Reverse diets for slimming & gaining weight

Here is a brief summary:

1. Progressive overload is also applicable to nutrition. Just like training with weights, gradually increasing your calorie intake will help you gain control over your gains without building excessive amounts of fat.
2. If you have just finished a diet, you should not start a traditional bulking phase. Bombarding your body with excess calories after it has been in a calorie deficit will lead to gains in body fat.
3. The body wants to maintain a balance, so rapid increases or decreases in calorie intake will lead to problems.
4. Use reverse dieting to build muscle. Whether you are starting from your maintenance calorie intake or a diet, you can use this to increase your food intake to build muscle rather than fat.

A mass-building phase doesn't have to mean that you have to say goodbye to your abs. In fact, I would go as far as to say that if you increase your body fat percentage by more than 5% during a bulking phase, you are doing something wrong.

Yes, you should eat more calories if you want to build muscle. But it's a problem if you go from 0 to 100 too quickly - and most people do just that. They add hundreds of calories to their diet practically overnight because they think they can build more muscle. But that's not really the case. They just get fat.

A slower increase in calorie intake can make a huge difference. You will continue to build muscle if you train properly, but you will also stay lean at the same time. Here's how it works:

The progressive overload of eating

The principle of progressive overload is a fundamental principle of training with weights. Progressive overload means that you increase your training weights or training volume consistently and gradually. Any training program that is even remotely sensibly designed uses some form of progressive overload. This overload is responsible for you making progress. However, when it comes to nutrition, no one talks about progressive overload. Progressive overload works when you increase the weight on the bar and it also works when you want to build muscle without building excessive amounts of body fat.

How dieting can go wrong

Let's say your maintenance calorie intake is 2500 kcal and you decide to reduce your calorie intake. It goes well, you lose fat, you can maintain your muscles and you get defined. Excellent. Then it's time to go back to your maintenance calorie intake and follow your original 2500 kcal diet, right? However, since you have lost weight, your metabolic rate has also dropped. And if you immediately go back to eating 2500 kcal per day, this can cause you to build up fat.

This downregulation of the metabolic rate is the reason why you see so many people putting on kilos of fat after finishing a super strict diet. They soon return to their starting weight or even get fatter. If even a quick transition to maintenance calories can cause this, imagine what will happen if you go into an extreme bulking phase straight after a diet...

Homeostasis and metabolic rate

Your body is constantly working to maintain a balance - also known as homeostasis. This is a natural process. And this process is also the culprit when it comes to downregulating your metabolic rate during a diet. How? By this process lowering your metabolic rate in an attempt to close the gap caused by your calorie deficit.

One of the key players in this process is the hormone leptin. Leptin regulates your metabolism. When leptin levels are high, your metabolic rate will also be high. However, if leptin levels drop, as is the case when you are in a calorie deficit, then your metabolic rate will also drop. Even if you try to strategically manipulate your leptin levels with refeeds and cheat meals, your leptin levels will drop during a diet. Have you ever noticed that your diet becomes less effective after the first month? This is because your body is working to restore a state of homeostasis by downregulating leptin levels and thereby lowering its metabolic rate.

Even if you feel ready for a ton more food after a strict diet, your body is not ready for it. And if you go from a state of calorie deficit to a rampant bulking phase, bombarding your slow metabolism with an abundance of calories, it can only go wrong - unless you do it right.

Reverse dieting for fat-free mass gains

Reverse dieting means using a consistent and incremental increase in calorie intake to achieve superior muscle-building results. You gradually eat more without building fat. I've worked with people who have built lean body mass in the double-digit pound range without increasing their body fat percentage by even 1%. Some have even finished their reverse diet leaner than when they started.

The key point of reverse dieting is progressive calorie overload. Instead of overloading your body with too many calories at once, you simply eat a bit more consistently. It doesn't have to be a ton of food to be enough. Assuming that your workout stimulates hypertrophy, a few extra calories each week can do wonders.

It takes time for your body, leptin and metabolism to catch up (keyword homeostasis) when you start eating more. It's just like when you diet to lose fat - your body doesn't restore its balance overnight. A properly planned reverse diet uses this fact to its advantage.

If you chronically eat more than your metabolism uses, then you will build up fat - it's as simple as that. But if you strategically increase your calorie intake each week, you are conditioning your body to slowly increase its metabolic rate. As you eat more and more, your metabolic rate will increase and you will build lean mass without an excessive build-up of body fat.

Doing this in practice is much harder than it sounds. Your eyes will be hungrier than your reverse diet. You need to stick to your numbers during the program to get the most out of it. It takes self-control to eat more without overeating.

Planning a reverse diet

The planning is simple. Start at the baseline - your current amount of macronutrients and calories - and increase your intake from there. This approach works whether you've just finished a diet or not. However, if you have not been dieting, you should skip week 1.

Only use week 1 if you have eaten below your maintenance calorie level. Why? If you're not coming out of a calorie deficit, you don't need that extra 10% increase from baseline. Instead, you will start by gradually increasing calories by 2 to 5% at a time from baseline, which will help prevent you from increasing calories too quickly.

You will also need to know your maintenance calorie amount in order to follow this program. If you are already monitoring your calorie intake, then you have everything you need. If not, document your food intake for one to two weeks to calculate your daily macronutrient intake and your average calorie intake for your maintenance calorie amount. When it comes to maintenance calories, everyone is a little different, so you should monitor your food intake and calculate your averages rather than simply using a formula or calculator on some website.

Week 1

This is the starting point for someone who has been in a calorie deficit.

• Protein: Maintain the same amount of protein. A general rule of thumb is about 2 grams per kilogram of body weight.
• Fats: Increase fat intake by 10% compared to baseline.
• Carbohydrates: Increase the amount of carbohydrates by 10% compared to the initial value.
• Maintain the previous amount of protein. Towards the end of the reverse diet, you can consider increasing your protein intake slightly. This can help you maintain your macronutrient ratios, but is not absolutely necessary.
• Increase your fat intake by 2 to 5% each week compared to the previous week. This range gives you the opportunity to customize your plan based on your body type and how aggressive you want to be. If you are what would traditionally be called an endomorph, then your body will likely respond well to a high-fat diet. So increasing your fat intake by 5% would be a good choice in this case.
• Increase your carbohydrate intake by 2 to 5% each week compared to the previous week. This range also gives you the opportunity to personalize your plan. For example, if you are an ectomorph who finds it difficult to build muscle, you should eat more carbohydrates. In this case, increasing your carbohydrate intake by 5% would be a good choice.

Every following week

Follow the reverse diet until you start to build up too much body fat ("too much body fat" means something different for everyone). When you reach this point, you have two options:

1. Adjust your program to be a little less aggressive and reevaluate your status.
2. End the program and maintain your calorie intake.

Aggressive and conservative examples

Let's say Bob has just finished a diet and is eating 175 grams of protein, 125 grams of carbohydrates, 85 grams of fat and 1965 total calories. Bob now wants to build muscle without putting on fat. Below are two examples of the calculations for a reverse diet for Bob.

Example 1 is a more aggressive program with an increase in fat and carbohydrate intake of 5% per week. Example 2 is a more conservative program with an increase in fat and carbohydrate intake of 2% per week.

This is only 8 weeks. A true reverse diet would usually last longer. Also, keep in mind that these are just simple examples. Build your program using the guidelines above in the way that suits you best.

Example 1 - Aggressive

	Protein	Carbohydrates	fat	Total calories
Start	175	125	85	1965
Week 1	175	138	94	2092
Week 2	175	144	98	2161
Week 3	175	152	103	2234
Week 4	175	159	108	2311
Week 5	175	167	114	2391
Week 6	175	175	119	2476
Week 7	175	184	125	2565
Week 8	175	193	132	2658

Example 2 - Cautious

	Protein	Carbohydrates	fat	Total calories
Start	175	125	85	1965
Week 1	175	138	94	2092
Week 2	175	140	95	2119
Week 3	175	143	97	2148
Week 4	175	146	99	2177
Week 5	175	149	101	2206
Week 6	175	152	103	2236
Week 7	175	155	105	2267
Week 8	175	158	107	2298

Reverse diet vs. traditional mass building

Start today to build the body you want tomorrow. If you want to build kilos of muscle, try reverse dieting instead of haphazardly eating more than your body can use. You'll end up muscular and strong, but you'll stay lean at the same time.

Let the games begin.

By Benjamin Johnson

Source https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/how-to-bulk-and-keep-your-abs