reverse dieting

WinoGelato wrote: »

samoshka wrote: »

Probably around 400 kcals, I'm not sure. I'm eating 1400 and I'm 5'3, and around 113 lb,

Is that how much you eat or is that your net calorie goal? Do you exercise and eat back some calories?

I would probably add 100 cals/ day every week or two until you get back to what you believe is your maintenance but as Ruthee said, don't be alarmed if you do see some scale rebound.

Oh and keep in mind that maintenance is a range, of both calories and scale weight. I maintain in a range of 118-122 and I eat between 2000-2300 cals.

SideSteel wrote: »

Not currently reversing but I've done both fast and slow reverse diets before and I've reversed a few clients out of deficits as well.

I agree with your previous comment too, reversing is a great way to attempt to find a reasonable maintenance target too.

SideSteel wrote: »

samoshka wrote: »

SideSteel wrote: »

Not currently reversing but I've done both fast and slow reverse diets before and I've reversed a few clients out of deficits as well.

I agree with your previous comment too, reversing is a great way to attempt to find a reasonable maintenance target too.

Can you tell me about your experience of fast vs slow reversing? I thought I'd do slow just to be on the safe side, but it's interesting to know..

Certainly.

First of all I think "fast" and "slow" are somewhat context dependent.

For example I know at least one bodybuilding prep coach who, at least at one point, was having people reverse at a rate of about 5g cho per week. I only mention that because I've actually seen the emails between coach and client.

This is ridiculously slow and the only possible context I could see for this would be someone who is near theoretical maintenance levels and already feeling great and you're just trying to slowly increase calorie intake to see if someone can maintain on a higher calorie level than they are currently at. Now whether or not this is even possible to do is a separate discussion but the context is relevant.

In Alan Aragon's review on reverse dieting that he did in his AARR, he proposed that most people, especially those who are completing a contest diet, should try to return to maintenance levels within two weeks of the end of the dieting phase. The logic behind this is that you're physiologically and psychologically behind the 8-ball so to speak. Hormones get out of whack, you're incredibly food focused, and quite honestly you're in a position where maintaining leanness is NOT and should not be the goal.

By most standards the above (2 weeks to get to maintenance) is probably safe to call a "fast" reverse.

I don't work with physique athletes. I work with a mix of general population fitness enthusiasts who are able to cut and bulk, people with obesity who have been chronically dieting and are just looking to establish better habits to allow them to adhere to diet and exercise to improve health, and a few novice and intermediate level powerlifters who compete.

And that context matters because generally I'm not dieting people down to extreme levels of leanness.

I have a female client who is very good at adhering to diet, she is probably around 18% body-fat currently (lean for non competitive) and she's almost done dieting. For her, I'm going to make an initial jump in calories around ~200 give or take, give it a week, then add in about 100-150 until we reach projected maintenance. Probably 3 weeks of reversing. I'm going to err on slightly under-shooting maintenance provided she's feeling good because for HER, seeing the scale go up is probably going to cause some slight panic. This is also the type of client where, if we do ever go on a bulk, it's going to be a very very slow one, slower than what you'd normally do because of her preferences.




I have a male client who is also an adherence machine who, at the end of his dieting phase, we can make a larger jump initially and go more aggressively because he doesn't care nearly as much. He's also metabolically in a really solid place in that he maintains weight on about 18 calories/lb. For him, if I overshoot maintenance it's not a big deal. This is also the type of client where I'm not as concerned about bulking a bit more on the aggressive side because he is able to lose quite rapidly and on higher calories, so dieting phases are quick.

When I spoke to Eric Helms last week about reverse dieting (he and Menno Henselmans just debated Layne Norton on this, look for this debate on Jeff Nippard's Youtube channel) he had referred to 100 cals/week being somewhat "slow" based on his standards, probably because you're taking an abnormally long time to get to maintenance and he works with more competitive level physique athletes vs general pop. I'll go back and edit this if I'm misrepresenting his position but this is what I recall based on recent discussion.

So after all this long-winded stuff what I'm really getting at is that there is some additional context to consider when it comes to establishing how to handle a reverse diet.