Reverse diet PART TWO (length, issues, fat gain)
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Now that you know HOW to reverse diet (see previous post), we need to discuss length.
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🧭Length of the reverse is however long it takes you to get to your maintenance calories. If you go a bit faster, you’ll reach maintenance faster but i always recommend a slower reverse (about 50-75 cals/week) in order to minimize fat gain.
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You NEED to be in a reverse or at maintenance for as long as you were dieting!
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👌🏻So if you dieted down for 4 months then you need to be reversing & maintaining for 4 months. Ideally we should spend the majority of our year at maintenance to replenish our hormones!
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❎So many times women try to reverse diet for 6-12 weeks, barely meet their maintenance and then try to cut again simply to lose 2-5 lbs.
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💪🏻If you just stayed at maintenance and continued to crush your workouts with progressive overload (talked about in a post a few posts back) then you WILL see changes
….AND you won’t be as hangry & tired and want to give up lol.
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😓I took a poll asking how long people stayed at maintenance before cutting again or giving up and most people said 1-3 months which is not long enough.
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💕More women NEED to track at maintenance so they can understand what their body really needs!
If you’ve always only tracked in a deficit then you’ll always be starving because you’re body is literally burning more than it’s taking in.
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😅Biggest issue: people give up WAY too fast or freak out when the scale jumps up 1-3 lbs. Look at all of the factors:
-was that your average for the week or just one day?
-did you travel a lot?
-did you not track for a few days (aka over eat) so now the scale is showing water and sodium retention?
-have your workouts been better since eating more = increased MUSCLE.
This is not true “fat gain”.
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Tomorrow I’m going to talk about MAINTENANCE tracking & why it’s so important.
What are your questions? Tag a friend who’d benefit from this!