Oh my goodness, if I could scream something from the rooftops, after Jesus Lives - it would be this!
Reverse Dieting is the saving grace for under preforming metabolisms.
After dieting for years, or constantly trying to lose weight and being unsuccessful, or having difficult rebounds, the reality is that our metabolisms have adapted and suffered through this cycle. When you end a fat loss phase, your body has adapted to whatever you are doing at that point. Most of the time this means very low calorie and a lot of cardio. When you then eliminate cardio and skyrocket calories, your body responds negatively because your metabolism is matched with a much lower calorie count because of your previous diet. So in order for your metabolism to fight to keep up with the caloric jump, you store body fat from the immediate caloric surplus. Well we don't want to eat the amount of calories we ended our diet with to maintain weight loss right? So at that point, how am I supposed to eat more and maintain my body weight? Reverse Dieting. Like I said before, our bodies are adaptive. Your body wants to stay at homeostasis. Our bodies only change when we force them to. In order to raise our metabolisms we need to start adding back in calories at such a slow pace, our metabolism is able to keep up with the increase in food. Almost tricking your body into maintaining weight on a little more food each week, so the increase almost becomes unnoticed. For example, I would start raising my food each week by raising my carbohydrate and fat intake by 3%-5% each week. Even though I am increasing food, it is at such a slow pace it can minimize if not eliminate fat gain. However, reverse dieting a lot of times can be more mentally challenging than a diet itself. It is very different to be focused on increasing calories and maxing out your metabolism aside from fat loss or muscle gain. Even though it is very possible to gain muscle in a reverse diet, the primary goal is to increase calories. If you are currently eating very low calorie and maintaining your weight, I would highly recommend a reverse diet. I understand that most people have a goal to lose weight, however you simply can't do it healthy if you are not eating enough BEFORE your diet starts. Sometimes putting off a short term goal to have success for a long term goal is the most optimal.
Remember that the more food you maintain your weight on, the more food you can lose weight on.
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