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REVERSE
DIETING
101
Burn More Body Fat,
Build More Muscle By
Eating More Calories
Sal Di Stefano
Co-host of the
Mind Pump Podcast
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The suggestions for specific foods and workouts in this book are not intended as a substitute for consultation with your physician. Individual needs vary, and no diet or nutrition
program will meet everyone’s daily requirements. Prior to starting Reverse Dieting 101,
always see your physician.
©2022 MAPS Fitness Products, LLC. All rights reserved.
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CHAPTERS
01
02
03
Why Diets Have
Failed You
What Is the Reverse
Diet?
Gearing Up for the
Reverse Diet
04
05
06
Nutrient Partitioning:
What to Eat and Why on
the Reverse Diet
Reverse Diet
Examples
Supportive Metabolic
Strategies
07
08
The Reverse Diet
Activity Plan
Life After the Reverse
Diet
Bibliography
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REVERSE DIETING 101
CHAPTER 1: Why diets have failed you
Diets!
There are literally thousands of diets out there, and they
all promise to get you lean and healthy in the fastest or
best way possible. There is a massive range of advice
in all of them, and oftentimes, they are at odds with
each other. Some diets are low-carb and high-fat while
others are low-fat and high-carb. Some are high in
animal protein while others are plant-based or vegan.
You can find a diet that has you drinking celery
juice and there are others that have you drinking
cabbage juice. There are diets based on how people
in the Mediterranean eat and there are others based
on how people in Okinawa or how Seventh Day
Adventists eat. All of them are different and all of them
promise the same thing – fast and effective results.
At any given time, more than a third of Americans are on some sort of diet, with shedding
pounds as the primary motivation, according to Harvard University. Most dieters wind up very
disappointed because, even when successful, lost weight is frequently regained within months.
What Science Says about Dieting
Stalled or unsuccessful weight loss, coupled with weight regain, is incredibly frustrating
and incredibly common. Ninety percent of dieters never get the results they want.
A large statistical study published in the medical journal
BMJ provided scientific evidence that popular diets
definitely don’t work for most of us. Or more accurately,
they are marginally effective for a rather short period
but after about a year, the benefits largely evaporate.
“ NINETY PERCENT OF DIETERS
NEVER GET THE RESULTS
THEY WANT. ”
In this study, researchers analyzed 121 trials involving
approximately 22,000 overweight or obese adults who followed one of 14 popular diets, including
the Atkins diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, DASH, and the Mediterranean diet for an average
of six months. The diets were sorted into one of three categories: low-carbohydrate, low-fat, and
moderate-macronutrient (diets in this group were similar to those in the low-fat group but with
slightly more fat and slightly less carbohydrate).
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REVERSE DIETING 101
Weight loss and cardiovascular measures (including cholesterol and blood pressure) were assessed
while participants were on one of these diets and then compared with the other diets or normal
diets (one in which the person continued to eat as they usually do.) Although weight, blood pressure,
and cholesterol generally improved at the six-month mark, results at the 12-month mark were
disappointing, to say the least.
As for the weight-loss specifics, the low-carb and low-fat diets both resulted in weight loss of about 10
pounds at six months, but most of the dieters regained that lost weight within one year. Dieters in the
moderate macronutrient group tended to drop fewer pounds than those following the other diets. So
basically, the diets worked, but did not lead to permanent results.
Based on this report – and probably your own experiences – I can understand why you’d want to give
up altogether!
DIETS HAVE FAILED YOU!
I’ve worked in the fitness business for more
than 20 years as a personal trainer, so I know
you, and I know how hard you’ve tried. I know
how you feel when you regain pounds, or when
you don’t get or stay lean. You’ve trained with
me. You’ve come to my gym. Thousands of
you have listened to the Mind Pump podcast.
Utterly frustrated, you’ve told me that one week
you’re on a keto diet, the next week you’re
trying out paleo, and the next, you’ve switched
to a carnivore diet. One week you drop five
pounds and fit into your skinny jeans. The
next week, you’ve yo-yoed up 10 pounds and
you’re wearing your baggy sweatpants again.
How has all this happened? The main thing to understand is this: you have not failed. These diets
have failed you, so don’t blame yourself.
Although most weight-loss diets can help you initially lose weight, they can be unsuccessful over the
long run and will fail you - for four major reasons.
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Reason #1: Diets are not sustainable.
In other words, you can’t stick to them. One of the
major reasons diets are not sustainable is because
they cut out entire food groups. Eliminating whole
groups of foods is incredibly restrictive, making it
tough to sustain and causing cravings along the way.
You might eat one or two food groups consistently
or not consume certain food groups at all. This could
be extremely bad for your body because the diet
does not provide enough nutrients for optimal health.
What’s more, once you return to your normal eating
habits (which most people do), chances are that
you will regain all the weight you lost, possibly with
interest.
Also, I bet you look forward to the day you can quit the diet! Some diets take all the enjoyment and
pleasure out of eating by being too restrictive or by practically forcing you to eat something you really
don’t want to eat. I mean, who wants to eat tofu if they can’t stomach it? It’s super easy to give up on
something that is making you miserable, right?
Most diets also prescribe a set of rules to follow while on the diet. Rule-making promotes nonsustainability too because it pushes the idea that the rules need to be followed until your goal is
achieved. Once the diet is over (if you even finish it), it’s easy to slip back into the former habits that
caused you to gain weight in the first place.
Another problem is that some diets require you to spend a lot of money – which can be hard on your
budget long-term. You shouldn’t need special supplements, special (expensive) foods, or equipment
to eat a healthy diet.
To sum up:
•
•
•
•
•
Most diets do not give you enough satisfaction, satiety, or nourishment.
They limit food variety and food quantity, which can bring on cravings and hunger pangs.
They don’t teach or help you make smarter food choices, and these diets can be the very cause of
an unhealthy relationship with food.
They focus on the “how” you gain or lose weight but ignore the “why.”
Nor are any of these diets individualized to your unique physiology. I have yet to see a diet that
works over the long-term or one that is tailored to a person’s preferences or lifestyle.
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Reason #2: Diets exploit a quick-fix mentality.
Many diets promise quick weight-loss. Lose 10 pounds in five
days. Or 20 pounds in a month. And on and on.
With quick-fix, restrictive diets, your appetite increases and your
body holds on to fat stores. You might achieve some weight loss
initially but it’s usually temporary and followed by weight gain
and disappointment. Quick-fix diets are incredibly self-defeating.
“ LOSE 10 POUNDS IN FIVE
DAYS OR 20 POUNDS
IN A MONTH.”
If we bandage our weight problems with quick-fix plans, we won’t solve them. Even if you give into
the quick-fix pitch and it actually works, how likely are you to stick to it? Not very likely (see reason
#1.)
The promise of fast weight loss ultimately prevents you from achieving your goals. Unless your goal is
to shed pounds now and gain them back later, a short-term diet doesn’t make sense.
Quick-fix diets set up unrealistic expectations, make unproven weight-loss promises, and recommend
potentially harmful methods to lose weight. Such diet plans are not healthy and won’t help you
develop behaviors you need to achieve permanent weight loss.
Instead of looking for a quick fix, you need a program that works for life. One that isn’t going to make
you suffer through an unsustainable, self-destructive diet. One that can make eating enjoyable again –
and keep you lean and fit. That is what the Reverse Diet can help you with.
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Reason #3: Diets slow your metabolism and make the body
adapt to reduced calories.
Your metabolism is everything your body does to convert food into fuel. It also maintains your body
temperature. It controls your body’s activities like breathing and the beating of your heart. But when
you go on a calorie-restricted diet, your metabolism changes. Here’s why: The overall change involves
a decline in your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). TDEE is the total amount of calories burned
each day and is made up of four different processes:
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). BMR is the base number of
calories it takes for your body to carry out regular biological
functions such as maintaining body temperature and organ
function during rest. BMR accounts for about 60 percent of
your TDEE. Your basic metabolic rate (BMR) also declines as
you lose weight.
Non-Exercise Adaptive Thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT can be
defined as all the smaller movements you make throughout
the day that aren’t necessarily conscious exercise but do
require energy, examples of NEAT include standing, typing,
cooking, gardening, and even fidgeting or yawning. But when
you’re dieting, calories burned via NEAT also drop. You’re
more lethargic, resulting in less daily movement.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). TEF refers to the number of
calories you burn just to digest the food you eat. For example,
protein has the highest TEF of food, compared to fat and
carbohydrates. TEF drops during dieting too, because you’re
eating less food. TEF comprises about 10
to 15 percent of your TDEE.
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Exercise Activity (EA). This refers to the number of calories
that your body expends within a day for intentional activity.
When you hit the gym, it is considered exercise activity.
When you go for a walk or run, it considered exercise
activity. If you look at exercise activity alone and do NOT
combine it with NEAT, exercise activity typically accounts
for around 5 to 10 percent of the calories you burn in a day.
If you combine all activity (intentional and not), it
will generally end up at around 25 to 30 percent of your
total daily energy expenditure (TDEE), as mentioned earlier.
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When you diet restrictively, working out is tougher because you have less energy available from food
and calories. (If you’ve ever attempted an intense workout on a really low-calorie diet, you know what
I’m talking about.) With less energy available for your workouts, you’ll burn fewer calories through
exercise.
There’s another reason you’ll burn fewer calories with
exercise: As your body gets lighter, it doesn’t need as
much fuel and your metabolism also adapts to rely on
fewer calories.
“ AS YOUR BODY GETS LIGHTER, IT
DOESN’T NEED AS MUCH FUEL. ”
EA comes into play metabolically when people feel they
should do tons of cardio to burn fat. Cardio requires lots
of endurance, little strength, and it expends lots of calories. Your body adapts by getting better at
what it does often, so when you do lots of cardio, your body gets better at endurance and it attempts
to become more efficient with calories so you can go longer with less energy. Combine this with the
fact that cardio requires little strength from muscle, and you send a loud signal to your body that
encourages muscle loss. With muscle loss comes an even greater metabolic slowdown. The best form
of exercise to accelerate your metabolism is resistance
training, which is also superior to cardio for burning fat.
(This is why the Reverse Diet Activity Plan emphasizes
resistance training.) All of these factors contribute to a
what is known as metabolic adaptation (MA).
Metabolic adaption is the process by which the body
alters how efficient it is at turning the food you eat into
energy. MA is an evolutionarily conserved biological
process in response to starvation, and this process makes
a lot of sense when you look at it through the lens of our
prehistoric ancestors.
For example, when food was plentiful, starvation was
not likely. There was no need for the body to store calories as fat for later use, so as many calories as
possible were used to fuel regular biological functions such as organ function and maintaining body
temperature.
But, in times of famine, it was essential that one’s metabolism was extremely efficient, only using the
minimum number of calories to maintain biological homeostasis because the rest must be stored as
fat for later use to prevent starvation.
Another way to look at it is that their bodies were very efficient with calories. Throughout evolution,
when food was scarce, being efficient with calories would have been an advantage.
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But we live in a society where food is plentiful. Our challenge is to abstain from food rather than
find it. This means an efficient, or slow, metabolism has actually become a disadvantage because it
increases the propensity to store fat and all the negative side effects that come with that.
Also, in today’s world, the body perceives a calorie-restricted diet as a type of famine, just like it did in
prehistoric times. As you continue your calorie-restricted diet, your metabolism slows down to adapt
to the lower caloric intake. Put another way, your body is getting smaller as you diet down, and burns
fewer calories as it shrinks. This is inevitable.
A tell-tale sign of a slow metabolism is gaining weight on a relatively low caloric intake, i.e., not eating
that much food and still putting on weight consistently. One of the main bodily responses to a slowed
metabolism is that your body hangs on to fat – which is why you can no longer lose weight or burn fat.
If you can accelerate your metabolism – speed up the way your body burns fuel – then you will have
the major solution to losing weight and keeping it off. What you must do is increase your calories, cut
way back on cardio activity (if you’re a cardio fanatic), and prioritize your resistance training. These
strategies are exactly what the Reverse Diet does
for you. You’ll then be able to quickly burn off the
food you eat and burn any large reserves of fat
cells in your body.
Reason #4: Diets can deplete
muscle mass.
This fact becomes very critical if you are cutting
your calories in an effort to lose weight. Some
studies show that almost half of the weight people
lose through dieting alone is muscle weight,
resulting in a slower metabolism. This leads to
more fat regain after weight loss – because of
dieting-induced muscle loss – and reduces your
physical strength due to muscle loss.
Cutting calories without sending a signal to build muscle and strength will almost always result in
muscle loss. Here is why: Your body is always adapting to its environment. When you cut calories,
your body simply tries to burn less calories, as I’ve noted. An easy way for your body to do this is to
pare muscle down, especially when your body doesn’t get any signals that tell it that it needs strong
muscles. Dieting without resistance training kills muscle and slows your metabolism.
What’s more, dieters end up having to eat even less—forever—if they want to maintain their lower
weight. Could you eat that little forever to maintain your weight loss? Most people can’t, which
again is one of the reasons why diets fail most of the time.
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These side effects can be reduced with resistance training. It
signals the body to build muscle, even when the rest of the body
is operating with reduced calories. As you lose pounds, your
requirement for dietary protein also increases. So, if you eat enough
quality protein, you can help reduce muscle loss.
Instead of depriving your body of the calories and nutrients it needs,
the Reverse Diet, used strategically, will restore and accelerate your
metabolism. The Reverse Diet will also feed your body a nutritionally
balanced food plan that will help you maintain your weight and
muscle mass at optimal levels.
No one wants to get caught in the cycle of losing and gaining
excessive body fat. What you want is permanent fat loss. With the
Reverse Diet, you will lose weight and keep that weight off longer.
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CHAPTER 2: What Is The Reverse Diet?
Clearly, restricting calories has been a mainstay of dieting – and for a logical reason. Any diet that
promotes weight loss MUST contain fewer calories than you burn off. Conversely, any diet that
promotes weight gain must contain more calories than you burn.
There is no getting around this. You could eat the healthiest,
whole food diet of all time, and if it contains too much
energy or too many calories, you will gain weight. All diets
that promote weight loss are essentially “low-calorie” diets.
All diets that promote weight gain are essentially “highcalorie” diets.
“ Any diet that promotes weight
loss must contain fewer
calories than you burn off. ”
However, as I previously pointed out, restricted-calorie diets
can slow your metabolism. A sluggish metabolism means that your body can’t burn fat efficiently. The
excess calories are then stored as body fat. Unless you start eating to restore your metabolism – which
is where the Reverse Diet comes in – your metabolism will remain in slow gear.
Many people are also yo-yo dieters – a condition also known
as “weight cycling.” This describes the pattern of losing weight,
regaining it, and then dieting again. This type of dieting is common
– 10 percent of men and 30 percent of women have experienced
it – as reported in a study by Nutrition Reviews.
In some studies, yo-yo dieting has led to an increased percentage
of body fat, primarily because of a slowed metabolism. During
the phase of yo-yo dieting when someone is regaining pounds,
fat is put on more easily than muscle mass. This means your body
fat percentage can increase over multiple yo-yo cycles. In one
review in Obesity Research & Clinical Practice, 11 out of 19 studies
found that a history of yo-yo dieting predicted higher body fat
percentage and greater belly fat.
Belly fat – technically known as visceral fat - is something you want to avoid. Visceral fat pads your
internal organs, including the heart, and too much of it can lead to harmful conditions such as heart
disease and type 2 diabetes.
The solution to these problems is the Reverse Diet. In the Reverse Diet, you gradually increase your
calories, starting from a base, and add a certain number of calories every few weeks. You support your
eating plan with resistance training (which has been shown in research to fight visceral fat).
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The Reverse Diet – How It Works
On the Reverse Diet, you slowly and strategically
increase your daily food intake with the goal of
boosting your metabolism. Specifically, the diet is
an eating plan that involves gradually increasing
your calories from the right macronutrients—usually
by 50 to 100 calories—over a period of several
weeks or months to reboot your metabolism and
coax your body back into a fat-burning, musclebuilding state. It is also an excellent maintenance
strategy after you’ve lost weight. It helps you ease
back into a normal, healthy eating pattern.
Benefits of The Reverse Diet
Although the Reverse Diet may sound like a sure-fire invitation to regain pounds, the strategy offers
many benefits.
•
Better metabolic adaption. When reverse dieting is done properly, your TDEE and BMR will rise,
resulting in more energy out. Your workout capacity and intensity can increase, too, because there
is more available energy, increasing energy out. NEAT also increases for the same reason, resulting
in more energy out.
•
An overall faster metabolism. With a faster metabolism, you can eat more without gaining
body fat, move less, and stay lean. Sure, you could burn more calories by working out more, but
wouldn’t it be awesome to just burn more calories and more fat automatically? That’s what reverse
dieting does for you.
•
Muscle weight gain. Don’t panic when you hear “weight gain.” This gain is primarily muscle,
provided you follow a consistent program of resistance training. (See the Activity Plan in Chapter
7.)
•
A better fat burn with more calories. After you speed up your metabolism with the Reverse Diet,
you can return to a calorie-cutting mode and achieve even greater fat loss but with higher calories
than would have occurred had you not reversed dieted.
•
Improved appetite and cravings control. Restrictive dieting decreases leptin, the hunger hormone
that signals your body that you’re full. Because you won’t be cutting calories on the Reverse Diet,
your hunger and fullness signals will normalize, and you’ll be less likely to give into cravings
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•
Hormonal balance. That fact that you’ll no longer be restricting calories helps restore hormonal
balance in your body. You’ll be supplying your body with nutrients that are the building blocks of
hormones, such as testosterone (a key male hormone) and estrogen (a key female hormone).
One of the fundamental hormones of the human body, testosterone, is responsible for many functions. It helps build strength, is responsible for libido, and helps give us the drive we need to
accomplish our goals. Although testosterone is known as the “male hormone,” it is also an important
hormone for women. Testosterone, by the way, can be depleted with chronic, restrictive dieting.
In women, an estrogen balance is key to fat loss, since an imbalance impacts the ability to burn fat and
to develop and retain muscle.
Both hormones respond well to resistance training, which increases lean muscle mass, builds
metabolism, and burns more fat. They also respond to a higher intake of certain macronutrients, which
you increase on the Reverse Diet. Dietary fats, primarily, serve as building blocks for testosterone and
estrogen. You can consume high-quality grass-fed meats, wild-caught fish, and eggs to obtain these
fats (as well as proteins), along with plant-based fats such as nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, and so
forth.
Increasing quality nutrients is especially important for women who are still cycling (having their
periods) in order to prevent amenorrhea, which is an absence of menstruation. When women go on a
restricted diet, they risk nutritional deficiencies that in turn reduce their production of estrogen. Their
periods can stop. Fortunately, amenorrhea can be treated with lifestyle changes, including weight
regain through a healthy, higher-calorie diet.
•
Greater nutrient density. If you’re short on nutrients due to caloric restriction, your body won’t
function at its best due to nutrient deficiencies. Essentially, you’ll feel and potentially look MUCH
WORSE than you should. Your hormones will be out of whack. Your gym performance will suffer.
Your metabolism will suffer.
The Reverse Diet helps remedy this because it is a “nutrient-dense” plan. Nutrient density refers to the
number of nutrients per calorie in a food. Prioritizing foods with a higher nutrient density will ensure
you get enough amino acids, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and fatty acids from the food you eat. The more
nutrients you consume, the better you will feel mentally and physically.
•
Improved relationship with food. As I mentioned earlier, most diets lead to an unhealthy
relationship with food. For example, you avoid or restrict foods that are “bad” for you. Or you have
developed a long list of rules surrounding the foods you can and cannot eat. You feel stressed
when eating in social settings due to fear of choosing “bad” foods. You feel guilty if you eat
something not allowed on your current diet. You may even find yourself bingeing on restricted
foods.
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The Reverse Diet can help you achieve a positive, healthier relationship with food – one that involves
having unconditional permission to eat foods that make you feel good physically and mentally.
Although you want to choose mostly nutritious foods, no foods are off-limits, and you feel no guilt
upon eating foods that are typically labeled “good” or “bad.”
Who Should Follow the Reverse Diet?
Reverse dieting evolved from the aftermath of fitness and bikini competitions, in which competitors
would diet down so stringently with a severely calorie-restricted diet and overdo cardio that,
afterward, their metabolism would virtually shut down. A return to normal eating after the competition
would result in rapid, undesirable weight and fat gain. To prevent this, their coaches came up with the
idea of reverse dieting.
As a result of dieting—especially if it is a restrictive diet—your metabolism takes a beating. Remember,
the body starts to adapt, slowing down your metabolism in an effort to conserve energy. This
becomes problematic when you want to return to a normal diet and try to maintain your weight loss.
When you try to eat normally again, your body piles on the pounds rather quickly.
You can turn this metabolic situation around with the Reverse Diet. It has practical applications for
many different types of people:
•
Bodybuilders, fitness competitors, bikini contestants,
and any type of athlete who drastically diets to get “cut”
or make weight for a competition. The Reverse Diet can
help you resume a normal eating pattern afterwards,
without the possibility of a large weight gain. Basically,
you reverse the steps you took to get competition ready,
eating more calories rather than tapering them down.
You’ll also gradually reduce your cardio and focus on
resistance training. All of this allows your metabolism to
adapt upward over time.
•
Perpetual dieters. The Reverse Diet is also useful for anyone who has dieted stringently by
slashing calories, has gone on habitual crash diets, or is a yo-yo dieter.
•
Slow metabolizers. If someone has a “slow metabolism,” this means that their body burns calories
very slowly, and this thus makes it difficult for them to burn fat. In other words, they have an
efficient calorie-burning body, not unlike a hybrid electric car. Efficient does not mean “good”
or “positive”; it means that there is a slowdown in calorie-burning. The Reverse Diet trains your
metabolism to run faster. By gradually increasing your calories, you kick your metabolism into
higher gear.
•
People who want to maintain their weight loss. The Reverse Diet is an excellent post-diet solution
that helps you transition to a more normal calorie intake, heals your metabolism, and helps keep
your weight off once you’ve lost it.
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No matter which category you fall into, eventually, you’ll hit a calorie intake where you feel energized,
perform well in the gym, and are gaining some muscle—all while minimizing fat gain.
Do NOT Follow The Reverse Diet If …
You have a naturally fast metabolism, and you can
generally eat large quantities of food without gaining
weight. It may even be challenging for you to put on
muscle mass. In the fitness world, we refer to you as a
“hardgainer.”
Generally, true hardgainers tend to need to eat at least
1000 calories above their maintenance level in order to see
the scale move up. Hardgainers build muscle at an even
slower rate than most people and require a larger calorie
surplus than average people to do so.
If you are a hardgainer, and struggling to put on size, you most likely need to eat more food most of
the time, not just periodically as is recommended on the Reverse Diet. Your metabolism is so revved
up you most likely need to eat twice as much as the average person. It may help to track your food
just to ensure you are getting enough each day.
But Will I Gain Weight?
I hear you. This is the BIG question I get asked all the time
about the Reverse Diet. The answer is that you might gain
a little weight, but, if you’ve done the diet properly and
prioritized resistance training, the additional pounds will be
lean attractive muscle.
To put this in a real-world perspective, I like to tell the story of
my former client, Shelly, an experienced bikini competitor.
While Shelly was prepping for her ninth show, her body
stopped getting leaner and fat would not budge, regardless
of what she did. In fact, she was gaining body fat, despite
doing 90 to 120 minutes of cardio every day and following
a very restricted diet that consisted of broccoli, lean chicken,
and tilapia.
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Basically, her metabolism had adapted and slowed down to a crawl. To “fix” her body, she had to do
what many people feel is unthinkable: cut her cardio way down and start eating more.
That’s exactly what we did. I changed her exercise program and placed a special emphasis on
building strength, and I slowly increased her food intake with reverse dieting.
Here’s what happened: Shelly did gain weight, going from 130 to 134 pounds. But at 134, she looked
smaller, tighter, and more sculpted than ever, because she had put on more lean muscle weight,
which is quite compact and denser than body fat.
Science supports what I’ve seen in people like Shelly – that you won’t gain fat, especially with very
specific, incremental increases in calories. In one study, eating 20 percent above maintenance calories
did not significantly bump up fat gain, whereas eating 40 to 60 percent above maintenance did.
In other words, if you maintain your weight on a 2,000-calorie diet, you might be able to eat up to
400 extra calories a day without gaining fat pounds. But any more than that, like an extra 800 daily
calories, will probably result in more fat gain than you want.
Additionally, some data suggest that the time people need to “recover” from dieting (through a
strategy like reverse dieting) is roughly proportional to the amount of time you spent on the diet. So,
if you restricted calories for three months, you may need to give your metabolism three months to
adapt upwardly.
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CHAPTER 3: GEARING UP FOR THE REVERSE DIET
In the previous chapter, I gave you the general principles and benefits for the Reverse Diet. Now I
want you to start planning your personal strategy.
First of all, just be patient with yourself and the plan. The Reverse Diet – like anything that’s important
– is going to take time and commitment. But this chapter will help you get on the right track.
Plus, it’s going to be fun. After all, you get to start eating more food again, and that’s pleasurable.
You’ll enjoy eating more of the right foods, and you’ll enjoy the workout principles that go along with
this. So, start getting fired up for the change – a new tool for dieting, eating, and living.
Step 1: Figure out how many calories you expend in a day.
Before starting, I recommend you take an entire week
to eat as normally as possible. During these 7 days,
keep track of everything you’re consuming, down to a
single cookie. This how you find out what your baseline
calorie maintenance is.
This step is also exactly what I recommend when you
start a weight-loss diet – tracking your baseline calories
over one week so that you can cut from that baseline.
With the Reverse Diet, you’re doing the opposite:
establishing a baseline from which you can gradually
increase your calories.
Once you start tracking your macronutrients (protein,
carbohydrates, and fat), you will be very surprised
at how many of these nutrients you consume daily. You may also find that you do not eat enough
protein, which is extremely important on the Reverse Diet. Therefore, tracking your macros can be
extremely helpful, and even enlightening.
So, for one week, do not change anything about how you eat or drink. Simply consume foods and
beverages the way you always do. Do not change your physical activity either. Simply maintain
everything you normally do.
Step 2: Select your tracking method.
Hand in hand with step 1 is tracking your food intake and your macronutrients. You’ll need a tracker to
accomplish this. Examples of good apps are My Fitness Pal and Fat Secret. These tools can help you
master your calories and macros and get a handle on exactly what you’re consuming.
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Step 3: Calculate your maintenance calories.
Before actually increasing your calories, you need to calculate
out your maintenance intake, which is what you currently can
eat to maintain your weight.
Here’s how: At the end of the seven days, simply divide your
total calories by 7. The resulting calculation represents your
maintenance calories, or baseline.
Step 4: Decide on your macronutrient balance.
This step involves figuring out how much protein, fat, and carbohydrate to eat at each meal. Caution:
You can get too caught up in the ideal macro ratio for your Reverse Diet, so I’m going to make it easy
for you.
Start with protein. It is the most important macro for reverse dieting. A higher protein diet maximizes
muscular development and minimizes the loss of muscle tissue, both of which lead to more muscle
gain. This is why I recommend higher-protein diets; they improve body composition so much more
effectively than moderate or low-protein diets do.
As I noted earlier, protein also has the highest thermic effect of food (TEF), compared to fat and
carbohydrates. TEF refers to the number of calories you burn just to digest the food you eat. Eating
a larger percentage of protein daily means more of the calories you eat are burned off through TEF.
Make sure you’re hitting 0.5 up to 1.0 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight daily. If you weigh
160 pounds, for example, you’d want to be eating 80 to 160 grams of protein daily. For reference, 160
grams of protein would look like this: 8 ounces of chicken breast, 2 large eggs, 7 ounces of tuna, and
6 ounces of Greek yogurt.
As for fat and carbs (both starchy and non-starchy), have
both at each meal and you’ll automatically meet your calorie
and macro requirements each day.
“ TEF REFERS TO THE NUMBER
OF CALORIES YOU BURN
JUST TO DIGEST THE FOOD
YOU EAT.”
Specifically, I recommend that you plan each meal to include
a low-calorie, high-fiber, non-starchy vegetable such as
greens, cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, salad veggies, and
so forth; a protein and fat; and a starchy complex carbohydrate, such as a root vegetable, a starchy
vegetable, a fruit (only one a day), or a grain. Follow this formula for creating meals because it’s really
the crux of what you need to know. (For more information on macronutrients, see Chapter 4.)
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As for the exact mix of fat and carbs each day, stay within
your calorie range for the week while manipulating your
macro intake –particularly carbohydrates. Some people
do well on a low-carb, higher-fat Reverse Diet; others on
a higher-carb, lower-fat diet Reverse Diet. The key here is
to listen to your body and monitor it. How is your satiety?
Digestion? Weight loss? Mood? Energy levels? See what
feels best and looks best, and go with it.
“ MAKE SURE YOU’RE HITTING 0.5
UP TO 1.0 GRAM OF PROTEIN PER
POUND OF BODYWEIGHT DAILY. ”
Some general guidelines: For fewer carbs, aim for fewer than 50 to 100 grams of carbs a day and eat
the rest of your calories in healthy fats. However, don’t eat fewer than 25 to 40 grams of fat a day.
Bottom line: determine your carbohydrate and fat ratio based on how you like to eat and what you
can imagine yourself doing long-term.
Step 5: Choose your rate of caloric
increase.
From your baseline maintenance calories,
increase your calories by 50 to 100 calories
during your first week of reverse dieting. Women
might want to start with an increase of 50 calories
and men increase by 100 calories.
Then, do not change your caloric intake for three
weeks, but keep doing resistance training to assist
in building your metabolism. (See step 7.)
After three weeks, increase your calories by 50 to 100 per day. Follow this for two weeks. Next,
increase your calories again by 50 to 100 a day. Repeat this process every two weeks.
A calorie surplus is essential for muscle growth because your body now has excess calories to shuttle
toward building more muscle. Keep your protein level high because protein is a metabolic booster.
It’s easiest to stick with your protein quota and increase your calories from carbs and fat.
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Easy Measures to Increase Calories
(from Carbs and Fats)
50 Calorie Servings
(approximate)
100 Calorie Servings
(approximate)
Carbohydrates
1/2 small sweet potato (2.5 ounces)
1 small sweet potato (5 ounces)
1/4 cup brown rice, cooked
1/2 cup brown rice, cooked
1/3 cup oatmeal, cooked
1/3 cup oatmeal, cooked
3/4 cup butternut squash
1 1/4 cup butternut squash
1 thin slice whole-grain bread
2 thin slices whole-grain bread
1 cup strawberries
2 cups strawberries
1 small apple (4 ounces)
1 medium apple (7 ounces)
Fats
7 almonds
14 almonds
1/4 cup avocado slices
1/3 cup avocado slices
1 1/2 teaspoons olive oil
1 tablespoon olive oil
Step 6: Monitor your progress and adjust as needed.
Monitor changes on your scale (the easiest), in your mirror, and according to how your clothes fit. In
addition, you can also measure your waist, hips, and other body areas, which may reflect changes in
body composition better than your scale. Consider snapping progress photos on your phone. These
also may reflect changes in body composition better your scale.
Please note:
•
•
Men should aim to gain 0.5 to 1 pound per week.
Women should aim to gain 0.25 to 0.5 pound or less per week.
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If you notice a weight gain on your scale of more than this, it probably indicates muscle and/or water.
However, if the gain is several pounds, wait a few weeks before increasing your calories and try again.
On the other hand, if you’re not gaining weight, check your strength levels. Are you getting stronger?
In other words, can you do more reps, more weight, and so forth than last week? If so, you’re still
improving. And you’re likely dropping body fat.
If your strength is not improving and your weight on the scale is not going up, increase your caloric
intake by 10 to 20 percent, and continue to monitor your progress.
If you observe no changes or very few, drop back to your baseline for a few weeks.
Based on the data you continually collect, make adjustments as needed. You might find that you
can up your calorie intake every week without gaining much fat. Or you may need to space out your
caloric increases over longer intervals. Be patient with yourself and your progress.
Step 7: Rebuild your metabolism with consistent training.
Prioritize consistent resistance training over other forms of exercise in order to develop muscle, which
will then accelerate your metabolism. Muscle is metabolism. (See the Activity Plan in Chapter 7.)
Limit cardio. Long sessions of steady-state cardio do
little to create muscle, and they may even interfere
with rebuilding your metabolism. When you do
lots of cardio, you lose weight at first, but then it all
comes to a grinding halt. Your body has become
more efficient and is literally HOLDING ON to body
fat to make you better at storing calories and it
becomes better at burning LESS calories.
But when you perform resistance training, you send
a signal to your body that says GET STRONGER. With
PROPER resistance training, your body prioritizes
strength over becoming efficient with calories. As
your muscles strengthen and build, your metabolism
speeds up and this process continues over time.
Once you’re satisfied with the amount of food you’re eating, and your weight is stabilizing where you
want it, stop adding calories, but continue with your resistance training program. Should you need to
lose a few more pounds, your metabolism will be healthy and ready to burn fat.
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CHAPTER 4: NUTRIENT PARTITIONING:
WHAT TO EAT AND WHY ON THE REVERSE DIET
As you gradually increase your calories on the Reverse Diet, select those calories carefully from
the “big three” macronutrients – protein, carbohydrates, and fat – with an emphasis on a
muscle-promoting strategy called “nutrient partitioning.”
Nutrient partitioning refers to a scientific process involving signals that tell your body what to do
with the additional calories you consume – whether to shuttle them to your muscles for growth
or to fat tissue for storage.
Naturally, you’d want those calories to be diverted to your muscle tissue, thereby optimizing
nutrient partitioning and not to jiggly fat on your waistline, thighs, or butt. This means
encouraging your body to send more resources to muscle building or muscle maintenance
than it does to storage. Both a nutrient-dense diet and resistance training are the answer for
efficient nutrient partitioning. (Obesity and being overweight are examples of inefficient nutrient
partitioning. In both conditions, calories have been partitioned into fat stores – the opposite of
what you want.)
In short, if your body partitions nutrients efficiently, they’ll
head to muscle tissue. If it doesn’t, you could pack on up to 3
pounds of fat for every pound of muscle you try to develop.
Also important, if you’re an efficient nutrient partitioner, most
of the calories you burn come from fat stores and not from
muscle. If you’re an inefficient nutrient partitioner, you could
lose a pound of muscle for every few pounds of fat you lose.
“ IF YOU’RE AN INEFFICIENT
NUTRIENT PARTITIONER, YOU
COULD LOSE A POUND OF MUSCLE
FOR EVERY FEW POUNDS OF
FAT YOU LOSE.”
The good news is that you can acquire the ability to
partition nutrients efficiently. Here’s how.
The Role of Protein
Protein provides the construction material for muscles and
other body tissues, organs, hormones, and enzymes. It
is necessary to repair, build, and maintain muscle. Worth
repeating is the fact that protein has the highest thermic
effect of any macronutrient, meaning that it burns off energy
as the body digests it. Protein also increases satiety for better
appetite control. In fact, protein provides the highest satiety
of any macro nutrient. Diets high in protein tend to reduce
food cravings.
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Protein is key for efficient nutrient partitioning because it heads directly to muscles for growth and
repair. Protein is more difficult for your body to convert into stored fat than other macronutrients,
making it more likely to be used in constructing muscle.
Protein is partitioned into new muscle in the following ways. During digestion, protein is broken
down into amino acids. Amino acids are directly involved in rebuilding muscle fibers, dispensed
there by your liver, in order to patch up or repair fibers intentionally damaged by exercise. Fresh
supplies of amino acids weave together myofibrils (bundles of protein filaments), which activate
muscle contraction. The newly formed myofibrils fuse with the damaged areas of your muscle
fiber and help make the muscle bigger and stronger than it was before.
Good sources of protein include all animal meats, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy as well as plant or
vegan proteins, such as nuts, seeds, and legumes. Examples of proteins to select on the Reverse
Diet include:
Proteins
Bison
Cheeses
Chicken (white & dark meat)
Cottage Cheese
Duck
Eggs and Egg Whites
Greek Yogurt
Lamb
Lean Beef
Salmon
Pork Tenderloin
Shellfish
Tuna
Venison
White Fish, All Varieties
Organ Meats from Well-Sourced Producers
Turkey. White and Dark Meat
Plant-Based Proteins
Legumes
Nuts
Seeds
Vegan Cheeses
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The Role of Fat
Fat is also an essential nutrient that must be
consumed for basic survival. For most people, an
intake of 40 to 70 grams of fat daily is sufficient.
For reference, 70 grams of fat roughly equals 1
tablespoon of olive oil, an avocado, and 2 ounces of
almonds.
Some people feel better on the higher end and
others on the lower end. If your carbs are very low,
your fat can be much higher without the risk of
eating too many calories.
Where nutrient partitioning is concerned, essential
fat helps increase insulin sensitivity, which allows
the cells of your body to use blood glucose more
effectively, thus reducing blood sugar. High insulin sensitivity helps direct nutrients to muscles.
(Building muscle through resistance training can increase insulin sensitivity too, allowing more
efficient partitioning of the calories
you take in.)
Generally, the healthiest sources of fat come from some plants and from well-raised, healthy
animals and fish. Organic butter and full-fat dairy products are acceptable fat sources as well.
Grass-fed beef, pasture-raised eggs, and wild-caught fish are excellent ways to obtain good
fats. Specific sources include:
Avocados
Avocado Oil
Coconut Oil (can withstand higher cooking temperatures)
Butter, Organic
Fish Oil
Ghee (Clarified Butter)
MCT Oil
Nuts, Raw
Lard and Tallow (excellent for cooking)
Olives
Olive Oil, Extra-Virgin (avoid cooking with olive oil to preserve
its nutrition; use it at room temperature)
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The Role of Carbohydrates
A fuel source, carbohydrates are the sugars and starches found in fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy
products, and many processed foods. Of the three macros, carbohydrates are not essential,
although they appear to be a prioritized source of energy. Carbs are easily converted into energy
by the body and can be involved in fat formation – which makes them tricky when it comes to
nutrient partitioning.
The best course of action is to select “complex carbohydrates.” These are natural, unrefined
starches made up of long chains of sugar molecules. They are often referred to as “good carbs”
because they take longer to digest and thus don’t spike insulin or blood sugar as quickly as more
simple ones do (think sweets, candy, baked goods, and so forth). Complex carbs burn more slowly
than simple carbs and are less likely to be partitioned into body fat. They also contain more fiber,
which has a huge list of impressive health benefits.
Complex carbs are found in many different types of foods:
High-Fiber Carbs
Fruit
Asparagus
Bean Sprouts
Bell Peppers
Apples
Bananas
Blueberries
Broccoli
Brussels Sprouts
Cauliflower
Cantaloupe
Cherries
Coconut
Celery
Cabbage, all varieties
Chard
Grapefruit
Grapes
Kiwis
Chicory
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Lemons
Limes
Mangoes
Green Beans
Green Leafy Vegetables
Kale
Peaches
Pears
Pineapple
Leeks
Lettuce, all varieties
Scallions
Plums
Raspberries
Strawberries
Spinach
Onions, all varieties
Tomatoes
Watermelon
Winter Squash
Yellow Summer Squash
Zucchini
*Grains
**Amaranth Barley
Vegetables
Breads (whole-grain,sprouted)
Artichokes
Beets
Carrots
**Buckwheat
**Corn
Millet
Celeriac
Garlic
Parsnips
**Oatmeal
Pastas (whole wheat, or bean-based)
Potatoes
Radishes
Sweet Potatoes
**Quinoa
**Rice
Turnips
Yams
**Sorghum
Wheat
*Many people have intolerances to grain-based foods,
especially wheat and gluten-containing grains.
*Legumes
Beans (kidney, navy, pinto, black, cannellini, and so forth)
**These are gluten-free grains (though if eating oats,
check their label to be sure they are gluten-free certified).
Lentils
Peas
Peanuts
*These foods are high in protein and make good protein
substitutions in
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The Role of Hormones
Nutrient partitioning is governed by the various hormones
in your body and the associated signals they transmit. The
most important of all these hormones is insulin. It plays a
major role in how you partition nutrients and calories.
To ensure that insulin does its various jobs properly,
including nutrient partitioning, avoid eating a diet high in added sugar and processed foods
that ultimately promotes “insulin resistance.” This refers to a condition in which your cells ignore
insulin and therefore do not let it usher glucose into cells for energy. Insulin and glucose pile up
in the blood, leading to fat formation and possibly the development of type 2 diabetes. Easing
off refined carbohydrates and added sugar prevents insulin resistance, stabilizes insulin, and
prevents rapid fluctuations in blood sugar.
Insulin is important with regard to protein as well. It helps get amino acids into cells. The more
receptive your muscle cells are to insulin, and the less insulin resistant you are, the easier it is
for your body to partition amino acids from the protein and food you eat into muscle tissue. So
basically, insulin sensitivity promotes more efficient nutrient partitioning into muscle tissue, where
you want it.
There are other specific hormones in your body that help orchestrate and direct where energy will
be stored and where it will be taken from when it’s needed. Testosterone, for example, supports
the partitioning of nutrients into muscle while the stress hormone cortisol tends to partition
nutrients into fat tissue. With a high cortisol level, muscle tissue can break down, leading to
muscle loss. Plus, nutrients are more easily shuttled into fat cells around your waist and abdomen
which is the kind of inefficient partitioning you don’t want.
Eating sufficient protein and fat helps testosterone production, as does resistance training – all of
which help with efficient nutrient partitioning. Stress management techniques, such as relaxation
and meditation, can help better balance cortisol production for improved nutrient partitioning.
The Role of Resistance Training
Exercise, particularly resistance training, increases insulin sensitivity and this improves how
you partition nutrients. The more lean muscle you have on your body to take up nutrients, the
less likely you are to partition what you eat as fat. What’s more, you get to obtain the perk of
increasing muscle-building testosterone and growth hormone when you train using resistance.
Both work in your favor when you’re trying to reduced body fat and increase muscle tissue.
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Caution: Processed Foods
I could only give one piece of advice to anyone for increasing
“ AVOID HEAVILY Ifcalories,
it would be this: AVOID heavily processed foods. Aside
the fact that they are typically not very healthy, heavily
PROCESSED FOODS.” from
processed foods are radically ENGINEERED to hijack your body’s
natural systems of satiety. In other words, these foods are designed to make you WANT to
overeat foods that will be partitioned into body fat.
Heavily processed foods are typically
foods that are found in boxes or
wrappers and they usually have long
shelf lives. Think chips, cookies,
muffins, cereal, bread products,
and so forth. These foods are laced
with ingredients commonly used in
modern food manufacturing, such as
hydrogenated oils, high-fructose corn
syrup, flavoring agents, emulsifiers, and lots of salt and sugar.
Most of the money that goes into these foods goes into their PALATABILITY. Palatability refers
to the hedonistic reward you get from food. It’s the “pleasure” aspect. This includes everything
that makes food truly enjoyable including its taste, the mouth feel, its smell, the color and visual
appeal, the sound the food makes when you bite into it, the food’s packaging and MUCH more.
Lots of money has been spent researching and figuring out how to make foods irresistible. This
has resulted in foods that literally make you want more, EVEN after you are full.
We do know from research that such foods facilitate weight gain and lead to obesity because of
inefficient nutrient partitioning. A 2021 study published in the journal Appetite, tested whether
young healthy adults, who were not obese, would gain body fat by eating hyper-palatable foods
at buffets. The study covered one year.
Well, you can probably guess what happened. The participants who ate a higher proportion
of hyper-palatable foods at buffets had gained the most body fat after one year, compared to
those who chose less fattening foods. This study simply confirms that over time, eating a greater
proportion of hyper-palatable foods will be partitioned into fat stores.
Clearly, efficient nutrient partitioning is important if you want to achieve and maintain a fit body
with minimal body fat and maximum lean muscle. Simply pay attention to the source of your
calories, what you eat, and how you exercise.
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CHAPTER 5: REVERSE DIET EXAMPLES
You’ve just reached your lean, target weight. Or you’ve wrapped up a bodybuilding or fitness
competition. You look great in the mirror – with nice, muscular definition and low body fat levels,
but now what?
You can’t continue to restrict calories because your metabolism has adapted to lower calories, and it
will be tough to gain any more muscle. Perhaps the last time this happened you resumed your normal
eating pattern and, whoops, you packed on too many fat pounds. This is why you should reverse diet
after every fat loss like this.
That said, I’d like to outline various scenarios of what happens while dieting and how to plan out a
reverse dieting strategy, but not with a set meal plan. Generally, I do not hand out or believe in meal
plans - for several reasons. They don’t take in account individual food preferences, they’re too rigid with
too many rules, they don’t consider a person’s food intolerances, and they don’t teach you about your
individual nutritional needs. It is almost impossible to create a generic meal plan for reverse dieting
because it is based on so many individual factors – gender, baseline daily calories, personal goals, food
preferences, activity levels, and more. The bottom line is that, when it comes to meal plans, one size
does not fit all.
So basically, I will give you several examples of how people have increased their calories on the
Reverse Diet. Using the nutritional guidelines in the previous chapter, you can simply plug in foods
and macronutrients you prefer and plan accordingly, using this information as a basic guide.
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Example #1: Re-Adjusting Your Maintenance Calories
Austin has been dieting for 12 weeks. Starting with a pre-diet maintenance level of 2,800 calories,
he gradually stepped down his calories until only taking in 2,000 calories per day over the 12-week
dieting period.
After those 12 weeks, he achieved his goal and
now wants to stop actively dieting and eat more
but without gaining much body fat in the process.
The wrong move for Austin is to return to his
starting maintenance level of 2,800 calories. If
you suddenly increase your energy intake after a
diet, your body will prefer to store these unfamiliar
calories as fat in order to be ready for another
shortage of food. Worst case, you gain even more
weight than what you worked so hard to lose.
If Austin were to do this, he will more than likely
gain back a lot of the body fat he worked to lose over the previous 12 weeks. Just like with his diet,
Austin needs to gradually step back up his calories until he’s hit maintenance level.
Taking into consideration metabolic adaptation, however, Austin’s maintenance level most likely has
now decreased from where it was when he began his diet 12 weeks ago. He should now take 7 days
to calculate his new baseline, while eating and working out as he normally would.
Austin will then want to slowly increase his calories, probably by 50 to 100 calories every few weeks,
and slowly reduce any cardio he’s doing but increase his resistance training.
I recommend that the Reverse Diet last for the same duration as the initial diet for an efficient
metabolic reboot – in this case, 12 weeks. By doing this, Austin will be re-training his metabolism to
become efficient at this new level of calories. The added benefit of this approach is that, although
Austin is introducing additional calories into his diet, he is doing it slowly enough that he may actually
continue to lose some body fat during this process.
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Example #2: Reverse Dieting after Caloric Restriction
Similar to Austin’s situation is the case of Dana.
She is 5’7” and just lost 25 pounds, going from
150 to 125. She is very pleased and ready to
stop losing fat.
Prior to starting her lose-fat diet, she tracked
her daily calories for 7 days, divided the total
by 7, and calculated 2,350 calories as her prediet maintenance calories. Over 10 weeks, she
dieted down, restricting her calories, and ended
up eating between 1,500 to 1,700 on a daily
basis.
Now Dana wants to combat metabolic adaptation by reverse dieting. Like Austin did, she will need
to establish a new level of maintenance calories by eating normally for 7 days, but without going
overboard on any processed foods. In a case like Dana’s, her new maintenance calories might be
lower than before, as a result of her diet. The more you decrease calories, the lower your maintenance
calories can drop.
Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Continuing with
Dana’s example, she calculated her new maintenance
calories to be 1,950. That is a 400 drop from her previous
maintenance calories since she lost weight. This gives her
a better chance of maintaining her results. From there,
she can inch up week by week, increasing calories, to
reach her prior baseline of 2,350 calories. She can also
work on additional muscle gain and not gain body fat
along the way.
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Example #3: A Weight-Loss Plateau and Slow Metabolism
Richard has 50 pounds to lose and embarked
on a calorie-restricted diet to do so. Over 6
weeks, he was successful and lost 20 pounds.
But his progress stalled, and he started slowly
regaining weight.
He decided to stop dieting for a while to reboot
his metabolism with reverse dieting. He ate
normally for a week (no dieting) and calculated
his maintenance calories based on those 7 days.
His maintenance calories were 2,250.
For 4 weeks, Richard bumped up his calories by 100 each week. Plus, he increased his resistance
training from two to four times a week. He stopped doing cardio at the gym and instead worked at
walking 8,000 to 10,000 steps daily using a pedometer. He stayed fairly strict on the Reverse Diet,
eating only macronutrients and keeping his protein high.
Over one month, Richard’s weight actually stabilized at the 35-pound weight loss, but he looked
leaner and fitter because he had gained muscle mass. In actuality, this is all he needed to do; the
35-pound loss made him look like he had lost 50 pounds.
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Example #4: Losing Fat on the Reverse Diet
Although many people will gain a few pounds through reverse dieting, the potential exists to lose
more body fat. Here’s why, when you are slowly increasing calories back from your diet, you are still
technically in a calorie deficit.
For example, Angie ended her diet around
1,500 calories after losing 30 pounds. She
reversed dieted to up to 1,600, 1,700, 1,800,
respectively, over three weeks. All three of
those caloric numbers still represented a
calorie deficit. Therefore, during her reverse
diet, she still lost more body fat.
REVERSE
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Example #5: Restoring Hormone Balance after a Pre-Contest
Dieting Cycle
With pre-contest dieting, bodybuilders and
fitness competitors run the risk of disrupted
hormone production, loss of muscle mass
and strength, and a lower metabolic rate. To
illustrate how a diet can incite these changes,
I’m presenting a case study published in
the International Journal of Sport Nutrition
and Exercise Metabolism in 2016. In this
case report, researchers from the University
of North Carolina carried out a 12-month
case study on a male natural (drug-free)
bodybuilder. It evaluated the effects of his
contest preparation (8 months), followed by recovery (5 months).
The researchers measured his testosterone, triiodothyronine (T3), thyroxine (T4), cortisol, leptin, and
ghrelin throughout the study. They also assessed his body composition, anaerobic power, and resting
metabolic rate monthly. Sleep was also assessed monthly.
Here is a summary of his results:
Month 1 to month 8: his testosterone, and thyroid hormones T3, and T4 (which are involved in
regulating metabolism) dropped. His cortisol and ghrelin levels increased. He lost 20 pounds prior to
competition by dropping his calories from 3,860 to 1,724 a day.
His body fat percentage was 13.4% at month 1; 9.6% at month 8; and 14.9% at month 13. His
anaerobic power dropped, as did his resting metabolic rate during the entire13-month study
period. His sleep quality also decreased from month 1 to month 8. (Sleep is important to a healthy
metabolism.)
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Five months after his diet, he was heavier than when he began, and his resting metabolic rate was
lower. His calorie intake and body fat had returned to pre-diet levels, and he’d even gained some
muscle, but his metabolism was still lagging behind. Likewise, his testosterone, T3, and T4 levels still
weren’t back to normal yet.
Although this case involves a bodybuilder who got to competition levels of body fat, it demonstrates
that contest preparation may yield transient, unfavorable changes in hormonal profile, power output,
RMR, and sleep quality.
What this bodybuilder would need to do is begin a serious reverse diet and stay on it for at least 8
months to heal these physiological issues. This would allow time for things to settle down, rebuild
metabolism, and restore health prior to getting lean and cutting calories again.
Remember that the main purpose of the Reverse Diet is to accelerate your metabolism and slowly
get your body back to normal while limiting the amount of body fat gained during this process.
Essentially, you will be re-training your metabolism to a new normal.
Here is the quick rundown on reverse dieting:
Slowly add in calories to your diet by increasing your calories by 50 to 100 every few weeks.
Be smart and deliberate about reverse dieting. Don’t abruptly slash or increase your calories
all at one time!
Weigh yourself frequently while reverse dieting to monitor weight gain. Remember, you want
to keep fat gain to a minimum.
Reduce the amount of cardio you perform.
Stay consistent with resistance training and/or increase the number of days you perform it.
Reverse diet for the same length of time of your weight loss diet or until you reach a
maintenance level you are happy with.
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CHAPTER 6: Supportive Metabolic Strategies
Reverse dieting and resistance training aren’t the only ways to increase your metabolism. To really
support your body’s ability to burn fat effectively, build muscle, and sustain your weight loss, it’s
important to think about your life in a holistic way—that is, beyond increasing calories and working out.
There are factors such as disrupted sleep, stress, digestion, and other habits that can wreak havoc on
your ability to succeed. Let’s take a hard look at these.
Sleep Well
You can lose weight and keep it off just by doing something
as simple as sleeping well. In contrast, lack of sleep
contributes to obesity and weight gain.
Research reveals that quality sleep may benefit your
metabolic processes. A review in the journal Metabolism, for
example, makes a number of pretty compelling arguments:
That not getting enough sleep may contribute to metabolic
problems, namely, obesity and the development of insulin
resistance and type 2 diabetes. Poor sleep may contribute
to these issues directly by impacting glucose regulation or
indirectly by impacting appetite. A big part of the reason is
that too little sleep decreases insulin sensitivity and sets the stage for insulin resistance. So, it’s tougher
to shuttle that sugar into cells to be burned for energy – a situation that can result in weight gain.
Too little sleep also causes the body to churn out excess cortisol, the stress hormone, which in turn
increases glucose in the blood. All this happens with only one
night of too little sleep. And while the body can reset and
recover quickly if you give it optimal rest the next night, chronic
sleep deprivation is associated with chronically high blood
sugar, insulin resistance, and risk of type 2 diabetes.
“ LACK OF SLEEP
CONTRIBUTES TO OBESITY
AND WEIGHT GAIN.”
Sleep also plays a vital role in regulating hormone levels
including ghrelin – which increases appetite – and leptin – which makes us feel full. As sleep deprivation
increases the former and decreases the latter, we are left feeling hungry. Studies confirm that too little
sleep increases the likelihood of overeating due to appetite and more hours available to eat, as well as
increasing cravings for high fat and sugar foods.
Another hormone regulated by sleep is testosterone, which is involved in the development of muscle,
strength, libido, bone growth, and many other functions in men and women. When you have quality,
uninterrupted sleep on a regular basis, your body ramps up its production of testosterone. In fact, a
2007 study of older males, ages 64 to 74, found that sleep was greatest independent predictor of
morning free and total testosterone levels. This study was published in the journal Sleep.
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Levels of testosterone generally peak at around 8 a.m.; throughout the day, they gradually drop off,
reaching a daily low at about 8 p.m. During sleep, your body restores testosterone to peak levels.
Getting a good night’s sleep most evenings every week is one of the best (and easiest) ways to boost
testosterone.
As a personal trainer, I always emphasized the importance of getting quality sleep. Here are top
strategies I typically recommended to my clients.
Turn off all electronics one hour prior to bedtime. The blue light from
electronics such as cell phones, tablets, and TVs, reduces your brain’s
ability to produce an important sleep hormone called melatonin and it
keeps cortisol elevated.
Consider blue light blocking glasses. Many of us stare at computer
screens, our phones, and televisions all through day and evening. All of
this screen time comes with a price, including poor sleep quality, even
insomnia. To combat these problems, I recommend that you pick up a
pair of blue light blocking glasses. They help eliminate eye strain and
promote better sleep.
These glasses have filters in their lenses that block or absorb blue light
from getting through. So, if you wear these glasses while looking at a
screen, especially after dark, they can help reduce exposure to blue light
waves that can keep you awake.
Sip on warm chamomile tea. Chamomile is a very safe and mild sedative
and is even recommended to children in some European countries. If
you’re allergic to chamomile, try lemon balm tea instead.
Practice belly breathing for 3 minutes before bed. Belly breathing helps
bring a calming response in the body, which is necessary for quality
sleep. To do belly breathing: lie on your back. Place one hand on your
upper chest and another on your belly. Take a deep breath into your belly
and make the hand that is on your belly rise fully before the hand on your
chest rises. This technique allows for a full diaphragmatic breath that signals the body to relax.
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Be consistent with resistance training. It has been scientifically validated
to improve sleep. But perform your workouts earlier in the day and not so
close to bedtime.
Create the ideal sleep environment. Your bedroom should be dark, with
a cool temperature. Both conditions are conducive to quality sleep.
Establish a consistent sleep schedule and stick to it, even on weekends.
Our bodies run on “circadian rhythms,” 24-hour cycles that operate under
a master clock in order to carry out essential functions and processes.
One of the most important is the sleep-wake cycle. It is activated largely
by light exposure. During the day, light causes the master clock to generate signals to the brain to stimulate alertness so that we stay awake and
alert. At night, the master clock triggers the production of melatonin and
keeps sending signals that help us stay asleep during the night.
When functioning properly, this circadian rhythm promotes consistent
and restorative sleep. But when out of whack, it can create significant
sleeping problems, including insomnia.
One way to keep your sleep-wake cycle aligned and therefore improve
the quality of your sleep is to get up at around the same time each morning, and go to bed at the same time. In fact, both the Ayurvedic and Chinese medical traditions advise going to bed by 10 or 10:30 each evening
in order to follow your body’s natural circadian rhythm.
Another important factor to help regulate circadian rhythm is to get at
least 20 minutes of sun exposure on bare skin each day. Sunlight is the
trigger that resets your circadian rhythm daily. It also ramps up bodily
levels of the brain chemical serotonin, which is important to sleep.
With a consistent schedule, sun exposure, getting the recommended
seven to eight hours of sleep nightly, and other measures, sleep becomes
a little easier.
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Stress Less
Stress is a necessary part of our lives and can have both
beneficial and negative effects, depending on how we
respond to an event, transition, or problem. One of the
negative aspects of stress is its effect on metabolism.
During times of stress, the adrenal glands, which are
situated atop the kidneys, release adrenaline and cortisol.
Cortisol helps the body access energy by increasing blood
glucose in the bloodstream and brain. We need this to
think and have the energy to respond to the stressful
event. Cortisol also helps metabolize fats, proteins, and
carbohydrates, and it’s essential for fighting inflammation.
However, thinking about or experiencing a stressful job, lack of sleep, and poor lifestyle choices
can trigger cortisol to be released more frequently and lead to elevated levels. As discussed above,
chronically high cortisol creates metabolic havoc and can affect our weight.
“ MAKE SURE YOU GET
PLENTY OF QUALITY
SLEEP. ”
Both stress and exhaustion can increase your cravings for sugary
foods and kill your motivation to be active, and over time, pack
on pounds, concluded a 2018 analysis published in the journal
Obesity Reviews.
There’s a lot involved in managing stress, but one underlying
key is to develop resilience. This term refers to the ability to adapt successfully in the face of stress,
adversity, and other challenging circumstances, while maintaining physical and mental well-being.
You’re resilient when you can handle the day-to-day trials and tribulations and bounce back after
periods of deep struggle. We can’t avoid challenging times; they’re something we each experience
throughout life. But, it’s how we handle them that has the true impact on our well-being and quality of
life. That’s resilience.
There are many ways—physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually – to build resilience. Physically,
exercise consistently, but without overdoing it. Eating a healthy, balanced diet to fortify yourself with
nutrients that support physical and mental health. Make sure you get plenty of quality sleep. Cut down
on and alcohol and other drugs.
Mentally, realize that you’re the only one who can control your fate. In other words, how you feel
and the way you deal with a situation is a choice. Think of it like this: No one can operate your car
unless you hand over the keys, right? You can’t control other people’s actions or behavior, but you
can be responsible for how you react. Makes sense, right? Look at the situation and ask yourself, “Is
this something I can change?” If so, start exploring positive ways to change the situation, or respond
positively, and with acceptance, to the reality of your circumstances.
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Mindfulness
Closely associated with stress management is
mindfulness, the practice of being present, in the
moment. Mindful eating, in particular, involves
making conscious food choices, developing an awareness of physical versus psychological hunger and
fullness cues, and eating nutritiously in response to those cues.
The opposite of mindful eating is something you might be familiar with: the habit of grabbing
hyperpalatable snack foods just because they’re fun and readily available, without even thinking about
what we’re doing or even feeling hungry. But those extra calories can easily lead to overeating and
weight gain. In fact, distracted eating like this causes people to take in around 10 percent more calories
in the moment—and up to 25 percent more calories at later meals – concluded an American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition review.
Distracted eating and stress eating (another form of distracted eating) can be conquered by
mindfulness practices. In a 2011 clinical study of mindfulness training, participants did guided
meditations in which they tuned into their physical sensations of hunger, stomach fullness, taste
satisfaction, and food cravings. They also learned to identify their emotional eating triggers. After 4
months of this training, they experienced improvements in stress and cortisol responses. They also
reduced their abdominal fat. This study underlines the importance of making a shift toward more
mindful eating habits.
Some easy tips to help you become a more mindful eater:
Start with your grocery list. Think about the nutritional value of every food you put on your list. Then
fill your cart with fresh, organic, whole foods, avoiding hyper-palatable processed foods.
Appreciate your food when you come to the table and recognize how it will benefit your physical
and mental health.
When you’re cooking and eating, pay attention to the color, texture, and aroma of your food.
Eat your meals at your dining room table or breakfast table and never in front of the television. Avoid
anything that distracts you from your meal.
Have regular mealtimes. The body enjoys routine, which keeps you from mindless eating or snacking.
Take small bites and chew your food slowly. (Do not wolf down your food!)
Pay attention to satiety (fullness) signals. Eat until you are just full but not stuffed or uncomfortable.
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Digestive Health
Your gut contains more than 100 trillion microorganisms,
collectively called the microbiome. It performs several
functions in the body, including setting our metabolism,
breaking down and assimilating food, neutralizing drugs and
carcinogens, and synthesizing vitamins.
As for metabolism specifically, the organisms that live in your
gut impact how your body processes food and your overall
health. Scientists have recently discovered that people with obesity or diabetes have a completely
different make-up of these tiny creatures than people who are lean. Basically, certain types of not-sogood microorganisms may be involved in turning food into fat tissue.
In your gut resides sensor hormones called incretins. They detect incoming food and signal our body to
absorb, metabolize, and store nutrients by facilitating communication between the gut and organs such
as the brain, pancreas, liver, and muscles. Glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) is an incretin that signals
the release of insulin. Although not as well-known as insulin, GLP-1 is just as important in maintaining a
healthy level of blood sugar. Nutritionally bankrupt foods, such as those with added sugars and highly
processed food products, can interfere with the function of GLP-1 and other incretins.
For optimum metabolism and health, it’s important to have a diverse population of beneficial gut
bacteria. However, several factors can adversely affect the diversity and health of your gut. These
include a diet high in refined carbohydrates and omega-6 vegetable oils, a long-term ketogenic diet,
overtraining, stress, travel, and drugs such as antibiotics and NSAIDs.
To improve gut health, increase your calories from prebiotic
fibers. These are “fast food” for friendly bacteria in your but.
Examples are beans, legumes, fresh vegetables, nuts, seeds,
fruit, and whole grains. All are particularly good at supporting
the growth of beneficial gut microbes that regulate metabolic
hormones and reduce chronic inflammation (which is involved
in fat formation and underlies many illnesses). In addition,
polyphenol-rich foods, including green tea and berries,
appear to help diversify the gut microbiome and increase
beneficial groups of bacteria. Finally, make sure to include fermented foods such as kimchi, sauerkraut,
pickles, tempeh, yogurt and kombucha in your diet. They are well-known for their role in creating a
healthy microbiome.
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Self-Love
Really loving and respecting yourself is beneficial for so
many aspects of your life that affect metabolism: stress
management, sleep quality, your choice of nutritious
foods, your motivation to work out, and more. But over the
years, I’ve heard so many clients say they hate their bellies,
their butts, their thighs, and other body parts. I thought
about these reactions long and hard. These people were
exercising hard out of self-hate, and ultimately it wasn’t
going to work for them, it ultimately created an excessive
amount of metabolism-disrupting stress in their lives.
The true key to long-term fitness and metabolic success,
and success in general, must be rooted in self-love. Think
about the last time you started working out and then
stopped or the last time you were on a roll with your diet
and then went right back to old habits. I bet you said to
yourself (or maybe even to friends) something along the
lines of, “I just want to enjoy life…dieting and going to the
gym isn’t enjoyable…life is too short, I’m over it.”
Let’s break that down objectively and factually for a second.
It’s been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that eating in
a healthy way and being properly active improves physical health, emotional and mental health, gives
you energy, improves sex drive, and improves mood. Yet, you stopped trying to eat right and being
active because “life is short” and “you just want to enjoy life?” How can that be? Being unhealthy is
objectively NOT enjoying life to its fullest. It makes no sense, right? It does when you realize that eating
right and exercising that are motivated from self-hate will ALWAYS feel like punishment precisely
because you are using them to punish the person you hate, which is YOU.
What if, instead, you ate and exercised because you realized that you deserve to be healthy, vibrant,
and fit? What if you understood the truth, that those are amazing forms of SELF-CARE and SELF-LOVE?
In my experience, this is the most impactful key to long-term success. Who doesn’t like to take care of
themselves?
A healthy and fit version of you feels better and makes it possible for you to do more for the people
around you. A less than healthy version of you doesn’t feel great and doesn’t have the best capacity
to do good for the people around you. You deserve to be taken care of and it starts with yourself.
Understand this, move forward with it, and be empathetic and kind to yourself through this process
(it’s not easy), and your odds of true and forever success will skyrocket.
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Anti-Aging
Although it’s true that your metabolism is slower than when you were a kid, a lot of mid-life weight gain
happens because we tend to exercise less as we get older. When we do not move as much so we lose
muscle and gain fat.
I’m sure you can relate, especially if you’ve ever looked at
photos of yourself from your carefree 20s! Age-related weight
gain is real! The average American adult puts on 1 to 2 pounds
per year through age 55, JAMA findings show.
“ The AVERAGE AMERICAN
ADULT PUTS ON 1 TO 2
POUNDS PER YEAR
THROUGH AGE 55 ”
Here’s the deal: If you’re over the age of thirty-five—and not doing resistance training—you’ve begun
losing muscle, a process that will worsen if you don’t take action. When you lose muscle with age, it
becomes difficult to carry out such daily activities as climbing stairs or even getting up from your chair.
This can lead to inactivity, which causes further muscle loss. You can therefore be at an increased risk of
falling, a loss of independence, and even premature death.
Aging is a bummer, but as you get older, it is important to make resistance training a regular part of
your lifestyle – at least 2 to 3 times a week. Resistance training is truly the fountain of youth. It is the
only form of exercise that can dramatically postpone, even reverse, the losses in muscle mass, bone
density, and strength that were once considered preordained results of aging. Not only that, but
resistance training simply makes you look younger with less body fat and more body-firming muscle.
There is just no other bona fide age-eraser than resistance training!
Making lifestyle changes is the most effective metabolism booster, and that becomes even more
important as we get older. When you have these factors aligned, your metabolic environment will
support weight maintenance, a lean and muscular body, and excellent health.
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CHAPTER 7: The Reverse Diet Activity Plan
Prioritizing resistance training is an absolute must on the Reverse Diet. It boosts your metabolism;
builds lean, strong, and healthy muscles that exude sex appeal; and achieves health benefits you
cannot obtain from other forms of exercise (see below).
With just thirty to sixty minutes a day, two or three days a
week, you can look and feel noticeably leaner, stronger,
and more attractive—even younger—than ever before. The
best is that the benefits are sustainable.
With resistance training, the primary adaptation is getting
stronger. The side effect of that is a metabolism that burns
more calories—possibly as much as 500 calories a day.
For reference, it would take the average person roughly
one hour of vigorous cardiovascular activity to burn 500 calories. Because most of us are too busy to try
to manually burn 500 calories a day, doesn’t it make sense to teach your body to automatically burn an
extra 500 calories a day?
Everyone’s metabolism can ultimately burn that many calories daily. In getting there, you directly
counter the problems that we have in our society—a sedentary lifestyle and the huge availability of
overly processed foods – not to mention achieving lasting weight loss (no more yo-yo dieting).
Bottom line: The more muscle you have, the more calories you will expend and the more fat you will
burn. That is what it means to have a faster metabolism.
Your muscles also burn more calories when they have a relatively
consistent “get stronger” signal. This is why the “every pound
of muscle burns X amount of calories” math can be off. I’ve had
clients only add a few pounds of muscle to their body – which
made them look more sculpted but not bigger – yet they were
able to eat those additional 500 calories a day and still get leaner.
With more muscle, their body got the message to prioritize
strength. The best way to make all that happen is to train with
resistance.
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There are many other benefits of resistance training. Use it to:
Sculpt your body
Build stronger
immunity
Build Strength
Promote Anti-aging
Develop better
cognition and mood
RESISTANCE
TRAINING
Experience less
musculoskeletal pain
Strengthen your
bones
Bring your hormones
into balance
Establish a healthier
libido
Gain more mobility
The Reverse Diet Activity Plan
The following workout, with exercise instructions, is designed to help you develop metabolismboosting muscle – which is key when increasing calories. The exercises I have listed here are the
absolute most effective when it comes to building muscle and real-world strength. I based this on more
than 20 years of experience of training hundreds of clients, and thousands of others by proxy as a
manager of trainers and as a host of the Mind Pump podcast.
This activity plan works for women too. Women will respond just like men except they typically have
a much lower potential for muscle growth. They can expect incredibly tight and toned muscles with
sustained fat loss.
You’ll work your larger muscles first (legs and chest), and progress to smaller muscles (shoulders, arms,
abdominals, and calves).
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Several important guidelines:
•
The workout should take between 30 to 60 minutes.
•
Perform it two to three times a week on non-consecutive days.
•
Aim for about 10 to 12 reps (on average) of each exercise short of failure. In other words, stop when
you know you can maybe squeeze out 2 to 3 more reps. Failure is unnecessary 90 percent of the
time and muscle growth is signaled before you reach failure. In fact, stay away from failure, and you
will experience superior gains.
•
Perform 2 to 3 sets of each exercise.
•
Follow the workout sequence as listed.
This workout is best performed in a gym, although it works well for a home gym too. If working out at
home, you’ll need an adjustable barbell set with different increments of poundage (plates); a set of
dumbbells in varying poundages; resistance bands in different tensions; and an exercise mat.
The Workout with Exercises
Barbell Squat
Start: Use a squat rack for this exercise. Place the barbell on
the rack at a point at which it can be placed on the back of
your shoulders when you are standing upright. Lift the bar up
and walk out of the squat rack. Hold on to the bar with a firm
grip, tensing and retracting your shoulders.
Action: Simultaneously bend your knees and slide your hips
back and down. Drop into a full squat. Return to the starting
position. This completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
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Walking Lunges
Start: Stand with your feet hip-width apart and a slight bend in
your knees. Evenly distribute your weight. Hold a dumbbell in
each hand at your sides. Maintain a neutral spine and an upright
chest position.
Action: Take a step forward with your right foot. Bend your hips,
knees, and ankles to lower your hips toward the floor. Your front
knee should be directly over your big toe. Bring your rear left leg
and foot forward and resume the starting position. Repeat the
action by stepping forward on your left foot.
Repeat these steps, alternating sides to walk forward with each
lunge.
Try to perform 12 to 15 reps on each leg.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
Barbell Deadlift
Start: Place the barbell on the floor in front of your feet and keep
your legs close to the bar. Your feet should be about hip-width
apart. Take a shoulder-width grip on the bar. Keep your back and
arms straight.
Action: Pull the bar up the front of your thighs, using the strength
of your legs. At the top of the exercise, squeeze your glutes, and
pull your shoulders back.
To return the bar to the floor, push your bottom backward and
lower the bar down the front of your legs. Place the barbell back
on the floor. This completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
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Barbell Bench Press
Start: Take the barbell with a firm grip and lie on your back on
your bench. Lift the barbell to a position over your chest, with
your arms extended. Make sure your hands are placed slightly
wider than shoulder-width apart.
Action: Lift the bar off the rack, retracting your shoulders
completely. Draw in your core completely, and drive your feet
into the floor. Lower the barbell to your chest. Return to the
starting position. Make sure you move the weight through a full
range of motion. This completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
Dumbbell Rows
Start: Pin your shoulders back and down with the dumbbells at
midthigh. Keep your chest high and hinge forward at your hips
until you reach a 45-degree angle to the floor. Tighten your core
to support your back.
Action: Pull the weights upward to about chest level and
squeeze your shoulder blades together at the top of the
movement. Lower the dumbbells back down to the starting
position. This completes one rep.
Dumbbell Shrugs
Start: Stand erect with a dumbbell in each hand (palms facing
your torso), arms at your sides.
Action: Raise the dumbbells by lifting your shoulders as high as
you can. Hold the contraction at the top for a second. Lower the
dumbbells back to the original position.
Repeat for as many reps as possible, just short of failure.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
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Standing Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Start: Grasp a dumbbell in each hand at your shoulders with an
overhand grip. Stand upright and keep your back straight.
Action: Raise the weights above your head in a controlled
motion and pause at the top. Return the dumbbells to the start
position. This completes one rep.
Note: You can also perform this exercise while seated. A seated
dumbbell overhead press is a better option if you are new to
resistance training or if you have back issues or injuries. To
perform the exercise, simply sit on a bench and follow the same
steps.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
Rear Delt Flyes
Start: With your feet about 12 inches apart, grasp a dumbbell in
each hand. Tilt your upper body so that it is at a 45-degree angle
to the floor. Maintain a slight bend in your elbows.
Action: Raise your arms up and out to your sides until your
shoulder blades want to retract. Return the dumbbells to the
starting position. This completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
Barbell Curls
Start: Place the barbell in front of you on the floor. Grab the bar
with a firm underhand grip and lift it up to your upper thighs.
Maintain an upright posture. Brace your core.
Action: Keeping your upper arms and elbows close to your
sides, curl the bar up to your upper chest. Lower the bar to the
starting position, moving through a full range of motion. This
completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
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Triceps Pressdown
This exercise can be performed in the gym using a cable machine set up for pressdowns. However, in
the instructions below, I show you how to do the very same exercise using resistance bands, which can
be used at a gym or at home.
Start: Anchor the middle part of your band to a sturdy overhead
structure. Stand with your feet about 12 inches apart and bend
your knees slightly. Grasp the handles of the resistance band,
palms facing downward. Keep your upper arms bent and elbows
tight against your upper body.
Action: Slowly extend your arms down to full elbow lockout,
feeling tension in your triceps muscles. Then, slowly return to the
starting position. This completes one rep.
Perform 2 to 3 sets.
Isometric Planks
Start: To strengthen your abdominals and core, begin on your
elbows and knees. Place your hands, forearms, and elbows
under your shoulders on the floor or an exercise mat.
Action: Brace your core and extend your legs back and press
your hips up. Tuck your tailbone forward, squeezing your abs.
Hold the position for the specified amount of time.
Repeat this exercise 2 to 3 times.
Bodyweight Calf Raises
Start: Stand up on the balls of your feet at the edge of a step or a
calf block (a small raised platform on which you can do calf raises
to develop, stretch, and shape your calf muscles).
Action: Slowly lower your heels until you feel a stretch. When
you get to the bottom, try to lift your toes as high as you can as if
you are trying to get them to touch your shins. You won’t be able
to move much but this is okay; the intention is what is important.
Pull your toes up while your heels are at the bottom for 5 to 10
seconds, then step down and rest for 10 to 20 seconds. Repeat
until time is up. Perform 2 to 3 sets.
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CHAPTER 8: Life After the Reverse Diet
Successful reverse dieting can take anywhere from a few weeks to many months. At some point along
this continuum, however, you will stop the Reverse Diet. But when? It depends on your goals and where
you are with your self-monitoring and tracking.
For example, continue the Reverse Diet if:
• You desire to put on more muscle.
• You still want to eat more calories that you were consuming before.
• You’ve been on the Reverse Diet for less time than you were cutting calories.
On the other hand, stop the Reverse Diet if:
• You’ve put on as much muscle as you desire.
• You don’t feel like you need to keep eating as much.
• You’ve been on the Reverse Diet for longer than you were in a calorie deficit.
• You’re preparing for another competition that requires tapering back on calories
to make weight or get lean for your contest.
You want to lose more body fat (see below), now that your metabolism is faster.
Lose Additional Body Fat with “Alternate Reverse Dieting”
The biggest reason to stop reverse dieting is to lose additional
“ You can’t lose weight if
That said, it’s perfectly fine, and indeed a good idea, to resume your body has excess energy,
cutting calories to achieve this goal. There is, however, a very
and you can’t gain weight if
effective way to do this without risking a metabolic slowdown.
your body isn’t provided
Simply combine the principles of reverse dieting with calorie
with enough energy. ”
body fat, especially since your metabolism is running faster.
reduction – a method I call Alternate Reverse Dieting.
Remember, your body burns off fat and pounds if you expend more calories than you consume or if
you consume less calories than you burn (known as energy balance). Although I am a big believer that
it’s not only about energy balance and that things like hormone fluctuations and your gut microbiome
can influence fat loss, it’s crystal clear (based on mounds of scientific evidence) that energy balance
plays the BIGGEST role in determining whether or not you lose weight or gain it. As I’ve stated, if you
are consuming more calories than you burn, nothing will make your body lose weight. This is a simply
law of physics: you can’t lose weight if your body has excess energy, and you can’t gain weight if your
body isn’t provided with enough energy.
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Ok, now that we have made that fact clear, I want to address the BEST way to work with calories to get
your body to BURN THE MOST BODY FAT. I’m not going to talk about macro nutrients (proteins, fats
and carbs), although they are also extremely important factors to consider, second only to total calories.
Based on Chapter 4, I’m going to assume you have a good idea of how many grams of each of the
macro nutrients you need to consume while in a calorie or energy deficit for your own body.
When people understand that they need to eat less than they burn or vice versa to lose weight, they
tend to apply this knowledge in a very straightforward daily consistent way. Here is an example:
Let’s say you figure that your body runs on 2,500 calories every day. Because you want to lose weight,
you decide to consume 2,000 calories every day, thus putting your body at a calorie deficit of 500
calories. In other words, you are burning 500 more calories a day than you are eating. This results in
some fat loss, and it’s pretty straightforward. However, it’s also not the best way to approach your diet,
because of its potentially negative effect on your metabolism.
When you do ANYTHING super consistently, your body adapts quickly. If you are consistently
consuming 500 calories less than you are burning, your body will aim to become more efficient with
calories to make up the difference. Remember, your body does NOT want to burn tissue, and this
includes fat. It would rather store it and keep it in case of a famine.
Also, your metabolism has an uncanny ability to slow down to adapt to a low-calorie diet - the main
reason why diets work for a short while but then stop working entirely. Your body simply adapted.
An effective dietary strategy is Alternate Reverse Dieting. It alternates between days with a bigger
caloric deficit, a smaller deficit, some maintenance days, and even some days where you eat a little
more than you burn. In my experience, this LESSENS the metabolic slowdown that occurs with regular
dieting. In essence, you are alternating lower-calorie dieting with reverse dieting.
This method has been studied in research. In one study, one group followed a diet that included
alternate reverse dieting. The group dieted for 11 days, then ate as they normally would for three days.
Another group followed a strict calorie-restricted diet. At the end of the study, both groups lost the
same amount of weight. However, those who followed the alternate reserve dieting method saw no
change in their metabolic rate and kept most of their weight off after the trial ended.
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In another study, women spent a month on a low-calorie diet, followed by a month on a moderate diet.
They repeated this pattern for five months. Their resting metabolic rate didn’t fall, and they lost weight
and body fat. They also worked out for three hours a week – which most likely helped produce the
positive results.
As for benefits, Alternate Reverse Dieting:
•
Boosts your metabolism
•
Prevents the metabolic slowdown associated with caloric restriction
•
Reduces cravings by better managing levels of your hunger hormones, ghrelin and leptin
•
Helps you lose fat more consistently and with fewer plateaus
•
Boosts energy for your workouts
•
Helps in muscle growth
Here is an example of how it works:
Let’s say you run on 2,500 calories a day (your maintenance calories). You want to average 500 calories
UNDER this amount. That’s a total of 17,500 total calories consumed for the week. You want a 3,500
calorie deficit for the week (500 a day). Instead of simply eating 2,000 calories every day, mix up
your intake. Have some days be 1,500 calories and have others be 2500 calories or 2,000 calories.
Ultimately the goal is to hit the same targets for the week.
Here is a comparison of both options:
Option One – Fixed Caloric Reduction (less effective)
Weekly Plan
MONDAY - SUNDAY
Body burns 2,500 calories a day.
Eat 2,000 calories daily for a total of 14,000
calories consumed for the week for a deficit
of 3,500 total calories.
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Option two – Alternate Reverse Dieting (more effective)
Body burns 2,500 calories a day
SUNDAY
MONDAY
TUESDAY
WEDNESDAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
2,000
calories
1,500
calories
2,000
calories
2,500
calories
1,500
calories
1,500
calories
3,000
calories
Your body burned 17500 calories for the week.
You ate 14,000 total calories for the week.
Your total deficit is 3,500 calories.
The second option results in a faster metabolism and gives you some days where you get to consume
more food! It also more clearly self-mimics how real life works. Overall, the Alternate Reverse Diet is a
very effective strategy for both your body and your mental state.
The Reverse Diet and the Alternate Reverse Diet are specific tools for a specific job—building your
metabolism and keeping it elevated. Along with these, be sure to focus on other goals – enhancing
the quality of your sleep, managing stress, eating mindfully, loving your body, resistance training,
improving your digestion, and any other health goals. None of this means you can’t ever come back to
reverse dieting. You can. In fact, you can use reverse dieting as a tool any time after you have been in a
caloric deficit or feel like your metabolism needs a boost.
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