Ever heard of a reverse diet?
We know, it sounds like the punchline to a joke or maybe a euphemism for overindulging your favorite sweets. But it’s a real technique, one that’s growing in popularity.
Reverse dieting is an increasingly popular approach among fitness enthusiasts and those rebounding from restrictive diets. It’s helpful for bodybuilders as they move from bulking to cutting and back, and it may be helpful for everyday fitness enthusiasts as well, especially if:
Here’s what you need to know about reverse dieting and a primary tool for doing it well, the reverse diet calculator.
Originally designed for bodybuilders, reverse dieting is the process of gradually increasing calorie intake and adjusting workouts after a period of pronounced food restriction (cutting or dieting). The goal of a reverse diet isn’t to build muscle or bulk up directly, but to re-ignite the metabolism, which naturally slows during periods of low calorie consumption.
By gradually increasing metabolism through metabolic adaptation, reverse dieters can increase their calorie intake safely to a maintenance phase without rebounding and significantly increasing their body fat percentage.
Reverse dieting is an advanced strategy that you should use carefully. If it’s your first time, we highly recommend working with a guide or trainer rather than going it alone.
Done properly, reverse dieting can deliver both physiological and psychological benefits. It can increase your metabolism, help you push through a weight loss plateau, and help you bulk responsibly (if you’re a bodybuilder). It also encourages a healthier relationship with food and nutrition, which can have cascading psychological benefits (namely, better body image and reduced feelings of deprivation).
Reverse dieting typically follows a period of significant restriction (known as cutting body weight in the bodybuilding world) as a way to safely transition to maintenance and, eventually, bulking muscle mass if desired.
You can use it in other weight loss contexts as well to help maintain fat loss achieved during a diet. Reverse dieting helps people increase their caloric intake in a controlled manner, stimulating their metabolism so that the body burns more calories than it did during the dieting period. This approach helps people avoid rubber-banding or rebounding, gaining significant body fat rapidly.
Reverse dieting is a highly personalized discipline, requiring participants to actively monitor their caloric intake and macronutrient ratios (proteins, fats, carbohydrates), making small adjustments over time to achieve their desired results.
That personalized tracking is where a reverse diet calculator enters the picture.
A reverse diet calculator takes some of the guesswork out of reverse dieting. More than a calorie calculator or a macro calculator, the reverse diet calculator uses information about your body composition, age, activity level, and more to calculate the ideal number of maintenance calories for your body and goals.
Reverse diet calculators do this using a metric called total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). You provide the calculator with some basic information about yourself (age, sex, weight, level of activity, and current caloric intake), and the calculator shows you how many calories you should add to your diet. Some calculators further break this down into weekly increments, stepping you up until you reach the target number of calories.
Remember the target here: to transition smoothly from a calorie deficit (what you’re currently eating) to a stable maintenance level of caloric intake (which will be higher).
Note that no reverse diet calculator is perfect; they just serve as a guide. If your reverse diet goal is entering a maintenance phase, then keep following the calculator’s recommendation until your weight stabilizes. Then stick with that calorie target, even if the calculator thinks you need a few more.
Generally, they are safe to use, with some common-sense caveats. Any aggressive change to diet or caloric intake will impact the body, so it’s wise to proceed with caution — and possibly with the guidance of a healthcare or nutrition professional.
That said, if you’re already going to make a change (such as getting off of a restrictive diet), then reverse dieting is generally a safer and more stable approach than “cold turkey” jumps from severe restriction to full caloric intake (or from cutting to bulking).
If you jump straight from, say, 1,400 calories to 2,100 calories, your metabolism doesn’t have a chance to speed up sufficiently, and you will very likely begin gaining weight and excess body fat. But by stepping up your calorie intake gradually, you should restore your metabolic rate and boost your energy levels.
Most experts agree that reverse dieting should increase all macros if you’re starting from a place of significant restriction. If you’re already getting a healthy amount of protein, however, you may want to start with keeping your protein intake stable while increasing other calorie sources such as carbs and fruits and vegetables.
One more caveat: You should not be overly hungry nor overly full as a result of using a reverse diet calculator. If yours leads you to drastically increase or decrease your caloric intake (to the point of excess or lack), stop and seek guidance from a healthcare professional or nutrition-minded personal trainer.
Reverse dieting isn’t for everyone, but if you’re a good candidate, then using a reverse diet calculator to help the process will deliver numerous benefits.
Because the calculator is based on your specific attributes and goals, it provides individualized caloric and macronutrient targets. Far too many nutrition guides online act like people are one-size-fits-all, but good reverse diet calculators don’t make this mistake.
Because you’re getting tailored recommendations, it’s typically easier to stick to those recommendations. Even if they aren’t perfect, they’re usually attainable and won’t lead to an “I could never do that!” rejection. It’s also often easier to see results and tie them directly to the specific changes you’re making, which further helps people stick to the plan.
A reverse diet calculator is going to give you a number. It doesn’t make demands about when you eat, or even what precisely you eat (though it’s worth mentioning that calories are definitely not all created equal). It just tells you how many calories to add — that’s it.
Adding 65 or 100 or even 200 calories to your daily intake isn’t particularly difficult to track or do. It’s achievable and measurable, which is a part of what makes reverse dieting so attractive. It’s simple and easy to use.
Some calculators can even help you track your progress (and if not, this is easy to do outside the calculator). As you progress through the reverse diet, you’ll notice and track changes in your weight. Keep making adjustments as you go until you find a calorie level that keeps you stable.
Reverse dieting (and the calculator you’re using to do it) will keep you centered on data, not emotions or cravings. And that data will be key to maintaining results.
Using a reverse diet calculator is relatively simple. Here’s what you need to do:
Your calculator will likely ask for some information about yourself, like your age, weight, height, sex, and activity level. You’ll also need to know your current caloric intake.
That last data point is crucial: Reverse dieting assumes that users already track their food intake and already have a set calorie amount that they stick to regularly. If that’s not you, then reverse dieting probably isn’t the right approach. But at a minimum, take a few weeks to measure and stabilize your caloric intake so you can provide a real number here.
Your calculator will then give you a caloric target, as well as a schedule for getting there. For example, if the calculator says you need to increase your daily calories by 400, it might outline adding 100 calories for the first week, then 100 more the second, and so on.
Make sure you stay consistent over this period. Measuring calories is crucial, and so is monitoring progress. If your weight stabilizes (presuming that’s the goal), you’ve hit your stable caloric intake.
If you’ve followed the reverse diet calculator to its final recommended level, then keep monitoring your body’s progress. Are you gaining or losing weight? If change is happening in the right direction, then stick with it! If it’s going the opposite direction from where you want to land, then you may need to raise or lower your calorie intake.
Even once you reach your desired weight and feel like you’re keeping stable, keep checking in and updating the data over time. Small adjustments will be needed as you age, as your life circumstances change (stress, hormonal changes, etc.), and as your workout regimen or goals change.
Reverse dieting can be an effective strategy for some fitness enthusiasts, especially those who have been on a restrictive diet or are working through bodybuilding cycles.
But reverse dieting can be tricky to get right without ongoing guidance. Set your calorie levels incorrectly, and you won’t see the results you want. You may even move in the wrong direction!
A reverse diet calculator can help increase safety and improve results, but working with a personal trainer is an even smarter approach. With trainwell, you get access to experienced trainers and tons of resources that can support effective reverse dieting and holistic health.
Start your journey with trainwell now — free for 14 days, including a 40-minute live consultation with one of our trainers! Sign up now.
