In this post:
- Dieting ourselves fat.
- What is reverse dieting?
- Why is reverse dieting important?
- Who needs to reverse diet?
- How to reverse diet.
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Dieting Ourselves Fat
Typical scenario after a bodybuilding contest for many competitors; diet down super lean, hit the stage and then celebrate by eating like a pig for 3 or more days and gain 20+ pounds very quickly. I have seen it time and time again. Women cut for a bikini or figure contest, do well and then for the next 2 weeks eat everything and anything gaining back more weight than when they had even started training for a competition.
This also holds true for those that diet on a low calorie diet for longer periods of time and then go back to pre diet calories once they reach their weight loss goals.
Can these people turn around and diet that fat back off? NO. Why you ask… well, the metabolism has slowed and adapted over time to the caloric deficit created through cutting calories, lifting and cardio. You need to give the metabolism time to reach normal levels again. This, BTW, is how america diets itself fat- yo-yo, yo-yo, yo-yo.
We diet down, our metabolism adapts. We do back to eating higher calories and gain back that weight plus some. Then we try and diet again, slowing the metabolism further making it harder to lose weight so we diet harder, slowing the metabolism even more. We then go back to eating higher calories gaining back weight and then some. And the cycle continues.
You are fighting your body’s survival mechanisms to lose fat. But, it’s not healthy or necessary to take in lower calories forever! That would be super sucky. So, you can reverse diet those cals back up while keeping that hot bod.
What is a reverse diet?
Reverse dieting, simply put, is a transition period from a caloric deficit into caloric maintenance or surplus. The goal is to maintain a leaner physique, make gains and eat more. It’s a transition where you add calories and decrease cardio.
Why is reverse dieting important?
- Re-establish a healthy metabolism after a long term caloric deficit.
- Accurately determine what your maintenance intake is.
- Eat more food. Along with that comes the hormonal and performance benefits.
- Non- competitor dieting: maintain your goal weight
- Contest prep dieting- get back to a normal body fat level and ramp up metabolism through the off season making cutting just as, if not more effective the next time around.
Who needs to reverse diet?
- If your caloric deficit exceed 300-500 calories below maintenance.
- Anyone that has been on a low calorie diet (according to the NIDDK that means a woman: 1,000-1200 cals or men: 1,200-1600 cals, Ref. 1) or a very low calorie diet (less than 1,000 cals) for long periods of time. A very low calorie diet is not recommended for individuals other than an obese person under medical supervision. A calorie deficit can be created by cardio, strength training and eating less.
- Anyone who has been dieting and their weight has plateaued. A plateau is technically when your weight has stalled for 3 or more weeks. Please note that you may be gaining muscle and leaning out depending on your program and several other factors (see more here: Build Muscle While Losing Fat : Fallacy or Fact? ). So compare pics every 4 weeks, track body composition and try not to get too hung up on the scale.
- Just plain anyone that needs to get calories up! You may be trying to stay at 1800 calories to maintain when you could be eating 2500 calories and staying at the same body fat level. (I see this a lot).
Many bodybuilding competitors, will reverse diet after their contest. If a competitor has reached their desired leanness weeks before a contest, they will reverse into a show.
How to do reverse diet
Reverse dieting, in my opinion- which I am pretty sure is shared by the majority of people who have done this, is harder than cutting into a show. Getting into the gym is easy, keeping yourself from eating the extra cals your not supposed to feels like this:
…but after a contest, when you don’t have that show hanging over your head where you will be in a very tiny competition suit on stage in front of a zillion people, well, what is stopping you from eating that giant ass scoop of ice cream?
and before you know it, you’re like
If you dieted slowly on no more than a 300-500 calorie restriction losing no more than 1 pound per week keeping a 1x per week cheat meal in, your metabolism will most likely be in good shape. Regardless, reverse dieting is optimal to staying leaner.
A reverse will vary from person to person and from coach to coach. Here are the basics:
For bodybuilders, after a contest, eating a fun meal that night totally deserved! The day after your contest just relax and eat until you are full but, you don’t want to go bananas and eat until your are overly full all day long. Now, this is easier said than done, I know. It is hard to not eat everything “just because you can” which can be common as you have been restricted for months and eating like a pig is a mental and physical break.
Decreasing the deficit. You have to remember you create a caloric deficit from cutting calories and adding cardio. You must reverse both and take them into account. Here are some general guidelines but it is very individual and you will need to monitor.
Week 1
To reverse after a bodybuilding show, I usually make the biggest changes in week 1 of reverse. Your body is depleted and in need of rest and added calories. Of course some weight gain will happen and is needed. Shoot for gaining about 10 pounds over stage weight over time.
I like to cut cardio in half and add about 30-80 carbs and some fat if it was lower such as being in the 25-40 gram per day range.
Week 2
If your weight has come up a lot from week 1, stay on week 1’s diet plan or just decrease cardio.
If your weight hasn’t come up or has only come up a few pounds, for week 2, add food or decrease cardio, or a little of both.
Try adding some carbs (10-30g) or fat (5-10g per day that week). Some people can add both some can’t. You may also be able to take out a small amount of cardio such as 10-15 min of cardio for 2 – 3 sessions, or 2-4 HIIT intervals.
Keep in those cheat or reefed meals each week if you can. Again, a cheat meal until you are comfortably full (1 meal, not all day) or a structured refeed will depend on how your body handles the reverse.
Following weeks
The above plan will go on week by week, monitoring weight, taking out cardio and adding back carbs or fat. You can reverse by decreasing cardio one week, adding cals the next or doing both in one week. Protein usually stays the same but can also be manipulated.
Planning to reverse in 4-8 weeks is a good average. Get used the the idea of feeling fat come back on your body. You need it!!! 10-15 pounds over stage weight is a good number to shoot for.
Note that there are 4 calories per gram of carbs, 4 calories per gram of protein and 9 calories per gram of fat.
It is a good idea to keep cardio to a minimum in the off season. Your body will respond better to your next contest prep.
How to reverse diet in the off season and for general population: the alternating HIIT program
So what if I told you that you could burn fat, increase calories and keep steady state cardio to nothing?
This particular method I am about to tell you about is MONEY in the off season for mesophoric and endomorphic body types. I use this on clients prior to a prep most of the time and on clients that need to lose fat and gain muscle for everyday fitness goals.
Far too often I get emails from women that want to lose fat and build muscle but they are only eating 1200 or 1300 or even 1500 calories, strength training and doing a bunch of steady state cardio like running or elliptical each week.
This client below went from her maintenance of 1500 calories to 1750 calories and still going strong. We reversed out daily morning fasted steady state cardio of an hour everyday to a few sessions per week. She lifts 4 days per week and does the alternating HIIT program. Weight has gone from 136.6 to 132 no less.
How can you beat that!!??
Depending on where you currently are, you may not want to just jump into this program right away. You may need to reverse steady state cardio out first and make sure you are in shape enough to handle 3 HIIT intervals for 6-7 days in a row.
The alternating HIIT program works is this: Do 3 HIIT intervals (20-30 seconds hard, 60-90 seconds rest 3x) everyday for 6-7 days. Lift as you usually would. Then for the next 7 days, do no cardio but keep lifting as usual. On the HIIT weeks you can add calories and keep eating those calories through the non HIIT weeks. Some of my clients I do have a few steady state sessions on the non-HIIT weeks while in transition too. My coach and mentor John Gorman came up with this program and did an informal study with 30 of his clients.
Why its so important to reverse and set up a good off season plan!
The following are some excellent examples of an optimal prep having set up a great off season. This doesn’t happen for every one that has followed this program as there are many factors that go into weight loss (age, hormones, history, stress, lifestyle, sticking to the plan etc).

Jenny responded excellent to her prep, was ready early and we reverse dieted into her show with a weekly refeed, eating 190 carbs, 35 fats and 140 protein a day and two 4 interval HIIT sessions per week. No steady state cardio. Post show, she has comfortably maintained 5 pounds above her stage weight in the last year.

Angela responded well and reverse dieted into her show eating 225 carbs per day, 40 fats, 150 protein per day, two 4 interval HIIT sessions per week with weekly refeed days.
This is a small sample of how reverse dieting with the alternating HIIT protocol has set my clients up for a very successful prep and post show reverse. Everyone is very individual and may have to be in a greater deficit than my clients above into a show even though they followed the protocol off season but your prep will be much better off for it!! For those in a healthy body fat range in their off season following this protocol, I have seen 100% success for an incredibly awesome prep with lower cardio and more calories to get super lean.
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Rerences.
- The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). http://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/health-topics/weight-control/very-low-calorie-diets/Pages/very-low-calorie-diets.aspx
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