Many claim reverse diets can fix a “damaged” metabolism, improve unfavorable hormonal changes, reduce weight regain, and make future weight loss easier. Are those claims true and should you reverse diet after your next cut?

The short answer… it depends 🤷‍♀️

First of all, what is a reverse diet? In short it’s a gradual increase in calories following a dieting phase (as opposed to jumping right back to maintenance calories).

People often claim that reverse diets are superior because they fix a “damaged” metabolism, improve unfavorable hormonal changes associated with fat loss, reduce the likelihood of weight regain, and make future weight loss easier as a result of these favorable metabolic and hormonal changes.

So if that’s true, shouldn’t I reverse diet?!

Yes… if those claims were true… which they’re not 🤦‍♀️

When we diet we do experience metabolic and hormonal adaptations both from presence of an energy deficit and second from the loss of fat tissue.

But what is an adaptation? It’s just your bodies way of adjusting to an altered state. And when the altered stimuli are removed (i.e. we’re no longer in a calorie deficit and/or we regain body fat), those adaptations will go away on their own… whether we reverse diet or not.

Reverse dieting doesn’t fix a damaged metabolism (because it wasn’t damaged in the first place) and it also doesn’t supercharge your metabolism or prevent weight regain following a deficit.

This doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t reverse diet. It just means you shouldn’t do it for those reasons. A reverse diet can be helpful if…

It feels mentally easier for you and helps improve dietary adherence as a result. For some people the idea of jumping right back to maintenance after a cut is scary and reverse dieting assuages those fears and leads to high levels of consistency.

It helps you find your true maintenance. When we diet our TDEE (i.e. maintenance calories) will decrease. So if your maintenance pre-diet was 2200 and you jump right to that after your cutting phase, you might actually end up in a calorie surplus. So reversing slowly can help you find your new maintenance range

Jumping back to maintenance is easier and more effective than a reverse diet but as always, nothing is that black and white. It’s all about what works for you!

Train With Moxie