How to Know When to Stop a Reverse Diet?

If you’re already well versed in what a reverse diet is, you know that your metabolism can be trained to function the way you want, all it takes is some time and patience!

If you aren’t well versed in reverse dieting, let me break it down for you simply:

Reverse Dieting is the process of slowly and methodically increasing caloric intake over time with the goal of improving one’s metabolic capacity.

A Reverse Diet is intended to strengthen the metabolism by increasing how many calories your metabolism can process with the goal of minimal body fat gain. Instead of decreasing calories like a regular “diet,” you do the reverse and gradually add in calories.

Now, let’s say you go through the process over the course of a few months, are now eating upwards of 600 calories from where you started, (hell yes! Nice work!), but feel uncertain as to how/when to stop the gradual increase? This is a common question I get asked when it comes to reverse dieting:

“Coach A, how do we know when to stop a reverse diet? I’m worried!”

The short answer to this question is basically when you are maintaining your weight on a substantially higher amount of calories and substantially lower amount of cardio. Also, when you’re feeling relatively full on a day to day basis, and if the scale is tipping upwards by 2-3 pounds after two consecutive weeks- these are all green lights giving you the sign that it is now time to stop your reverse diet and move into a maintenance phase of your nutrition program.

Remember, the maintenance phase is SUPER important after a reverse diet.

You want to allow your body and metabolism to reach a comfortable homeostasis and strengthen TF out of your new higher metabolic rate before you drop your calories back down to cut some body fat, if that’s your goal, of course.

Got questions? I’m the Reverse dieting Queen!