3 Signs It’s Time to Stop a Reverse Diet
If you’re 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!
A reverse diet is the process of adding more calories back into your daily intake in an effort to speed up your metabolism. This is not something that is followed in hopes to lose weight but rather to repair the metabolism.
A reverse diet means 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, and are now eating upwards of 600 calories from where you started- great! You may feel uncertain as to how/when to stop the gradual increase?
I generally see two major signs in clients telling me it’s time to stop a reverse diet:
When the client is maintaining weight on a substantially higher amount of calories and substantially lower amount of cardio.
When the client feels relatively full on a day to day basis
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 journey.
Remember, the maintenance phase is SUPER important after a reverse diet. I usually recommend 2-6 months. The longer you can stay in maintenance, the better your body will respond to a cut so patience is key!
You want to allow your body and metabolism to reach a comfortable homeostasis before you drop your calories back down to cut some body fat, if that’s your goal, of course.