How To Reverse Diet To Lose Weight

In this video, you and I are going to cover reverse dieting so you can eat more calories, fix your metabolism, and still lose weight. Let's cover everything you need to know. Let's first and foremost cover what reverse dieting actually is. And so reverse dieting is simply the opposite of dieting. So you have 3 main things you can do with your overall calories. You can either be in a calorie deficit, which is going to make you lose weight. Be in a calorie maintenance, which is going to make you maintain your weight, and then be in a calorie surplus so you would then gain weight. So when you're going into a diet, you take your maintenance calories, which is how many calories you need to maintain your weight, and then you decrease them to create a calorie deficit. That's how many calories you need to lose weight. So let's say for example, your maintenance calories are 2,500 calories. You then diet down to your calorie deficit, which is, let's just say, 2,000 calories. That is dieting. Reverse dieting is doing the exact opposite of that. So you're taking your calorie deficit number, let's use the same ones, 2,000 calories, and you're working your way back up to your maintenance calories. So you're increasing your calories from 2,000 per day to 2,500 per day. Which again is the opposite of what you would do if you're trying to diet, which would be decreasing your calories per day. And it might look something like this right here. So again, all of these are just hypothetical numbers. It's going to depend on you and your body and your weight and all of these things, which we'll talk about a bit later. But let's just say for example, reverse dieting. Week 1, you're at 2,000 calories like we said. Week 2, you increase to 2,100. Week 3, 2,200, and so on and so forth until you get back up to 2,500 maintenance calorie number. So it took you 6 weeks to slowly work your calories back up to where your maintenance calories are. That right there is reverse dieting in a nutshell. Now, how can this help you with weight loss? Well, let's talk about it. There are going to be 4 main ways that reverse dieting is going to work for weight loss, and let's talk about it right now. The first scenario is we have to remember we learned earlier that there are 3 things you can do with your calories. You can be in a calorie deficit, calorie maintenance, or a calorie surplus. Let's just take a different example. Let's say you're somebody who you've dieted down to where you're now eating 1,500 calories, and let's just say your maintenance calories are 2,200 calories. Again, that's how many calories you would need to maintain your current weight. You have to remember, when you go from 1,500 to 1,600, 1,600 to 1,700, 1,700 to 1,800, and so on and so forth, All of those numbers are still a calorie deficit. You are still eating less calories than what your maintenance calories are, which means you're still in a calorie deficit. You are just creating a smaller calorie deficit. So during that first week when you go from 1,500 to 1,600, guess what? You're still going to lose fat that week because you're still in a calorie deficit. When you go from 1,600 to 1,700, guess what? Since you're still in a calorie deficit, you can still have the ability to lose fat for that week as well. So when you're slowly working your calories back up, you still have the ability to lose body fat because you're in a deficit. It's just a smaller deficit. So you might go from losing 1.5 pounds per week to 1.25 pounds per week to 1 pound per week to 0.75 pounds per week and so on and so forth. But during that, you know, if it takes you 4 or 5 6 weeks to reverse diet, that's 6 weeks of you still being in a calorie deficit, which would mean over the course of those 6 weeks you would still be able to lose body fat, lose weight. Now you might be wondering, well, Eric, what happens after 4, 5, or 6 weeks? Don't worry, we're going to talk about that a little bit later in this video, as well as we're going to talk about how reverse dieting has to do with your metabolism a little bit later in this video, so stay tuned. But Let's now go into the second reason and second way that reverse dieting is going to help with your weight loss. The second scenario is going to be your cortisol and water weight. So if you don't know what cortisol is, it's just basically your stress hormone. This is not inherently a bad thing. Cortisol is not inherently a bad thing in your body. Please make sure we understand this. But what happens when we talk about reverse dieting and weight loss is when somebody has actually been in a calorie deficit for a long period of time, You will know if this is you because you have lost a lot of weight. Because if you have consistently been in a calorie deficit for a very long time, again consistently, you will be somebody who has lost 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds by now because you've consistently been in that deficit. If you are consistently in a deficit, your cortisol in your body is going to get a little bit elevated because inherently a calorie deficit is a stress that is on your body. So what happens when you start to increase your calories is, again, if you're somebody who's been in a deficit for a very long time, your cortisol levels are going to slightly decrease. When your cortisol levels decrease, your water retention, your water weight also decreases as well. This is why when sometimes people go from eating 1,500 calories to 1,800 calories, for example, They notice a massive whoosh down on the scale by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 pounds even sometimes. Why is that? Again, it's usually the people who have already lost a lot of weight. They're on the leaner side, but because they increase calories, took away their cortisol, that then flushed out the water weight, which then had them lose more weight on the scale. They're not inherently losing a lot of body fat very quickly. They still might be, but the big whoosh down is because the water weight is leaving them. because of the cortisol. The third scenario is their consistency. Your consistency, if you are going to reverse diet, is usually going to improve. Your adherence to your diet is gonna improve. And here's what I mean. If you pull out your calculator right now, whether you're on your phone or your laptop, or, you know, you're just gonna do it in your head 'cause you're a fucking mathematician, let's say you're somebody who you are eating 1,500 calories per day. Or so you think. What a lot of times is people will go into these very aggressive calorie deficits and they are eating— if they are tracking their calories accurately, which we'll actually once again talk about later in this video when it comes to your metabolism— when people are tracking their calories accurately and they're trying to be in this very big calorie deficit, 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 calories per day, what happens is Maybe they're in that number of calories for 2, 3, 4 days, whatever the case may be. And then when the weekend rolls around or when a certain day rolls around where since they've already been over-restricting their calories and since they've been eating such few calories, their hunger is so high, their cravings are so high, their hunger hormones are all out of whack. They end up eating 3 days out of the week, 3,200 calories per day. So while they may be eating 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 calories per day, 4 days out of the week. On the weekends, they're eating 2,800, 3,500, 3,200. And you might think, oh my God, there's no way this is me. I promise you, if you're doing this game where maybe you're tracking breakfast and lunch, but then on Saturday you're going out to eat and having some appetizers and doing this, that, and the other, or Friday night you're going out with the girls and you're having a few drinks and this, that, and the other, it is very easy to rack up your calories. I promise you. So what happens is people go from eating 1,200 calories per day, not actually eating it 7 days out of the week. They're doing that for 4 days and, you know, binging for 3 days. And then if they increase to 1,700 calories, for example, but they just do it consistently throughout all of the 7 days, now at the end of their 7 days, their weekly total calories are actually less than what they were doing before. Because remember, what they were doing before was eating 1,200 calories 4 days and then 3,000 calories 3 days. Their weekly calories were higher than if they just would have ate 1,700 calories per day. So that's how sometimes people eat more food and yet still lose weight. They're actually not eating more food on a weekly basis. They're actually eating less food on a weekly basis because they're eating more food on a daily basis, if that makes sense. And the last part of this, which I think most people actually don't talk about— some people talk about the cortisol, which, like I said earlier, when you're going to decrease your cortisol, you might find that you're increasing your calories, but You actually look better. You've all seen the people who like, they put these YouTube thumbnails where like they say, well, before reverse dieting and after reverse dieting, where like before they looked more overweight and then after reverse dieting they look more shredded. We're going to talk about that later in this video, but some of the reason why that is is because when your cortisol decreases, you lose some of the water weight, so you actually look more lean. And then number 2, when you're increasing your calories, you're usually increasing your calories via carbohydrates. So if you're increasing calories via carbohydrates, there is more muscle glycogen in your muscles. What does this mean? If you're going from a very low-carb diet, for example, low-calorie diet, and you introduce more carbohydrates, it's going to store more glycogen in your muscles and Which is actually in combination with the cortisol decreasing and the water weight decreasing from the stress. It's actually going to make you look more defined, look more lean, look more in shape, that toned, defined look that you're going for. Another reason— all of these reasons are why reverse dieting might help you not only lose weight on the scale but also look a certain way. Now let's get into the part where we talk about your metabolism and more Importantly, your metabolic damage or your metabolic adaptation. First and foremost, let's cover what metabolic adaptation even means. Most people don't even know what their metabolism is. Most people just think their metabolism dictates whether they lose fat or gain fat or lose muscle or build muscle. Your metabolism controls every single function in your body— how you sleep, how you eat, How you have, you know, your, your reproductive system, all of your, or every single thing in your body runs through your metabolism. This is why when people say you damage your metabolism, if you really damaged your metabolism, you'd be fucking dead because you would not be able to, you would have damage to your entire bodily function. Okay? So you have not damaged your metabolism. Your metabolism is not ruined. Your metabolism is adaptive. Remember the word adaptive. What's the connotation of that? It's not a negative connotation. It's really neutral, to be honest with you, because your metabolism is going to adapt when you go into a calorie deficit. So when you eat less calories, your metabolism is going to also be less and slow down as well. This is a normal part of you losing weight. In the same way, when you start to increase your calories, your metabolism is also going to adapt as well. Because when you go from reverse dieting, when you go from being in a calorie deficit where your metabolism slows down, when you start to increase your calories, guess what? Your metabolism goes up. This is why, again, number one, you have not damaged your metabolism. You might— your metabolism might have some metabolic adaptation, which we will talk about in a very brief second, but it's not like you can't just increase your calories and your metabolism would just also increase along the way as well. Now, when you're talking about, you know, reverse dieting and finding your new maintenance calories, here's where you have to understand this as well. If you're somebody who maybe you have lost 50, 75, 100 pounds, yes, your metabolism might be less than what it was when you were 300 pounds or 260 pounds, But what, what, what do you want? Like, do you want to be 260 pounds with a higher metabolism, or do you want to be, you know, 170 pounds with a slightly less higher metabolism but way less body fat on your body? So again, inherently, your metabolism slowing down is not a bad thing for many different reasons we just covered right there. You have not ruined your metabolism. Your metabolism isn't like a iPhone or a router where like you need to reset it or like take it in for a fucking repair. Your metabolism is fine, otherwise you would not be alive. Now in terms of reverse dieting in specific, when we talk about, you know, fixing or helping your metabolism, this, this is for the people who have gotten very lean and have lost a lot of body fat and have gotten to a very low body fat percentage. I'm talking about the kind of people who maybe you've lost your period, maybe you've just got done stepping on a bodybuilding stage. Uh, again, maybe you've just gotten very, very, very, very, very lean. For these people, yes, increasing their calories is actually going to help quote unquote fix their metabolism or increase or, you know, fix their metabolic damage because we'll just use the example of if a If a woman stepped on stage and, you know, she lost her period, she got super lean. That's not healthy. A woman stepping on stage for a bodybuilding show, getting that lean with that low level of body fat, losing your period, doing all these things, that's not healthy. So she would absolutely have to increase her calories to fix her metabolism, to get her metabolism back to a healthy spot, which along the way, by the way, that particular situation, she would actually have to gain body fat to get, to get a little bit more healthier. That's gonna be a different topic for a different conversation. She would increase and reverse diet to help her metabolism. That is left for the people who have gotten very lean. If you are somebody who's watching this video and you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds overweight and somebody tells you that you need to reverse diet, they're just fucking wrong. You don't need to reverse diet. You need to be in a calorie deficit. Remember what we talked about? There's 3 things you can do with your calories. Calorie maintenance, calorie surplus, or calorie deficit. If you're not in a calorie deficit, you're not going to lose body fat. And if you're not losing body fat right now, it's not because your metabolism is damaged. It's not because, you know, you have this metabolic adaptation going on. It's because you're not in a calorie deficit. Again, if you're somebody who does have a lot of body fat to lose, if you're somebody who's gotten super lean, Again, you might need to actually reverse diet because of what we talked about earlier with the cortisol and the water weight and the glycogen and this, that, and the other. You might have to do that, but if you still have a significant amount of body fat you have to lose or want to lose, you do not need to be reverse dieting. You need to be in a calorie deficit. Reverse dieting is not actually a tool that you would use to lose 20, 30, 40, 50 pounds. Reverse dieting might be a tool where, you know, if you're starting to get to where you enjoy, like you, you like your current body fat percentage and you're getting low in your body fat percentage. Yeah, you might lose, you might use reverse dieting to start to kind of get back up to your maintenance calories and potentially lose some more body fat along the way. Yes. But if you need to lose a substantial amount of weight, reverse dieting is not what you need to do. And again, you might be here sitting, Eric, what the fuck? I'm eating 1,200 calories and I'm not losing weight. I'm just gonna— I'm gonna give it to you honestly. I've coached people for over 7 years now. This is usually what's happening if you think you're eating 1,200 calories and not losing weight and you need to reverse diet and do all these things. This is a common mistake amongst a lot of coaches I see. People will go to coaches and say, I'm eating 1,200 calories and not losing weight. That coach then says, oh, their metabolism must be ruined, I need to reverse diet them. If again you are 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds overweight, it is not a matter of you need to eat more food. It's a matter of you need to eat less food. And so the number one reason I see is because people just quite simply aren't tracking their calories accurately. And it might not even be a fault to you because you might not have ever learned how to actually count your calories correctly. Lucky for you, I have an entire video here on YouTube on how to count your calories correctly. I'll link it up here. You can check it out if you would like to. That will teach you step by step on how to actually count calories. I can't tell you how many times people have come to us and my team for coaching, or they've joined our clubhouse where, you know, we help guide them through their weight loss journey. We help guide them through, you know, counting calories, reverse dieting, being in a calorie deficit, their workouts, everything. I can't tell you how many times people have come to us and they just weren't tracking their calories correctly. They thought they were eating 1,400 calories, but they were actually eating 2,100 calories. And you might sit there, watch this, and be like, there's no way that's me. I promise you, I've seen this enough. It's probably you, or there's something else going on that we'll talk about. But that is a very, very, very common one. And the second one is actually what we talked about earlier, which is you're just not being consistent enough. You might be that person where maybe you actually are eating 1,200, 1,300, 1,400 calories for a few days out of the week, but then Friday rolls around and you don't track, and then Saturday rolls around, you track your breakfast. This is, this is how you know I actually coach people, because you're gonna hear this and you're gonna know this is you. You track breakfast and lunch and maybe some snacks, but then dinner, don't track. Sunday, same kind of deal. Maybe you track breakfast and lunch, or maybe, you know, maybe you go out to eat for lunch, so you'll track breakfast and dinner, but you don't track lunch. This is how I know. You have to be honest with yourself. You have to really take a step back, try to remove the emotions, and look at your consistency. This is why, again, inside of our Clubhouse, for example, every single day, you know, I make people input their calories, input their steps, input their protein, body weight, every single thing, because we track our consistency inside of my group coaching program, the Clubhouse. This way There can be no, I could have sworn I was more consistent. It's right in front of your face. Are you actually hitting your calories? Are you actually staying under your calories as much as you think you are? The data will show you. And again, if you're not losing weight, you are just simply not in a calorie deficit. If you have a lot of body fat to lose, and even if not, even if not, you need to be able to, aside from the couple of things we talked about earlier with reverse dieting and whatnot. If you're not losing weight, then you are not in a calorie deficit and we just have to figure out why that you're not in that calorie deficit. Usually these are the 2 most common things that are happening with people that are causing you to think that you're eating very low calories and not losing weight, but in reality something along the way is getting lost in translation and you are not actually eating the calories you think that you are. So a very quick recap on reverse dieting. Number 1, you are increasing your calories back up to your maintenance calories. By the way, if you want to learn what your maintenance calories are, I'll drop a totally free calorie calculator in the description of this video. Feel free to check it out. Number 2, will reverse dieting maybe help you lose weight in the process? Yes, it potentially can, but it should not be used as the main tool. If you need to lose 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds, you should not use reverse dieting as the tool to do that. The tool that is going to do that is you consistently being in a calorie deficit. Now, you might slightly increase your calories to get to a more sustainable level. As opposed to trying to eat 1,200 calories, you should probably eat 1,700 calories, which is going to allow you to be more consistent, which Which is going to allow you to lose more weight, but I wouldn't necessarily deem that as reverse dieting. I would deem that as just pick a smarter calorie deficit to begin with. So that's number 2. And number 3, remember, 9.9 times out of 10, unless you've gotten to a very lean body fat percentage, you just stepped off of stage, you lost your period, whatever the case may be, your metabolism is okay and you cannot damage it. It's just adapting. It adapts down, it adapts up. It's almost like a thermostat in your house. You can go down or up, down or up. Your metabolism is okay. So as long as— if you're really worried about your metabolism, you can go to your doctor, get real blood work done, not like a fake doctor, like a real doctor in an actual like doctor's facility. Get some blood work drawn. You can get your thyroid, you can get all these things done. You can check your metabolism in an actual lab. If you're really worried about it, so go if you want to. Please, please, I encourage you to go do that. But 9.9 times out of 10, your metabolism is fine, and there's no way you're actually going to quote unquote damage your metabolism unless the only way the only real way to damage your metabolism is if you've been in that like very, very, very low body fat percentage for years at a time. Then there could actually be some damage, but even then you'll be able to increase and over time your metabolism. metabolism should be totally fine. So hopefully this video helped you. If you want some more help in your journey, you know, kind of like guiding you along the way, you know, telling you how many calories to eat, what workouts to do, being there for you, guiding you along the way, you know, having somebody in your corner, please feel free to check out some of the coaching options that I put in the description of this video. This is what I do for a living. I have myself and a team of coaches who also help coach people through their journey. So I'll put the links in that in the description below. Hope you enjoyed the video. Hope you got something from it, and we will look to chat next time. All right.