30 : Reverse Dieting - How to Increase Calories Without Gaining the Weight Back

Ending a cut and not sure how to add calories back without gaining everything back? In this episode, I'm breaking down reverse dieting: what it is, who needs it, and the exact steps to get back to maintenance without losing your progress.

1:1 NUTRITION COACHING

LINK TO EPISODE 28

APP WORKOUTS

BLOG POST for this episode

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A few episodes back in episode 28 of the podcast, I was talking about the four reasons your calorie deficit feels miserable. And in that episode, I said that your deficit calories cannot be your forever and always calories. And after your deficit ends, you need to start increasing your calories again to live at maintenance for a while before you enter another deficit. And that's where reverse dieting comes into play. If you've ever ended a cut and you were scared to eat more food, you were terrified that the second you add more calories back into your diet, that you're going to gain everything back that you worked so hard to lose, then this episode is for you because we are going to talk all about reverse dieting today, what it is, if you actually need to reverse, and then the steps on how to approach reverse dieting. Being occasionally great does not get you very far, but being consistently good is what moves the needle forward. Every time you follow through for a workout, a meal, and motherhood in your finances, in your business or in your life, you're putting another penny in the jar of the person you want to become. One penny doesn't feel like much, but those daily deposits compound over time. This show is about fitness, nutrition, motherhood, money, business, and the systems that actually hold your life together in seasons where motivation is gone. Whether you're building habits, rebuilding confidence, or just simply trying not to quit, you're in the right place. Let's add another penny in the jar. All in all, reverse dieting is the process of increasing your calories from being in a calorie deficit back up to your maintenance calories, hence the name reverse dieting. So a diet is decreasing your calories to lose weight or to reduce body fat. So oftentimes people think that if they're doing the opposite of that, then reverse dieting means increasing calories and gaining that weight back. That is not the case with reverse dieting, or at least not that weight gain that you probably are thinking will come back. Now, there are two scenarios in which we could implement reverse dieting. Scenario one is after a fat loss phase or a calorie deficit phase, whatever term you prefer to use. After that phase has ended, you need to work back up to maintenance calories before you enter another fat loss phase. And best case scenario, you would spend a few months at those maintenance calories before you go into that next deficit. So that is scenario one. Your fat loss phase has ended, you're going back to maintenance before you enter another fat loss phase. And then scenario two is when you maybe have been under-eating for an extended period of time, so much so that your metabolism has potentially what we call downregulated, meaning your body has just adjusted down to the calories that you have fed it. In this specific example of undereating, the calories that you've been feeding your body are so very low that there's nowhere left to go from there but up. And hearing that you may need to reverse diet when you still feel like you have fat to lose, that can feel like you've had the wind sucked out of your sails. But the intention behind a reverse diet truly has your long-term health in mind. Okay. And if you attempt to enter into another fat loss phase without being in a healthy metabolic state, meaning your metabolism has potentially slowed down due to you chronically under-eating, that is not a healthy metabolic state. Then if you stay there, you're gonna be left spinning your wheels as to why the results are not happening. So the best route for you might be to increase your calories back to maintenance and stay there for a few months or longer, depending on your dieting history before you pursue another fat loss phase again. Time at maintenance is not time wasted. Maintenance can really be a magical season if you give it a chance because you get to eat enough to fuel your workouts. You can regulate your hormones, you can experience more flexibility with your diet than you probably realize that you can. But I also want you to hear me out, okay? At this point in June of 2026, I have coached 475 women through fat loss phases. And I can remember one person who truly needed to reverse diet and live at maintenance for an extended period of time because they truly were chronically undereating. Okay, so hear that again. One person out of 475 women who was truly undereating to the point that we could not safely take her calories any lower, otherwise, we might compromise her basic health needs. And she was kind of already showing some symptoms that she did not need to take her calories any lower. In that case, what we needed to do with that specific client was slowly increase her calories over time so that she could arrive at a space where she was eating more, her body was thriving again, all her hormones were regulated, which they were not when her calories were super low for a super long time. And then all of her biofeedback, meaning her sleep, digestion, energy, mood, hunger, those were all in the green versus being in the red. Once again, this is one person out of 475 women who was truly under-eating for an extended period of time. Most women think they have a slow metabolism when in reality they are eating a lot more calories than they realize and they are burning a lot less calories than they realize. So overall, the energy balance is not what they think it is. They are either eating around maintenance or they are potentially eating in a surplus, or maybe a third example of what could be happening is that they think they're eating in a certain percentage of a deficit, but really they're not tracking everything. So over time, the deficit that they are actually eating in is such a small deficit that the results feel like they are non-existent, like they are creep, crawly, creep, crawly results. Okay. So these women actually just need to track every bite, lick, and taste of food in a calorie deficit for several months. That is the key phrase. For several months. And if you do that, that would then prove to those women who think they have a slow metabolism that they do not, in fact, have a slow metabolism. And really, it was just a lack of tracking that caused them to think they had a slow metabolism. And you know, this wouldn't be a complete episode of the Daily Penny podcast without me being so straight up with you like that. So, yes, does a reverse diet need to be approached when there's a history of chronic under-eating? Yes, it does. But those examples are so few and far between. But I did need to mention it because they do exist. So, who actually does need to reverse diet? Like, how do you know if this is you? These are some questions that you can ask yourself. Question one, are you exiting out of a fat loss phase or a calorie deficit phase, whatever you want to call it? Are you exiting out of that and looking to live at maintenance for a while? That's the first question. Question two, have you hit a plateau or has your progress stalled for an extended period of time? I'm talking several weeks of the scale not changing, of your measurements not changing, of your clothes fitting the same, and you have been 90% plus compliant with all of your macros and your calorie deficit. That is what a true plateau is, is if after several weeks nothing has changed, meaning scale weight, body measurements, clothes don't fit any differently. That is what a true plateau is. That's the second question that you can ask yourself. Have I hit a plateau? Question number three Is your current calorie deficit so low, or have you been in a calorie deficit for so long that your biofeedback markers are now suffering? Once again, those biofeedback markers include your sleep, your energy, your mood. Maybe you have raging hunger that you can't control, maybe your digestion is off. That's just to name a few. So those are the three questions that you can ask yourself to see if you would be someone who would benefit from a reverse diet. So if you answer any of these questions, yes, then you might need to reverse diet up to maintenance and stay there for a few months. But also, you might just need a diet break, which is not the same as reverse dieting. A diet break is anywhere from a weekend back at maintenance to even a few weeks back at maintenance, taking a break from the calorie deficit just to kind of give your body a break from the effects of a long-term deficit. But let's just say that you need to end the deficit for good and you're looking to get back to maintenance calories. So in this case, we're just gonna focus, like I said, in this episode on the actual reverse diet. The unfortunate reality is that reverse dieting is rarely fun because we want results, we want those results quickly, but that's not always how fat loss works. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, it is rarely going to happen in one dieting phase. So I need you to look at fat loss as slowly chipping away over time at either your goal body composition or your goal weight. So I'm gonna give you an example of what that could look like. Let's say that you do go into a calorie deficit because you want to lose weight. Let's say that you start out weighing 175 pounds and during the first cut, meaning calorie deficit, you lose 15 pounds. So now you weigh 160 pounds. You then increase back to maintenance calories through reverse dieting. And let's just say you put back on three pounds. Keep in mind, I'm gonna get to what those three pounds could be in a second, but just stick with me. Okay, so you were 175, you lost 15 pounds, you got down to 160, you increase back to maintenance through reverse dieting, so you gained three pounds back, you now weigh 163. You track as diligently at maintenance as you did during your cut so that you don't gain more than those three pounds. And really, those three pounds, this is a combination of more food volume in your stomach, more water retention from additional carbs. So just keep in mind that's not your body storing fat like overnight, okay? It is just food volume and additional water retention from more carbs, okay? So then let's say you go into another deficit after staying at maintenance for a while and you lose 10 more pounds. So now you're down to 153, because remember, you ended last cut at 160, gained three pounds to 163. Your second cut, you lose 10 pounds, now you're down to 153. You go back to maintenance through a reverse diet, and let's just say you gained two pounds. So now you're 155 after your second cut. You live at maintenance for a while, and then you head into your third cut. And let's just say all of this is within like a 15-month time frame, okay, between all these cuts and reverse dieting and maintenance. So now it's been 15 months, and let's just say for your third cut, you lose another 10 pounds. So you go from 155 down to 145. So you see how I'm talking about a slow chipping away over time? Because you started out weighing 175 pounds, and then in like 15 to 18 months and three calorie deficit phases later, you now weigh 145. So that's what I mean by a slow chipping away over time, and how it might not happen in just one giant phase, okay? Because metabolism health generally equates to continued results. So let's say that again. Metabolism health generally equates to continued results if you are hitting all of your goals and all of your markers, okay? And the way that you see those continued results is by not forcing the calorie deficit to last forever and being okay with a deficit into reverse dieting, into maintenance, and then into another deficit again. That cycle is called nutritional periodization. And I really could dedicate a whole episode to that one day as well. But before we get into the how of reverse dieting, let me give you the why. So reverse dieting works you back up to maintenance calories. So it's going to encourage continued fat loss. And it's also going to reduce rapid weight loss or fat loss because rapid loss is not necessarily healthy for some people. Like if you didn't have a lot of weight or fat to lose, rapid weight loss or fat loss might not be super healthy. If you had a lot of weight to lose, it's probably not going to compromise any basic health needs because you have quite a bit of body fat that you could tap into. But it's generally when you see rapid loss, it's not always healthy or sustainable. So reverse dieting, like if I have a client that is like rapidly losing weight, if they don't have a lot of weight to lose, I actually increase their calories a little bit because I don't want them, like the first one to the bottom is actually the loser. Like we don't want them to plateau so quickly because things are happening so quickly, if that makes sense. Like the goal is to eat as many calories as possible while still seeing results because that is what's going to make it more sustainable over time. It's going to keep all of your biofeedback markers looking really great. So once again, rapid loss is not necessarily healthy or sustainable. Reverse dieting also allows for greater food flexibility once you get back to maintenance, and it encourages a thriving metabolism and healthy hormones. Once again, additional perks of a reverse diet back to maintenance are improved gem gains, improved cognitive function, meaning you're not going to feel like foggy brained or anything like that. You could have better sleep if that's something that suffered during your cut. Your metabolism can thrive again if it downregulated because eventually over time your body adjusts down to the calories that you feed it. Okay. And so then you can also, like I said, have more flexibility with your diet as you increase your calories back up. And I don't know about you, but I would like all of that, right? Like, yes, please, I want all of that. Okay, so now we know the why. Let's get into the how of reverse dieting. So step one, you have to find your starting point. So if you were in a calorie deficit and you were not chronically under-eating before that, whatever your calories are when you choose to end that deficit, that is your starting point for your reverse diet. And if you believe you have been chronically under-eating, but you haven't necessarily been tracking, then I want you to track what you're currently eating for one to two weeks, but make sure to track every bite, lick, and taste of food and include your weekends. Okay, so that is going to be your true calorie consumption, not just Monday through Friday calories, right? So that's where we want you to begin your increase from. And that is assuming if you are that chronically under-eating example, that is assuming that your weight remains pretty stable throughout those one to two weeks that you're tracking everything that you eat. So that is your starting point. Step two is to then begin increasing your calories. So you have two options here. Option one is to just jump straight back up to maintenance calories right away. This might work if your current calorie intake isn't too far below what you have as your calculated maintenance. And if you haven't lost more than like 10 or so pounds during your cut, you can potentially just jump straight back up to maintenance. Some women prefer to just jump straight back up to maintenance, but big butt. Because the scale can impact so much of our thoughts and our mood, I generally like to stair step my clients back up so that the client doesn't feel totally defeated if the scale spikes a few pounds all at once, if they just like jump straight back up to maintenance. And keep in mind that if you do not eat above what your true maintenance calories are, then any increase on the scale is gonna be from additional food volume that is in your stomach and that your body is currently digesting. And it's gonna be from additional water retention for more carbs, it's not going to be your body immediately storing body fat, okay? But you should definitely expect somewhat of a scale increase when you increase your calories back to maintenance. And like I said, this is why I personally like to think take things slow with clients, because it's gonna help them mentally feel like they're not just erasing all of their progress. So that was option one, just jump straight back up to maintenance. Option two is to increase your calories somewhere between 100 to 200 calories above where that current baseline was, meaning where you ended your cut, or if you were someone who was chronically under-eating, track your food one to two weeks, it says your weight stays stable, that's where you're starting from. So the option two was to increase that by 100 to 200 above where your current baseline is. If your calories are significantly below maintenance, like if you've lost a significant amount of weight, or if you've been in a deficit for a long time, I highly suggest reverse dieting this stair step option. So in both scenarios, you're gonna keep your protein goal the same, assuming that you didn't necessarily reduce your protein by a ton during your cut. So you're gonna keep your protein the same and you're gonna let the calorie increase that you incorporate back in to be distributed between carbs and fats. So you really can just play with those numbers between carbs and fats to get to your new calorie goal. Once again, keeping your protein goal the same. And I know that some of you are gonna be like, Carly, I need you to just get very granular about where I should divide those macros. So if you want to get super, super specific, an example could be to dedicate 70% of those of the calorie increase to carbs and 30% of the calorie increase to fats. But some people just prefer a higher fat diet, lower carb. Some people prefer higher carbs, lower fats. So you know what you prefer. So just give more calories to that macro. But if you're like, I don't even know, then maybe consider 70% calories to carbs, 30% calories to fats. So I'm gonna give you the math behind that, but I know because I know some of you are like, okay, like tell me what that would look like. So one gram of carbs equals four calories, and one gram of fat equals nine calories. So let's just say that you're gonna increase your calories by 200 calories that week. So that would look like 70% of those calories going to carbs, which is 140 calories, and 30% of those calories going to fat, which is 60 calories. So when you do the macro math behind that, that's gonna be 35 grams of carbs and between six to seven grams of fat. And the goal is to get to maintenance rather quickly, like you don't feel like you have to be like rushed or anything, but try to get to maintenance as quickly as you can while avoiding weight gain or fat gain, right? So now we're moving into step three, which is to monitor your numbers and your biofeedback. So what you're gonna do is you're gonna stay at that 100 to 200 calorie increase, whatever you decide to land on, for a minimum of one week, but possibly two weeks to just allow your body time to adjust to that new calorie count. So I want you to track your weight daily, first thing in the morning, to ensure that there's no major weight swings happening. And a weight increase of like between one to four pounds during a reverse diet is totally normal. But if your weight starts creeping up above four pounds into five pounds and it doesn't level out within like two weeks, then you may need to adjust. The weight gain may be because you have been undereating chronically, which once again, those examples are few and far between, but it does happen. So maybe that's you. Your body needed to put on some weight potentially. Or the other scenario is that you overshot maintenance. And know that increasing your carbs does lead to temporary water retention and that should level out over time. And like I said before, for every one gram of additional carbs that you eat, your body's gonna retain around three to four grams of water with that. So then you also need to factor in just simply eating more food. So the physical weight of the food you are eating is then being digested throughout your body as well. Okay, so as I always say, maintenance is a theoretical number and it's based on a multitude of factors. So your maintenance numbers may end up slightly higher or lower than what someone has calculated for you, or just higher or lower than what you originally thought it was. So those are great things to monitor as you do increase your calories. So, like I said, if your weight gain is exceeding five pounds above where you last ended your cut as you reverse diet, then I want you to ask yourself a few questions. Question one, have I been undereating for an extended period of time? Question two, has my activity decreased lately, meaning I'm not burning as many calories throughout the day as I was. Question three, am I Truly tracking every single bite, lick, and taste of food so that all of my calories are accounted for. Question three is probably the most important question that you should ask yourself because you can't go from tracking every bite, lick, and taste of food in a deficit to just not tracking every bite, lick, and taste of food during a reverse or maintenance and expect nothing to change, right? So some things that you can monitor like beyond just the scale, here are other things that you can track. You can track your body measurements and you could take those measurements bi-weekly. And this is something that I leave as optional for my one-on-one clients simply because many of them rely a lot just on the scale weight and then progress photos and how their clothes fit, which is totally fine by me as well. But some people are like, no, give me all of the data. So if that is you, you can get one of those fabric measuring tape things, like one of those loose tape measurements that you see maybe a seamstress use or like at an alteration place. So get one of those and measure these, the following areas: the smallest part of your waist, the widest part of your hips, your bust, and then around your biceps. So that is one thing that you can measure beyond just the scale is your body measurements. And then I said beyond just the scale. Number two is get tracking your scale weight. So these examples are not just beyond the scale, right? So tracking your scale weight. I want you to monitor this daily and do it a minimum of three times per week, an absolute bare minimum, just so that you can get a good average. And the scale cannot be your only progress marker, okay? Because you can lose or gain inches without the scale budging much at all, which could be a sign of fat loss if you're losing inches or muscle gain if you are gaining inches. So just keep in mind that the scale weight cannot be your only marker of progress. Another thing that you can monitor is your biofeedback. Monitor this weekly. So, you know, gauge like how many hours of sleep am I getting? Is my sleep quality sleep? What are my stress levels at on a scale of one to 10? Where is my hunger? How do my workouts feel? So have each one of these areas improved or decreased as you increase your calories? Technically, they you want them all to increase as you reverse diet. So just tracking your biofeedback, like where it was when you ended a deficit and where your biofeedback is as you increase more calories back in, those markers should technically, in best case scenario, those markers should improve. And then like marking some non-scale victories on a weekly basis is so important too. This is what I have all of my 101 clients do. I have a box at their check in their check-in every single week that says what's a non-scale victory that you experienced because these are so important. You should record them weekly as well. Meaning, like, what was something positive that you experienced outside of the actual data that we are tracking? So maybe this is improving in some lifts at the gym, hitting a new mile split on your run, like whatever you can think about. So that was step three to monitor your numbers and biofeedback. Step four is to find your maintenance. So if you just decided to jump straight back into maintenance, make your first jump to be within like 90% of your former maintenance calories if you knew what those were. So, like if let's just say I'm your coach and I calculated your maintenance at 2,000 calories, that means your immediate jump is to 1800 calories. If you're just like, I just want to jump up a lot all at once. So, what you're gonna do is you're gonna sit there for one to two weeks, monitor your weight. If it stays the same, you can increase by another 100 calories each week. Once again, monitoring your weight to ensure that it maintains around the same. And if you stair step your way up, just follow that same suggestion, but just like at a slower pace. So maybe instead of, like I said, jumping immediately to within 90% of your calories, maybe you're going to increase by 100 calories per week as you find maintenance along the way. And what I mean by your body finding maintenance, that means that you will land at or close to maintenance while your weight simultaneously stabilizing. Okay. So the goal of reverse dieting is to get back up to maintenance calories rather quickly while still maintaining that progress. I'm currently doing this with one of my clients. She has been tracking every single bite looking taste of food. And we have been slowly increasing her calories. And we thought that we were at maintenance because she's like, you know, like I feel like I'm kind of forcing myself to eat. And she felt like that for one week, but then the very next week, she's like, wait, I'm like I'm kind of hungry again. And over time, like we're zooming out and we're now looking at her weight trends over a month, and she's actually slowly, very slowly, still losing weight. So we increased her calories again. So just keep zooming out and look at what your weight trends are doing over time. Because if you reverse dyed up and you think that you've arrived at maintenance, but then over the course of a month, you lost two more pounds and you're still tracking everything very closely, then you're probably not at maintenance. You might need to increase by just a little bit more because once again, we're trying to get up to maintenance rather quickly while still maintaining our progress and helping our weight stabilize. And what we are trying to do through all of this is to avoid long-term calorie restriction, but also avoid plateaus because everyone wants results. Everyone wants those results quickly, but that's just not how it works, especially if you have substantial weight to lose. Once again, it will most likely take several deficit and maintenance phases to achieve your goal weight. So remember, it's a slow chipping away over time. And when we are looking at our lowest scale weight that you see during your deficit, that number, the lowest number that you ever see on the scale, is most likely not going to be your maintenance weight because in a calorie deficit, you are intaking lower carbs than you would at maintenance. So you're having reduced glycogen stores, which is also going to cause a reduce in your water weight, which means the lowest scale weight is going to be temporarily lower than where you will typically sit during maintenance when those glycogen stores are replenished and when your hydration is more fully replenished. And when I say glycogen, it's basically like your body's stored carb energy use for later. So this is stored in your muscles and liver, and it's going to cause your weight to go up just a little bit, but it's not body fat, okay? It is water weight. Okay. So when the calories are low, this stored energy for later is also going to be low. But then when you raise your calories, that comes with more energy through carbs that gets stored for later. And so those carbs, obviously, and that water weight is going to weigh something. So we're going to bring all of this, we're circling all the way back to episode 28 when I first said, hey, this would be a good episode idea. I told you that deficit calories are not forever and always calories. So now you know exactly what to do once that deficit ends. Because reverse dieting is not you failing. This is the bridge between where you are now and your next round of results that you will get in a future calorie deficit if you choose to pursue another calorie deficit again. If this episode resonated with you and you need help navigating your own reverse diet, that's exactly what I do inside my 101 coaching program. I will link to that in the show notes because I do have a spot that became available. But that will be it for today on our reverse dieting episode. So until next time, keep adding another penny in the jar.