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Reverse dieting means using consistent and incremental caloric increases to get killer muscle-building results. You gradually eat more without gaining fat. I've worked with people as they've packed on double-digit pounds of lean mass without gaining a single percent of body fat. Some even finished their reverse diet leaner than when they began.
At the heart of the reverse diet is the caloric progressive overload. Instead of overwhelming your body with too many calories all at once, you consistently eat just a bit more. It doesn't have to be a ton to be enough. Assuming your training stimulates hypertrophy, adding a few extra calories each week works wonders.
It takes some time for your body, leptin, and metabolism to catch up (read: reach homeostasis) when you start eating more. It's just like when you diet down; your body doesn't reestablish equilibrium overnight. A properly programmed reverse diet takes advantage of this fact.
If you continually out-eat your metabolic rate, you'll gain fat. It's that simple. But when you strategically increase your caloric intake each week, you slowly condition your metabolism to rise. As you eat more and more, your metabolism increases and you're left gaining lean mass without excess body fat.
It's a lot harder to do than it sounds, though. Your eyes may be hungrier than your reverse diet. But you have to nail your numbers through the program to get the most out of it. It takes self control to eat more without eating too much.
[h=3]Programming a Reverse Diet[/h]The programming is simple. Start with a baseline – your current numbers for macros and calories – then increase from there. This approach applies whether you've been dieting down or not. However, if you haven't been dieting, skip week one.
Only use week one if you've been eating below maintenance calories. Why? Because if you're not coming out of a caloric deficit, you won't need this extra bump of a 10% increase from baseline. You'll be starting with a gradual 2-5% increase from the baseline which can help keep you from starting too quickly.
You also need to know your maintenance numbers in order to follow the program. If you're already tracking everything, you're set. If you aren't (and let's be real, everyone gets a little lazy with it during maintenance), start logging your food for a week or two to calculate your daily macro and calorie averages for your baseline numbers. Everybody is a little bit different when it comes to their maintenance numbers, so track your intake and calculate averages rather than just going by a formula, calculator, or website.
[h=4]Week 1[/h]This is the starting point for someone who's been eating in a caloric deficit.
These are just 8 weeks. An actual program would usually last longer. Also, bear in mind these are simply examples. Build your program the way you want using the framework above.
[h=4]Example 1: Aggressive[/h]
[h=4]Example 2: Cautious[/h]
At the heart of the reverse diet is the caloric progressive overload. Instead of overwhelming your body with too many calories all at once, you consistently eat just a bit more. It doesn't have to be a ton to be enough. Assuming your training stimulates hypertrophy, adding a few extra calories each week works wonders.
It takes some time for your body, leptin, and metabolism to catch up (read: reach homeostasis) when you start eating more. It's just like when you diet down; your body doesn't reestablish equilibrium overnight. A properly programmed reverse diet takes advantage of this fact.
If you continually out-eat your metabolic rate, you'll gain fat. It's that simple. But when you strategically increase your caloric intake each week, you slowly condition your metabolism to rise. As you eat more and more, your metabolism increases and you're left gaining lean mass without excess body fat.
It's a lot harder to do than it sounds, though. Your eyes may be hungrier than your reverse diet. But you have to nail your numbers through the program to get the most out of it. It takes self control to eat more without eating too much.
[h=3]Programming a Reverse Diet[/h]The programming is simple. Start with a baseline – your current numbers for macros and calories – then increase from there. This approach applies whether you've been dieting down or not. However, if you haven't been dieting, skip week one.
Only use week one if you've been eating below maintenance calories. Why? Because if you're not coming out of a caloric deficit, you won't need this extra bump of a 10% increase from baseline. You'll be starting with a gradual 2-5% increase from the baseline which can help keep you from starting too quickly.
You also need to know your maintenance numbers in order to follow the program. If you're already tracking everything, you're set. If you aren't (and let's be real, everyone gets a little lazy with it during maintenance), start logging your food for a week or two to calculate your daily macro and calorie averages for your baseline numbers. Everybody is a little bit different when it comes to their maintenance numbers, so track your intake and calculate averages rather than just going by a formula, calculator, or website.
[h=4]Week 1[/h]This is the starting point for someone who's been eating in a caloric deficit.
- Protein: Maintain the same protein intake. A general rule of thumb is one gram per pound of body weight.
- Fats: Increase fat intake 10% from the baseline.
- Carbs: Increase carb intake 10% from the baseline.
- Protein: Maintain protein intake. Towards the end of the reverse diet you may consider slight increases in protein. This can help keep your macronutrient ratios from becoming lopsided, but isn't necessary.
- Fats: Increase fat intake 2-5% from the previous week. This range gives you a chance to customize your plan based on how aggressive you want your program and your particular body type. If you're what's traditionally thought of as an endomorph, your body likely responds well to a high fat diet. So increasing fats by 5% will be a good fit.
- Carbs: Increase carb intake 2-5% from the previous week. Again, this range gives you a chance to personalize your program. If you're a hard-gaining ectomorph, you want to eat a lot of carbs. So increasing carbs by 5% will be a good fit.
- Tweak your program to something less aggressive and reevaluate.
- Stop the program and maintain your caloric intake.
These are just 8 weeks. An actual program would usually last longer. Also, bear in mind these are simply examples. Build your program the way you want using the framework above.
[h=4]Example 1: Aggressive[/h]
