Reverse diet: Commonly called diet after the diet.

Reverse dieting avenues you the opportunity to eat more food, and at the same time prevent weight gain after completing a successful weight loss program. It sounds so good to be true and almost sounds impossible but in this article, you will learn all there is to know about reverse dieting and also how to achieve reverse dieting results.

What Is Reverse Dieting?

Reverse dieting is the gradual process of increasing an individual’s calorie intake without greatly increasing body weight or body fat. This increase occurs over a few weeks or months and it’s done with the primary aim of increasing metabolism and preventing regain of fat. This is best described as “reverse dieting to lose weight“.

Reverse dieting burst into the scene when athletes especially bodybuilders started using this method to prevent the gain of fat after competitions. Normally, after competitions which involved strict food-eating regulations athletes tend to deviate from these rules and consume more food. This was important in that it availed them the opportunity to consume more while preventing fat gain. Due to its success, it became very popular amongst non-bodybuilders.

Reverse dieting revolves around the principles of metabolic rate. Reverse dieting involves slowly increasing metabolic rate by gradually increasing calorie consumption.

In basic terms, an individual who consumes a lot of calories but has a low metabolic rate will gain weight while an individual with a high metabolic rate will find it difficult to gain weight. The body in itself is very adaptive, a term called Thermogenesis describes the ability of the body to adjust its metabolic rate to match an individual’s consumption.

With reverse dieting, you can increase your calorie intake in a controlled manner, reduce your hunger levels and prevent weight gain.

We are all humans and we all act alike, most people who have completed a diet develop a feeling of freedom and begin to consume a lot of food, this is mainly because most diet plans don’t teach healthy food choices and sustainable living habits.

Here Is A Little Recap: after completing a successful diet plan, an individual’s body has a low metabolic rate, so consuming an increased number of calories immediately after coming out of a strict diet can cause an individual to gain weight because of the low metabolic rate developed during the diet phase. a reverse diet offers a solution which involves slowly increasing calorie consumption over some time for the body to adjust.

Is Dieting The Best Option?

No – And I’ll tell you why

It is very difficult to maintain a diet plan because it is almost impossible to ignore the feeling of hunger and maintaining a very strict diet can cause you to be irritable. It’s advised to instead adopt better life choices which can include

• Eating only healthy fats and increasing fibre consumption.
• Increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed.
• 7-8 hours of sleep per day
• Finding other ways to come with stress e.g therapy
• Exercising your body frequently.

How Reverse Dieting Works

It usually involves increasing weekly consumption by 50-150 calories for about 10 weeks to get to pre-diet calorie intake or any desired goal. Before you proceed you will have to decide if you want a conservative or a rather aggressive method.

A conservative approach will involve you increasing your calorie margin by a much smaller percentage to give your body much more time to adjust and this will prevent weight gain. This can involve you increasing your calorie intake by 4-5%.

An aggressive approach on the other hand is great for people who want to get back their energy levels as soon as possible. This will involve you increasing your calorie intake by 15-20% in the first week, it’s best not to overdo it but a 15% increase is best and then increase it further by 5% for the remaining weeks.

It is particularly difficult for women with busy schedules to lose weight and having a designated fitness coach can jumpstart your weight loss journey.

Natalie Hayes is a fitness coach for women who has a track record of helping women achieve their set fitness goals.
In conclusion, after undergoing a successful diet plan, you don’t want to jump right back into eating unhealthy as this will make your months of hard work of dieting turn to waste. Instead, you should train your body and adapt your metabolism to prevent weight gain.