A year before I sat down to write this article, I didn't know anything about reverse dieting. What I did know was my sporadic attempts to get in shape were too stressful. I'd do a month of committed running here. Six weeks of going to the gym non-stop there. Four weeks without sugar roughly once a year.
I was doing all the right stuff, but in the wrong quantities. Exercise-wise, I was often overdoing it. Diet-wise, I was being too strict, holding myself to a standard I could maintain for about a month, but had no chance of keeping up long term.
I decided to relax a bit. Instead of running 30 miles a week on top of going to the gym and bouldering, I’d fit in runs when I could, opting for HIIT sessions at home if the weather didn't cooperate. When it came to my diet, I allowed myself the proper fuel with which to work out. I’ve never wanted to get in ridiculously good shape—life’s too short. But if I could look something like Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises, I’d be happy.
Strangely, when I weighed myself after a few months of my new regime, I was 13 pounds heavier than I thought I would be. With my belly flab much reduced, I realized for the first time that my new diet had allowed me to put on some muscle. I’d inadvertently bulked up. The next thing was to try and get a bit more toned. Again, by adjusting my diet I managed to shed a few more pounds. I hadn’t bothered to track calories and macros, nor did I speak to a physical therapist. It turns out that I had discovered reverse dieting.
“Reverse dieting is slowly adding more calories back into your diet after a period, generally weeks or months, of calorie restriction,” Chris Antoni, founder of Tailor Made Fitness, says. “The goal is to prevent weight gain, maintain weight loss and restore metabolism.”
Simple enough, right? If you aren’t winging it like me, Antoni recommends increasing your calorie intake by 50–100 calories per week above your baseline, which is the number of calories you’re currently consuming to maintain your weight. Keep doing it until you reach your target weight, or as long as you’re comfortable.
Antoni explains that the good news is that because your protein needs are typically calculated for body weight rather than calorie consumption, it can remain the same throughout the diet.
If you’ve cut calories, you’ll naturally notice your energy levels are flagging—something I really noticed when my usual five-mile run almost defeated me. I tried it again the next day and felt like I was trying back-to-back marathons. Clearly I needed more carbs. That’s not all.
“Increasing your calorie intake may boost metabolism and help your body burn more through non-exercise activity thermogenesis [NEAT], which includes everyday actions like walking, talking, and fidgeting,” says Antoni. In other words, by eating more, you might actually end up burning more calories simply because you now have the energy to move.
“In addition, reverse dieting may normalize levels of circulating hormones, such as leptin, which regulates appetite and body weight,” says Antoni, adding that “research shows that leptin, which is produced and excreted by the fat cells in your body, decreases in response to reduced calorie intake. When leptin levels fall, appetite is increased and calorie burning is reduced. In fact, in a six-month study in 48 people, calorie restriction decreased leptin concentrations by 44%.”
A big one: Antoni says most info around reverse dieting is anecdotal (like this article), and that few studies have been done on it.
By disrupting your body's basal metabolic rate (BMR), you can also risk everything from physical and emotional side effects, like constipation, low energy, nutrient deficiencies, gallstones, slow metabolism and impaired concentration. Personally, I was much more irritable than I had been.
“Reverse dieting also poses the risk of yo-yo dieting, in which you rapidly lose weight and gain weight,” Antoni warns.
If the aim of reverse dieting is to build yourself back up, post-cut—without adding on weight—it makes sense to do it when you’re at your most shredded. Whenever you do it, the key is to do it gradually.
“Since you have been on a calorie deficit, you do not want to start eating loads of calories again all of a sudden,” says Antoni. “If you were eating 1,200 calories per day, over the next week, you will add maybe 50-100 calories taking it to 1,250 or 1,300 calories per day. The next week, you’ll repeat the process. After two weeks, you can add another 50-100 calories, and so on until you get to an intake you’d like to stick to.”
Antoni talks about a client of his, ‘Client X’ who “both struggled and succeeded in a few ways.”
“He struggled most, in terms of not indulging in sugary and higher fatty food that they were trying to avoid, when eating out” at restaurants, says Antoni.
“Checking calories felt like a chore for them, but with apps like MyFitnessPal and a little bit of more knowledge this did subside slightly,” says Antoni. “Peer pressure from friends and family who didn’t have the same goals didn’t help.”
By scaling back and slowly introducing more food, in the end Client X was able to see what foods bloated them or made them feel sluggish, and which foods helped them make better choices.
“This made Client X physically and mentally more happier as they understood their body better,” says Antoni.
Antoni has some advice:
Follow this, and after just one week, Antoni reckons you’ll see improved energy levels.
Don’t worry if it’s not a linear process in terms of progress; it takes four to six weeks for your metabolism to stabilize. By this time, your hunger should be reduced and your mood and concentration levels will have increased.
This story originally appeared on British GQ.