The inverted diet can cause confusion because of its name. The initial assumption may be weight loss by eating more rather than less. Instead, the reverse diet is about how to add calories back in after finishing a diet.
What is it?
An inverted diet is basically the opposite of a typical diet. Instead of slowly cutting calories over several weeks to try to lose weight, this diet allows us to slowly and methodically add the calories we've removed, usually from carbohydrates and fat.
The goal of the reverse diet is to slowly bring nutritional intake back to maintenance levels or slightly above, without gaining a ton of fat in the process. Adding calories in this way, in theory, should help prevent any negative metabolic adaptations you may have experienced while dieting.
It sounds simple enough, but like everything you do in the world of nutrition, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. The goal of a reverse diet isn't to gain back a ton of mass after dieting, and it doesn't mean stuffing yourself with everything that has calories. It's more of a slow, controlled approach to bring the body back to baseline efficiency over time.
How is it done?
If we have any experience losing fat for bikini surgery or gaining weight in a powerlifting competition, the process of a reverse diet should be fairly intuitive.
Determine how to track
Unfortunately, relying on memory isn't going to be enough. To successfully reverse diet, we need to track intake to take into account what we ate on the day. Most nutrition tracking apps work well and can provide additional helpful information, but any method we've used to get down to our current weight will probably suffice.
In order to gain weight slowly and steadily without regaining excess fat, caloric benchmarks must be well calibrated.
calculate calories
If we've been dieting, we should know roughly how many calories we've been eating, but we'll make sure we've consistently tracked calorie intake and body weight for a week or two to get a true picture of where our nutrition stands.
Once we've determined that your current caloric intake is maintaining the weight, it's time to add some additional nutrition to jump-start the weight gain process. We will attempt a very conservative increase in your current intake (some sources recommend a very modest increase of one to five percent) to begin the reverse diet.
control macros
Protein is arguably the most important macronutrient for a reverse diet due to the effects on muscle maintenance and hypertrophy. Establishing protein intake should come first, and we should aim for between 1,8 and 2,4 grams per kilogram of body weight.
Dietary fat follows and is essential for healthy bodily function. We'll cover the bases by making dietary fat 20-35% of your total caloric intake. The rest of your leftover calories should come from abundant sources of carbohydrates. However, there is some flexibility. If we want more fat or protein and less carbohydrates, we can modify the macros as long as we reach the minimum doses.
evaluate and control
The easiest way to control the reverse diet is to weigh yourself daily and take a weekly average. Although a noticeable increase in body weight is to be expected, especially if we are taking in much more carbohydrate than we were previously used to, we can adjust the total intake as needed if we feel we are gaining too fast.
If we are monitoring progress with the scale, we will make sure to always weigh ourselves in similar conditions, ideally in the morning after going to the bathroom and before having consumed food or water.
Benefits
This diet is a magic pill, but a well-planned reverse diet can go a long way to alleviate aggressive weight gain.
we eat more food
Adding back calories means getting to eat more food. As long as we add these calories back slowly, we can keep fat gain to a minimum while maximizing overall quality of life and mood.
If the idea of eating more while staying slim sounds intriguing, so is the reverse diet. Whether the goal is to lose body fat or gain muscle, taking breaks from your nutrition plan gives your metabolism a chance to rebalance. They are called "diet breaks." The reverse diet is a form of "diet break."
Mental Wellness
Suppressed caloric intake for an extended period of time can be mentally draining. It can make us feel sluggish, tired and irritable at times.
The reverse diet allows us to safely break out of our caloric deficit, which should bring some psychological relief, especially if we've been dieting for months.
constant weight gain
A common mistake at the end of a diet is to go back to old eating habits, significantly increasing the number of calories you are consuming. This usually results in a rapid weight gain, or rebound effect.
However, a well thought out reverse diet prevents this and can help you gain weight steadily and reliably without such drastic swings on the scale. Slow and moderate adjustments will prepare us for whatever dietary protocol we set out to do next.
Who should do an inverted diet?
An inverted diet is not right for everyone. If we just cut calories a bit for a couple of weeks, we probably don't need a reverse diet. If we stopped drinking sodas or eating refined sugars and this caused a caloric deficit that caused us to lose weight, we most likely don't need a reverse diet. This eating plan is for those who have been in a severe caloric deficit for a long period of time.
bodybuilders
Bodybuilders/Physique athletes would benefit from a reverse diet after finishing contest prep. These competitors often lower their calories to very low levels so that they can lose as much weight as possible.
This significant decrease in calories can negatively affect metabolic rate and make them more susceptible to post-show weight gain. A reverse diet can greatly minimize this by slowly adding calories.
Chronic dieters
If we are used to jumping from one diet to another, an inverted diet is perfect for us. The cycle between restriction and indulgence can have a negative impact on metabolic stability, making it difficult for us to truly assess nutritional needs. A controlled reverse diet should provide a much-needed baseline from which to make informed nutritional decisions.
those who are stuck
Even if we've been eating a really scant number of calories for months, the scale may not move anymore. If we've hit a weight-loss plateau, taking a step back could allow us to move forward.
A controlled increase in calories can do a lot for metabolism over time, as well as provide some much-needed mental relief. Although a reverse diet will slow your weight loss progress in the short term, it will be better in the long run.