Did you know the key to boosting your metabolism could be eating MORE? But does it seem like increasing your calories would just lead to weight gain? In this episode Couture Coaches Jo, Lauren, and Leigh Ann explain how increasing your caloric intake to re-set your metabolism (aka "reverse" dieting) works and share their personal experiences with reverse dieting. They discuss the nuances of strategically increasing your food consumption over time to revamp your metabolism but also how doing so can help you re-shape your body and supercharge your energy levels.
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
Take our FREE quiz: What's Sabotaging Your Metabolism?
Follow us on Instagram @couture_fitness_coaching
Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Did you know the key to boosting your metabolism could be eating MORE? But does it seem like increasing your calories would just lead to weight gain? In this episode Couture Coaches Jo, Lauren, and Leigh Ann explain how increasing your caloric intake to re-set your metabolism (aka "reverse" dieting) works and share their personal experiences with reverse dieting. They discuss the nuances of strategically increasing your food consumption over time to revamp your metabolism but also how doing so can help you re-shape your body and supercharge your energy levels.
Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it. Follow us for more tips, tricks, and support in our private Facebook Group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30.
Take our FREE quiz: What's Sabotaging Your Metabolism?
Follow us on Instagram @couture_fitness_coaching
Check at our website and blog.
Grab our free mini course - The REAL Reason you can't lose weight
Want to start boosting your metabolism today? Buy our $79 DIY, self-paced "Master Your Metabolism" course.
Want customized plan for boosting your metabolism? Learn more about our 1:1 coaching
Reserve your spot with a Couture Coach: Buy a 1:1 coaching package
Hi everyone. It's Coach Jo from Couture Coaching. Welcome to this week's podcast. Today I have Coach Lauren and Coach Leanne grizzled veterans who've been coaching clients and in the trenches with clients and today we're going to talk about reverse dieting, what that is, and share our own stories about our getting our metabolisms back to a healthy spot through this process of reverse dieting. So if any of what we talk about resonates with you and you want to learn more about reverse dieting, I really strongly recommend that you check out our $79 Master your Metabolism course. It will walk you through how to set up a reverse diet, where to set your calories, how to calibrate your calories, and you'll also get some workouts and meal plans along with that course. So, again, if any of this resonates with you, might be a really good investment to check out.
Speaker 1:We also have a free quiz that you could take if any of what we're about to talk about sounds familiar to you. It's called what's Sabotaging your Metabolism and that might tell you if reverse dieting is something you need to worry about. If you have eating habits, that where a reverse diet might help you. So there's a link in the show notes to both the course and the quiz. As always, we do have our one-on-one metabolic makeover coaching program. That's our signature one-on-one coaching package, where you get a coach who will help you through all of this and tell you exactly what to do, and so links to more information about that are also in our show notes. So let's dive right in. So, like I said, we've got Coach Lauren and Coach Leanne both have reverse dieted themselves, but also coached a lot of clients through the reverse dieting process. So, lauren, can you kick us off and tell us what is reverse dieting, what is the purpose of a reverse diet and how do you know if you need to reverse diet?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, excuse me, I have a cold so I'm not sounding awesome today. So what are we talking about? We're talking about reverse dieting. So reverse dieting is kind of you can think of it as the opposite of what we think of, what we traditionally think of as dieting. So in a normal, traditional diet, right, we are cutting calories, we are lowering our intake of food in order to lose weight. So reverse dieting is the opposite of that. We're actually increasing calories and we're doing this up to a healthy caloric intake to improve your metabolism. And we do this in a methodical way. It's not like we just, you know, tell our clients go eat 2000 calories of ice cream and you reverse diet it.
Speaker 2:Typically, what it looks like is we slowly increase calories and macros. So we're doing it in a very, in a very calculated way over weeks and months and we're trying to really get, like I said, up to a healthy intake, which I think is this is going to be surprising to most women it's at least 1800 calories, really closer to 2000 calories. I think this is surprising because it's been. You know, I think most women think like 1200, 1500 calories is like what you should be eating, and that's not true. A normal person with a good metabolism should really be, you know, in the 18 to 2000,. A normal woman, 1800 to 2000 calorie range.
Speaker 2:So often we use reverse dieting to get a person's metabolism back to a healthy or normal rate after years of dieting or years of under eating, where your metabolism may have decreased, or what we call maladapt it. And what causes the or what leads to under eating could be you know a variety of things. It could just be doing it unintentionally, or it could be chronic dieting or doing you know the latest and greatest diets over and over and over again. And for me, like one way or the way it happened, is what we call scavenger eating, but we'll get more into that later. So that's just where you're not eating, months your meals skipping, you're not prioritizing your nutrition, but there's, you know, several ways that that you can maladapt your metabolism, where you need to reverse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really great description of reverse dieting. How I sometimes explain it is like you're just we're using it to reset your body's caloric threshold so you can eat more calories. But when you eat more calories, you also burn more calories, and it's a really great way to really prime your body for fat loss if you have been eating low calorie for a long, long time. Lauren, can you walk us through what happens when someone reverse diets? Does everyone? It seems like you would gain a ton of weight if you are increasing your calories. So what happens?
Speaker 2:So every person has different results but, like I said earlier, we're doing it in a methodical and calculated way. So the goal is the goal is never to lose weight, but is also not to obviously put a ton of weight on. So obviously, if you're you know, the fear would be, if you're going to eat more, you're going to quickly gain more. But in reality that's this isn't always what happens.
Speaker 2:Some people actually lose weight because they're just getting their nutrition, they're getting more consistency in their nutrition, and so there's what we say is there, we're going off of the calorie roller coaster, so where you are eating maybe very little during the week and then on the weekends you're, you know, drinking and eating everything in sight because you think you did so good, you know, during the other five days, and, like I said, it's not not to not to lose weight. That's not the not the goal. It does happen sometimes and you also may lose inches or even have like a tighter look or your body might tone up or tighten up, and most people, most people, do gain a little bit of weight over the long run, but nobody gains as much weight as they think they will or as much as they fear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll walk through sort of what what our results were from from reverse dieting when we get into that part of the podcast. I do think it's important to talk about what is and isn't reverse dieting, so we might, you know, when we're talking about eating more food or increasing calories, some of us might think like, oh, then I don't have to think at all about what I'm eating. But, Lauren, can you walk us through sort of what is reverse dieting and what isn't reverse dieting?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So kind of what I alluded to earlier, like what reverse dieting is not. It's not a free for all eating whatever whenever, however you want. It is a very calculated, intentional, strategic nutrition plan where you're eating mostly whole on processed foods and you're increasing your calories in like a very calibrated way over time. And what's hard about this is like you're, when you're reversing, you're paying very close attention to your nutrition, you're working very hard and you're being very intentional. So that takes a lot of energy. And so I think a lot of people think, oh, I'm doing all this stuff so I should lose weight. And again, that's not the purpose. The purpose is to repair your metabolism, to get back up to a healthy caloric intake, but it does not. You know, it does not equal weight loss most of the time. The real point is to reset with hopes that your body will respond differently when you do diet or do different things down the road.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think and I think you make a good point Some people I mean, for some people it's the first time they've ever been intentional about their nutrition or been, you know, tracked macros or tracked their calories or what they're eating, and so I think that they think like, wow, I'm working so hard, I'm being so intentional. This shouldn't naturally translate into losing weight, but it doesn't always, and I think the really important thing to stress is that. Well, I also think that anyone that has to reverse diet thinks that they're going to be the lucky one that loses all of their weight, because some people do reverse diet and lose a lot of weight and then when that doesn't happen, either, when you know they don't lose a pound or even the weight goes up a little bit that they failed, like they failed at the reverse dieting process. And if you don't lose weight during a reverse diet or you even gain a little bit of weight, it doesn't mean you have failed by any stretch of imagination.
Speaker 1:The whole point here is sort of a reset of your body, with the hopes that your body will respond differently to dieting inputs down the road. So, you know, I just we don't ever want anyone to think that they're a failure because they don't lose weight in a reverse diet. That's not the right way to think about it. Okay, leanne, coach Leanne, how common do you think under eating and reverse dieting is? Like how many of your clients, would you say, need to spend time getting their calorie intake back to a healthy spot through the reverse dieting process?
Speaker 3:So I can confidently say that every new client I've worked with has been under eating, Some of them under eating without knowing it because they're like well, you know, I feel like restriction has always been the way to go, but others actually overestimate how much they eat and then a lot of that, I think, what's programmed in our brain from society as a whole. Another half has really come to me and been like I am eating so many calories, I am ready for a cut. But these people also tend to not be tracking their food and maybe just that element of the nutritional education of the carbs, proteins and fats with the carbs or the carbs with the macros. That yet is not the intentional piece that has been missing in their life. So, but overall, under eating is very, very common.
Speaker 3:I feel like there is a slight shift in culture in being open to the reverse dieting. I feel like a lot of it is social media, with people being open to trying new things and, of course, people seeing all the pictures on social media. But reverse dieting, I feel like, is still growing in, growing in popularity, but it's also growing because it works. People are able to really see things a lot more versus 10 or 15 years ago or, for instance, back in the 90s, this was obviously not a thing. Fat-free snack wells were the thing. Fat-free twizzlers were the thing back in the 90s. So under eating is definitely a lot more common, but I feel like reverse dieting is slowly working its way in to be able to help people heal their metabolism and really ultimately get to a better quality of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. Yeah, well, I think we know it's. You know, needing to reverse diet is common enough that all three of us have had to do that to get our metabolisms back to a healthy spot, and each of us have different stories of how we got ourselves into a situation where we needed to reverse diet. So why don't we share our stories? And our hopes in sharing our personal stories of reverse dieting is that, if this is you listener, you might hear yourself in one of us and kind of find the way out of you know that frustration of it feels like no diets work. You know, no matter how restrictive you are, like your body just will not respond to dieting attempts or your kind of. Your weight is just stuck. And so, again, our hope is that you might hear yourself in one of us and find a solution and get you out of that frustrating spot. So, lauren, do you want to start by telling us sort of your reverse dieting story?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know I was an under-eater, but what's funny, I was thinking about this earlier I wasn't always an under-eater, so I would say so I have. My kids are five and eight and I would say probably I became an under-eater after my first kid was born, cause before that, I mean, when I, you know, when I went on diets, it was always because I was overeating and I always had good results when I went on diets or started working out for that. But I think what happened, you know, after I had my first kid, after I had my first child, you know, you're tired, you're exhausted, you don't want to think about what to eat, how to eat it, when to eat it. But I also knew that I didn't want, you know, I was trying to lose the baby weight and so the easiest thing for me to do was just, you know, not eat. So I would just, you know, skip meals or, you know, if something healthy wasn't around, I just, you know, I just wouldn't eat. So I think that's actually how it started for me. But it worked, like, for a while I'm under-eating between both of my kids and then, after my second, worked for a while eating at, you know, I mean I think I was eating like 11 hundred calories when I started my reverse. But what happened is, eventually my body fought me on that and I actually gained weight.
Speaker 2:I actually, when I started my reverse, I was probably the heaviest. I'd been not pregnant even though I was eating 11 hundred calories and working out and work, doing a lot of cardio at the time and so I actually was one of Couture's first reverse clients and when I started, you know, I was like, oh, I want to lose weight. And well, guess what? You can't. You can't cut your calories and lose weight when you're already only eating 11 hundred calories. And so I had to reverse diet and so I, in a very, you know, calibrated way, up to my calories over the course of, I think, nine months.
Speaker 2:And it's a really hard process because it is so counterintuitive and you have to be so intentional and you have to. You're still tracking your calories, you're still working out, but you know that the whole time you're doing that you're not. The purpose is not weight loss, and so it's kind of, you know, it's a big mental game. And for me, you know, I had a coach, so it was really helpful for her every week to like tell me I'm doing it right, increase my calories, tell me to eat more. You know, I would just never, ever do it on my own because it was just it's so counterintuitive and it's so scary. But after.
Speaker 2:So what happened during my reverse is I was, like I said earlier, I was scavenger and so I would just kind of eat like whatever was available. But I also was on that calorie roller coaster we talked about where I would, you know, really restrict during the week and then maybe like blow it out on the weekends with going out to dinner or drinking alcohol, and so actually, by reversing and getting a more consistent intake day to day, I initially lost weight. So I lost weight, lost inches, definitely tightened up. But I mean I did this for nine months and so by the end of the nine months I think I was back up to where I started, but in a very different way.
Speaker 2:I mean my still was I had gained more. I gained a little bit of muscle by then I had. You know, like I said, I actually like I just feel like I toned up, I lost some inches. So that was kind of where I was at at the end of my reverse. And then, after reverse I went into a diet and tried to then kind of lose some of the weight and that lose weight that I originally wanted to lose and I and how did your body respond to that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it you know, of course you're doing all of this work and you're up too. So I got up to like 1800, 1900 calories and I of course thought like, oh, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna lose weight so fast because I've prepared myself and, honestly, it takes your body a minute to adjust. I did not lose a ton of weight right away, but eventually, like, I did lose weight and I lost it on a much higher calorie intake than I had ever previously. So I was able to lose weight on like 1500 calories and get to where I want it to be versus like I mean seriously probably 800 calories at times. So I mean that in itself is just a huge improvement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Okay. So I think you make a couple of good points, which it doesn't sound like you were doing like any particular intentional diets like Weight Watchers or Keto. It was just kind of under eating by avoiding and not prioritizing nutrition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just under eating, by avoiding food and I didn't want to think about what was the healthiest thing to eat.
Speaker 1:Okay, and was it like? Was it like you know, kind of like, maybe like someone who maybe has anorexia, that wouldn't eat or just was like you know, too much trouble to plan your food and come up with healthy options?
Speaker 2:I'm actually trouble to plan my food. Let's just eat one meal a day because that's just the easiest thing to not think about. And eventually, the other thing is is you become not hungry? So, like you, there's nothing to not eating all day because you and also I should say, like I'm very, I'm a busy person, like I, I can't, you know, when I work I get really into it, I keep myself very busy, and so it was very easy for me just to like work all day and skip meals and not think about it. But then dinner time comes and you're starving, right, and so you grab what's there, but no one meal is gonna, and most of the time is gonna be well one. That's not the way you eat. You should eat, but it's you're also just never gonna get like the, the calories and the macros and the protein mostly that you should be getting in when you do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm gonna tattle on you a little bit. So Lauren and I used to work together and I remember we would well you, I would accompany you, but to go get lunch from the vending machines, yeah, so that you might be a scavenger if you're getting lunch from the vending machine.
Speaker 2:I mean two in my, in my defense. They were the nice vending machines that had like sandwiches.
Speaker 1:Yeah, true, Tuna salad and some other stuff.
Speaker 2:But Roast beef was my thing.
Speaker 1:Okay, so even though, like your, your body didn't, you gained a little bit of weight, it sounds like ultimately in your reverse and your body did not. You know hyper respond at first to the dieting process. After you did this was it worth doing?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Yes, so this was just to put this into context. This was, oh goodness, two and a half years ago two years ago, probably two years ago by time I did the reverse and did my diet afterwards. I have not like under eaten or dieted since and, like my calories have remained high. I'm able to, like go on vacation and not you know, and of course I'm vacationing to eat more, but I don't gain weight like I did before, because I'm at a like my metabolism is at such, a, such a improved place and also I've been able to gain muscle and lift in a way that I haven't. I wasn't able to before. So, no, I, absolutely, I mean, for me it was like I had a you know I it was the whole time I was doing it. I viewed it as, like I'm going to do this right one time. I'm going to get my calories up, prepare my metabolism, so I never have to like do this again you know, like, so I never have to go on diets or not eat or feel just that, just that.
Speaker 2:I mean even like around the holidays, like I just started. I don't even get that anymore where it's like you gaining. You know you get bloated on the holidays because it just it doesn't. It's so different and so, just in just for that, it was worth it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I think that's even clients who are resistant to doing this. What we, I would say universally here across the board, is feel so much better, never going back, total quality of life enhancer, getting the calories up and not trying to get by on a low calorie lifestyle. Okay, leanne, do you want to share your story how you got yourself to a point where you needed to reverse diet and then how the process went for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely. So this is going to sound very strange, but so when I first the first part's not when I first came in, I was eating around 12, the 1300 calories a day consistently. And so when Ellison first started coaching me, I was like Ellison's probably just going to make a few tweaks here and there, because I have a pretty good idea of what I'm doing. I have a basic, really good base of healthy knowledge of what I should be doing. Then when Allison told me, nope, we're going to go ahead and put you through a reverse. I'm actually going to go ahead and we're going to walk you up probably at around 2,000 calories Because you're very, very active because of this and this and this, I was like, oh, we are. Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:At first I was like, okay, I'm excited. That's the strange part is, I was excited. This was something that was completely new to me. Never heard about this in my entire life. I love exercise, science. I'm very much into learning more about nutrition. I was actually very excited. But then I also trusted my friend Janine. I was like, okay, I know Janine wouldn't set me up for something that would, I guess, lead me down a bad path. I trust her. She's good people, good ethics. Let's go, let's roll. I was actually very excited. I know that is the exact opposite of what a lot of people feel when they first start a reverse diet. For the first, time in their life.
Speaker 3:It helped me because in my reverse diet I actually lost weight. I actually lost around eight pounds. I believe it was in my reverse diet when I walked up to around 2100 calories. I think it wound up being 21,. I think, yeah, 2000, 2100 calories. I cannot believe how good I felt Just my energy for one. Also, I really noticed a big difference with lifting in the gym and just having such an organic energy that I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing To me. That was a game changer. I actually stayed in maintenance. Once I reverse. I stayed in maintenance for about three months. What is maintenance?
Speaker 1:What does that mean?
Speaker 3:I'm sorry. After I got done with that, I went into just sustaining the calories of pretty much after we reversed up and an Allison was able to watch my biometrics and say, all right, I think this is your pretty good calories right here. We're just going to go ahead and keep you here for a while just to make sure that your body is able to signal to itself that it will be able to continue to get fed appropriately and adequately to maintain all of these body functions to support your activity, that you're doing everything else. That was my experience with reverse dieting. I will say, though, if I didn't have a coach to walk me through that, I would not have had that experience.
Speaker 3:I highly recommend getting a coach to walk you through that experience, because I believe if I were to try and do that on my own, I probably would have lasted a week and been like, well, okay, I tried it, but I don't trust myself to continue. I really trusted someone else to continue, and that really helped build my trust in the process by trusting a coach. So, besides seeing the results along the way and seeing the huge quality of life improvements along the way that I did, I think that was one of the biggest keys in a reverse was not doing it alone. For me, okay, and then.
Speaker 1:So, after you stayed at those high calories for a while, as you called maintenance, what did you then go through a period where you reduced those calories and tried to lose weight, and if so, how did your body respond?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I went into the caloric deficit range In my body. The first time I went into that range just a caloric deficit my body responded right away. It was one of those where, after it had gotten all this food for so long and then I was able to quote, unquote, prime my body and signal to it yes, you are going to be able to be fed adequately for a decent amount of time Consistently. My body responded right away and I was only in that for about 10 weeks or so before I went on a vacation. But I had pretty good results during that period and I will say it was actually more terrifying for me to reverse the second time, like coming out of that, because I was like, oh my God, this works. Like I can't believe it, like this worked. I came from a place where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired and not having anything work for me.
Speaker 1:So, finding.
Speaker 3:What I found was like this unicorn experience of being able to eat more food, still do the things I love, and I found something that I was able to, for a very short period of time not my entire life just be in that calorie deficit. So my biggest fear was like, oh my gosh, I don't want to lose this. I don't want to lose what magic has happened from, like, going up. I know I have to add, I've done it before, I've done it before, but I was so scared of like losing my results, going back into another reverse again For some reason. I feel like I don't know if it's these patterns that we've just been developed in our minds over time with society, or what, but I still feel like even after that first time, I was so excited I was, I was so scared to reverse again just because I didn't want it all to go away.
Speaker 1:And it didn't.
Speaker 3:So there was a natural like. When I did go into reverse again after that first fat loss phase or fat loss area Deposite, I was able to come back up and the natural five to seven pounds was, you know, expected. But I was able to come back up, get back into my maintenance and realize, you know, life is so much better with, with more food, get in, get out, get done. But I feel like sometimes the mental barriers that we place on ourselves are sometimes the trickiest to get over. So sometimes that that mindset piece and trusting the process are two essential elements that that really can can be tricky. But if you have the team around you, you have a coach, it makes it so much easier, so much easier to trust, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think one of the keys here is that this is not a quick fix, so you're not going to reverse diet for three weeks and then go back into a. You know it is usually months and some of us have never even been able to stick to any sort of nutrition plan for months. So you know it is, it can be harrowing. You know, the thought of, you know, increasing your calories or even just sticking to something for such a long period of time, I think most people, is hard for most people, and it is a very intentional process. So so yeah, I mean, I think it's it's a long haul sort of thing. And so you're right, support can make all the difference, and just having someone objectively telling you how it's going or that it's going fine or exactly how it needs to go, okay, so tell me again how. What were your calories when you came to us? And I know you got them up to above 2000, but what do you think you were eating before?
Speaker 3:I was definitely eating like 1200 1300 calories on a good day and I can tell you whenever I go into that deficit or that, that, that that loss phase. Now I don't even come close to that amount Like I would. I. I don't want to touch that with a 10 foot pole ever again. I don't know, how I did it. I literally was like living on fumes and I didn't realize, just because of how long I had done that, that it was just normal to me.
Speaker 3:It was normal to me and you know, I look at other people or I was watching other people who were going through this and I was like that's not going to be me. There's no way. No, that's not me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I know, I don't respond differently.
Speaker 1:I've done a lot of consults with women who will go through everything. They'll tell me what they're eating in a day and I know it's it can't be 1000 or 1200, like maybe they're fasting or they tell me what diet they're doing, and so then we get to the end of it and I might say like, well, I think the issue is that you know you might need to eat more, you might be under eating, and they're like that's not even possible. No way, I'm eating at least 2500 calories a day and most people have no idea unless you're tracking or something A lot of people don't know. So you don't know until you kind of track and know exactly how many calories you are eating. And so, yeah, a lot of people are very surprised to learn that they're under eating and need to spend some time getting their calories up.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, very good, glad to hear that it was successful for you. Oh, one other question Do you think, in terms of losing weight on the reverse diet, do you think it was like Lauren, where you were getting off the calorie roller coaster or you were just removing kind of the stress from your body from being in an undernourished state? Why do you any thoughts on why you lost weight during your reverse diet.
Speaker 3:I think it was probably my body releasing that stress of just it's finally getting fed adequately for the first time in consistently not just doing it for one or two days and then, or just doing it on the weekends and then, you know, going super, super restrictive, right, because that's obviously not good. So I think it was my body just really releasing that stress and saying, oh my gosh, like I can breathe again. I feel nourished and cared for. I really think that's probably what was what's good. What happened, I will say, with with the other reverses that I have done, I haven't had that same result that I had the very first time. My other reverses that I've done. Since then it's been pretty much the same, where I usually only gaining anywhere from three to five pounds and then after that everything else. Just you know is it's pretty much stays where it's at at that time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good to know. Okay, so I'll share my reverse dieting story. I'll try to make this short because it could. It's a long and twisted tail.
Speaker 1:So I first learned about the concept of reverse dieting Excuse me when I did my first fitness competition and so I got pretty low calorie during that first fitness competition, excuse me. And it was Allison who told me, like okay, after this is done, you are going to have to get your calories back up. Like and that was that was a foreign concept to me. I really thought you, when you lose your weight, you just eat that low calorie level forever. That wouldn't have been possible, you know, given what I was eating at the tail end of that show. And so my coach did. She, she gave me a meal plan that definitely brought my calories back up, but I wasn't so good and she wasn't so good at making sure that I was sticking with it. So I kind of was just not super intentional with my nutrition after that show and it wasn't very intentional at all about getting the calories back up. So I think I probably got them up to about 1500 calories. That was always in my mind where my calories needed to be, and then after a few years the weight started creeping back on. And then I got desperate and scared and I again I knew the answer was to reverse diet and to just spend time, you know, not worrying about losing weight, but I didn't really want to do that. Life started, you know, happening. I got further and further away from doing that show. I did keep some core habits in that time period in terms of lifting, eating a lot of protein, but I just wasn't really super intentional about making sure calories were consistently up. And then probably in reality, what was going on is I was on a calorie roller coaster and not eating much on some days and then, on weekends and vacations and other times, going way overboard, and I had eaten low calorie for long enough that it, like it, stuck to my body. And so then I would say, kind of got super desperate and that's a little bit of an extreme word but I really wanted to get, you know, about five or 10 pounds off.
Speaker 1:And so 2019 rolled around and I tried a lot of different strategies. I tried keto for a while. I tried this sort of intuitive eating for a while, when I only ate when I was hungry. I would get two or three pounds off with each of those attempts. And then I knew, with the intuitive eating I had, I was eating probably around 1300 calories a day and just there's, just weight was not budging. I didn't feel great but I wasn't hungry, like Lauren mentioned.
Speaker 1:And then then, just before the pandemic happened, a friend of mine told me like well, you should do this deep state keto protocol, which was I'm not even sure what it was In terms of what it made it different from other keto, but it had a calculator where you punched in your height, your weight, and it spit out what your macros should be and what your calorie level would be. The promise of the deep state keto diet was like body fat would just start melting off of me. So I started doing it and I started gaining weight. I think it set my calories around 1,700 or 1,800, and of course, it was very high fat diet Number one. I felt terrible on it and I couldn't hit the fat calories and I was gaining weight. I gained like five pounds in two weeks. So I knew somehow I knew that what I had been eating before and I thought I just was like really bad at math and I kept punching the numbers and I was like, why does it have my calories? So I like this can't possibly be right. And so that was like kind of my first clue like you have really done something here, like you need to get out of this situation. So I felt miserable on that, so I cut that out.
Speaker 1:And then somehow again now we're in the like in the depths of the pandemic. Everything is shut down. But a friend another friend of mine talked me into doing another fitness competition. I hadn't done one in like five years and that I would blog about it. I was like, oh, that's a I love that idea. But I, you know, there weren't any competitions happening cause everything was shut down.
Speaker 1:So I called Allison and was like, oh, you know, I meant to call her to ask like, who should I get for a coach? You know, what do you think? What do you think I should start working on to get ready? And so she said well, you know what, what are you doing? Where are your calories at? And I was like, well, they're probably around like 1500 a day. And she just laughed and she said you know that no reputable coach is going to work with you. You are nowhere near. You're not doing a show anytime soon, because how on earth are you going to lose weight if you're only eating 1500 calories a day? She was like cut out the dumb keto stuff, you know, and just start eating. You need to get your calories up well above 2000 calories. This needs to be happening for at least six months before you even talk to a coach, and then we'll talk about coach's names.
Speaker 1:So I knew that was true and so and again, this was not news to me I knew this is probably what I needed to do. I kind of just needed someone to give me some tough love. So she said I don't care how you get there, let's start at 1800 calories, eat at least 100 grams of protein a day. I don't care where the rest of your calories are coming from. Just get up to 1800 calories a day and we'll stay there for a while. So I was honestly kind of relieved kind of like you, lee, and I was not excited, but I was relieved to just have a plan and I knew it was the right answer.
Speaker 1:So I did that and it was like freedom. I mean, I felt so much better immediately. It was just freedom. I could go out to restaurants. Well, there weren't that many restaurants open at that time but I could go out to eat. I just like that burden and that worry of like eating low calorie was gone.
Speaker 1:And so I did pretty well until about a month in and I gained a few pounds, of course, called her up and was like I think I should stop. She was like, well, you can stop, but you know that it's you would never be able to diet. You're never gonna do a show if you have nothing to diet from, no coach is going to take you. You know this. You just have to keep going. And then my weight really settled out. So I would say after two months or so that everything kind of stabilized. I think I gained three pounds total in that first reverse and I got to the point. It just got to be, you know, not that big of a deal. I mean, I loosely tracked during the whole time period. I was eating foods that I hadn't allowed myself in a long time. So it was real freedom when I was doing it.
Speaker 1:And I think the thing that helped me the most during the process was number one. I had, you know, a coach, allison, someone that I could just like bounce off. Is this normal? Is this what should be happening, or even just to tell like this is really scary, I'm really scared to do this and just to be like no, you know, it's not gonna be okay and it's really what you have to do for your body. The other thing that really helped me is I took pictures through the whole time period and even when I felt like I was blowing up, the pictures weren't changing. I could compare, you know, one picture to the next and realize even if it felt like my waist was growing or my legs were growing or they weren't, I mean, the pictures looked pretty much the same and you would not have been able to tell.
Speaker 1:The other thing that helped me a lot in the process is I had a lot of injuries going into that reverse, I think, because I had kind of beat my body down so much. I had shoulder, I had hold, or strained rotator cuff constantly battling, strained hamstrings and all those things started like I started healing. So that was a real sign to me. My digestion got so much better, I had so much more energy, so I felt really so much better when I started doing this and then in turn my body hyper kind of responded to and it was very easy to lose weight after I did that reverse diet. So that was my process and I have done a few. I mean I've, you know, done a few dieting cycles since that initial process and probably, you know, my results are directly correlated to how intentional I am with my nutrition and how much I'm actually paying attention to how much I eat.
Speaker 1:I think, honestly, what the reverse did for me is got me off of a calorie roller coaster. I was eating low calorie long enough that it had definitely impacted my metabolism. But I was also going I mean, I was hungry, I didn't feel good, I felt depleted, so there were definitely times when I was going overboard and eating more. So it just got me, I think, mostly into a place of consistency. So, you know, I think that's why I did not gain a bunch of weight and had really good results.
Speaker 1:But I agree with you know everything that you said, leanne, about having support and a coach and some accountability. Because I think if I had not talked to Allison and told her what was going on, I mean I might have said to myself I'm going to reverse diet but I would have abandoned it after two weeks because no one knew the better. I mean, if I didn't tell anyone, no one knew if I was abandoning a diet. It's just like going on any other diet If you don't have any external accountability, you can abandon that diet real quick and no one will know the better. So it definitely helped me to have accountability and some sort of objective feedback. So that was my story and I didn't do it till I was 48.
Speaker 1:So you know, if you're listening to this and you're 50, 55, 60 and thinking like, oh gosh, you know I've been eating low calorie or maybe I have been under eating or a reverse diet won't work for me because I'm too old, that's not the case. We've taken a lot of older women through the reverse dieting process with great success. So never too old to turn things around. So there you have it. We are three reverse dieting stories.
Speaker 1:Again, if you think this might be you, I would really recommend checking out the resources I mentioned at the beginning of the show, and you can always also book a free strategy call with us where we can talk through what's going on, what your eating patterns have been, and if you might need to reverse diet. We're always happy to get on a call with you. So to wrap things up for today. I think one thing that the three of us would agree with is that, if you're patient, work through getting your body out of a low calorie spot, there is definitely freedom on the other side and none of us would go back to our old patterns. So I thought what we could do is wrap the podcast up with our favorite, some favorite foods we can now fit into our everyday lives and diets that maybe we're off limits when we were in a super low calorie spot. So, lauren, anything for you that comes to mind.
Speaker 2:That's funny is it's not like a food that comes to mind, it's like more than one meal a day. It's like I can have multiple meals a day and snacks and it'll be okay, because I don't know if I was ever like not eating something because, like I said, it was like I was a scavenger, so like nothing was really off limits because I didn't eat all day. So then if I wanted to have a donut, like okay, because I didn't eat all day, but it really is just being able to eat multiple times a day. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. That sounds way better than just eating once a day, leanne. How about for you?
Speaker 3:So I'm gonna bring out two points. So my first one is going to be I feel like the first time I reversed, it was like a rookie reverse, and it was the aha moment of, oh my gosh, I can have all of these foods, what, and like I can play Tetris and like I can have an amino ice cream sandwich, I can do this, I can do this. And so it was like the first time I reversed. It was such like that freedom you spoke of Joe where I was like whoa, this is amazing.
Speaker 3:And so the foods that that gave me that freedom there, like I'm a foodie, and so for me, like I have really gotten into the foods that I thought were amazing the first time I reversed, are actually now just what I actually like, like, like, not just chicken and broccoli and rice, because that sucks eating that all the time, like I remember just doing a chicken and broccoli rice combo one time, I don't know, about 10 years ago and so, and it wasn't, it wasn't realistic, um, but but for me, my favorite foods that, like outside of my rookie, my rookie reverse Um, I love anything waffles, so I really appreciate making a good waffle breakfast sandwich, waffle desserts, like anything.
Speaker 3:Waffles that with protein, of course, so like protein powder mixing with them. Um, I really enjoy that. But, um, my favorite foods right now are, for sure, waffles, and then I'm really gotten into making sourdough bread and so, um, really enjoying those beautiful carbohydrates and um, just just enjoying Making that as more of so a part of Life and just the life experience, rather than thinking about constant restriction all the time. Um, so, yeah, definitely waffles. I feel like before then waffles were like on a weekend. If you were go overboard, like Drink too much or eat too much on the weekends and be super restrictive during the week, then waffles would be a part of that splurge plan. But now they're healthily part of the normal plan.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think our, um, our kind of our first reverse diets were similar, um, because I do remember, like I'm gonna have a cupcake, or you know, um, and I was. It wasn't I wasn't going bananas, but it was like I could eat those things, um, without the guilt or without the concern, or, oh gosh, you know I'm going off the rails. So I remember that, um, but now I would say that, um, I think for me it's like things, that which is so nuts, but, like you know, you can eat. You know bananas are evil, or if you go looking on instagram, they're, they're two carbies, so you can't eat a banana, or you can't even eat an apple, or you know things that are really Good foods like that I used well, this was probably from doing keto Um, that like wouldn't, you know, cause guilt. Like eating an apple should not invoke guilt.
Speaker 1:So, um, just I think that being able to eat you know, I don't so much anymore just like Want to go crazy and have, like you know, a sugar cookie every day or ice cream every day, or I really just enjoy, um, how I feel eating a pretty healthy diet and it's not a big deal, like lauren said, to go on vacation and and enjoy some things or enjoy a few drinks here or there. So I think for me, what's great is just like the guilt being gone. I really um In just all the thinking about what you can eat and what is off limits and what's on limits and Good or bad, given whatever the diet of the day is. So I was very I definitely was a yoyo diet or susceptible to every fad that came along. Um, so when you do that, you a lot of Food rules start to come into play. So I am grateful to not be doing that anymore.
Speaker 3:So and I will see, if you don't mind me adding that, like, yeah, now that I've evolved out from the rookie reverse to more of like reverse into maintenance, my, my maintenance really doesn't look a whole lot different. Then then a fat loss phase does. Sure, I make adjustments, small adjustments, but I feel like some of the biggest changes happen between, like I don't feel that major restriction, like I did before, and like, like you said, that guilt is removed. Um, so I don't feel like I have to have that ice cream sandwich because I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to have this again and you know, whatever. Um, so anyways, I think that was just the last point I wanted to make is, I'll oftentimes my maintenance looks very similar, but obviously small tweaks are made to make things happen. So it's a, it's an easier transition now as time has gone on and I've made adjustments for myself In what works for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Before we go.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna tattle on joe because I remember Crazy diet. I remember some version of coffee with butter and some other fatty stuff in it. Yes um, that was during my keto days.
Speaker 1:Yes, there was this oil that you put in it. The oil, I don't actually don't think I don't drink it anymore, but, um, yeah, this crazy, um, and I'm not even a coffee drinker, but that's what you were supposed to drink, this bulletproof coffee that had a bunch of fat in it, basically so that you didn't eat breakfast. Um, so, yeah, I'm glad those days are gone.
Speaker 2:So joe is having her bulletproof coffee and I was having my Sandwiches from the vending machine. It was lovely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, days gone by, hopefully, so, um, okay. Well, thanks ladies for sharing your story. We said if, if any of this sounds familiar, I'd love to get on a call with you and help you troubleshoot what's going on. Have a great week, thanks everyone. Bye.