. Repeat 1-4 until you actually gain weight when you add 100 calories to daily maintenance goal and then remove that last 100 calorie increase.
6. Ta da! You now have a higher TDEE through reverse dieting. That opens the door to getting past a "stall" because you can now get a higher deficit by eating more calories than you were eating when your weight loss stalled because your TDEE is higher. It can also give you more maintenance calories if you've reached your goal.

Does it work? I have no idea. Personally, I think it's a way to narrow down your actual, individual TDEE because the websites can only give a general estimate.

Your metabolism does change over time while being in a calorie deficit, but isn't so much "damage" as adaptation. Your body thinks it is in a famine and becomes more efficient to preserve energy. It is called adaptive thermogenesis (google that term and you'll find lots of research). Some people call this "starvation mode" and there are all sorts of myths that somehow the adaptation will actually slow you down to the point that your body just starts gaining weight in a low deficit. That's not true at all, but the adaptation is real. It can cause a 150 pound person who had always been that way to have a higher BMR than a 150 pound person who had gotten that way through restrictive dieting.

Some people do reverse diet and then go above maintenence to try to reverse the adaptive thermogenesis. Not sure if it actually works but I'd like to know since I'm entering maintenence after a 2 year deficit and have these issues on my mind.

seska422 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

I mean, when I was going into maintenance I upped my calories 100 calories per week. Is that reverse dieting? I didn't think so. I thought it was when you did that, but then started to EXCEED maintenance, slowly, somehow magically increasing your TDEE.

The part I bolded is what I've seen discussed as reverse dieting.

1. Eat at TDEE.
2. Add 100 calories to your daily goal and eat that new goal for a week or two.
3. ?????
4. Your TDEE is now 100 calories higher.
5. Repeat until you actually gain weight when you add 100 calories to daily goal and then remove that last 100 calorie increase.

Ta da! You now have a higher TDEE through reverse dieting. That opens the door to getting past a "stall" because you can now get a higher deficit by eating the same amount of calories because your TDEE is higher. It can also give you more maintenance calories if you've reached your goal.

Does it work? I have no idea. Personally, I think it's a way to narrow down your actual, individual TDEE because the websites can only give a general estimate.

But is adding the calories even increasing your TDEE, or is it just pushing you to go past what the calculators say-which are just an estimate, especially considering your true TDEE is a range?

I guess what I'm asking is, for example...my maintenance is between 1800-1900 calories. Or so I BELIEVE because I haven't really tried to go any higher. So if I were to add another 100 calories, and then another 100 more, without gaining weight-am I actually increasing my TDEE, or am I just finally meeting my true maintenance calories? I guess I could easily answer that question myself, considering I would still have to be losing at 1800 if my true TDEE was 2000.

Derp. I don't know if that made any sense to anyone.

arditarose wrote: »

seska422 wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

I mean, when I was going into maintenance I upped my calories 100 calories per week. Is that reverse dieting? I didn't think so. I thought it was when you did that, but then started to EXCEED maintenance, slowly, somehow magically increasing your TDEE.

The part I bolded is what I've seen discussed as reverse dieting.

1. Eat at TDEE.
2. Add 100 calories to your daily goal and eat that new goal for a week or two.
3. ?????
4. Your TDEE is now 100 calories higher.
5. Repeat until you actually gain weight when you add 100 calories to daily goal and then remove that last 100 calorie increase.

Ta da! You now have a higher TDEE through reverse dieting. That opens the door to getting past a "stall" because you can now get a higher deficit by eating the same amount of calories because your TDEE is higher. It can also give you more maintenance calories if you've reached your goal.

Does it work? I have no idea. Personally, I think it's a way to narrow down your actual, individual TDEE because the websites can only give a general estimate.

But is adding the calories even increasing your TDEE, or is it just pushing you to go past what the calculators say-which are just an estimate, especially considering your true TDEE is a range?

I guess what I'm asking is, for example...my maintenance is between 1800-1900 calories. Or so I BELIEVE because I haven't really tried to go any higher. So if I were to add another 100 calories, and then another 100 more, without gaining weight-am I actually increasing my TDEE, or am I just finally meeting my true maintenance calories? I guess I could easily answer that question myself, considering I would still have to be losing at 1800 if my true TDEE was 2000.

Derp. I don't know if that made any sense to anyone.

yes it does to me. And that is a big question indeed.

I did the tests so i am pretty sure were i was floating lol
And sure enough there still can be a 100 off up or down. But all the numbers show it is about right and it slowly goes up

nope i dont eat at a deficit of 1000 from my 260 to 160
i ate a 1000 deficit to start with now at 250 deficit...butttt my calorie burned have to stay the same!!

arditarose wrote: »

kkenseth wrote: »

arditarose wrote: »

Okay. Yeah. I do this...most of us on here do this. For some reason I thought it was about adding calories beyond maintenance.

I slowly added calories back into my diet as well as I got close to maintenance....but I'm not sure I believe what I'm hearing about metabolism changes. I can't believe they were that significant while I was eating at a deficit vs. When I increased slowly. Am I wrong?

I agree with you about the metabolism changes. For us at least. I wonder about these women and men who are training like crazy in a deficit for a year or more at a time without taking a diet break though.

This is basically what I did.

I've been adding back calories since mid-June. I've also been adding C25K and making sure that my calorie burn for each day of the week is trending upwards. Based on my food logging and weight changes, it looks like my average TDEE since then is 3516. My UP2 band says that my average TDEE over that period is 3543. If I damaged my metabolism, it looks like I damaged it about 27 calories a day worth. Or, yeah, it's random noise and I'm burning exactly what someone my age, size, and activity level "should" burn.

RunRutheeRun wrote: »

I've tried it, I did it slowly more so to work out my maintenance calories, added 100 extra cals and kept upping them every few weeks. Even when I saw a slight gain I gave it another 4 weeks just to check gain was for real, and it was! but it was how I found my maintenance cals - 2200-2300 but ( not bad for a small fry lol) . It took me around 3 months to find my true TDEE.

yes that is my program too..it will take months at the end of my losing weight to switch to maintenance it keeps getting upped with 50 or 75 at a time over my now calculated maintenance level. ( plus exercise so TDEE)

For me it was not my decisions to do it this way.

I got sick...lets say pretty sick
And they cut me back, now it is the trick to slowly go back to the point i was, without getting sick again.
And till now it goes perfect and feeling great, no medications Much fitter and healthier.


so we plugging along, the ultimate goal is being fit, as healthy as possible can be within my medical issues and eat as much calories as i can without gaining weight
hehehe

It seems an awfully complicated way to deal with AT, when all you really need to do is stay active and have an occasional day where you eat at maintenance....

atypicalsmith wrote: »

To me, "reverse dieting" would mean gaining weight.

That's my thought. I figured it was someone who was trying to gain weight. I'm eager to see where this goes because I'm thinking it must mean something else.