Every spring, Jim White and his colleagues get in the best shape of their lives. They commit to strict eating plans and carefully crafted exercise regimens with one goal in mind: the company’s annual June photo shoot. “It’s a big goal for us every year,” says White, a registered dietitian and owner of Jim White Fitness & Nutrition Studios throughout Virginia.
But once the camera snaps its last shot, the restriction reins come off. After the first year’s shoot, White says, a lot of the trainers binge ate and put on 10 to 15 pounds in a single month. “They were really discouraged,” he says.
[See: 11 Things to Tell Yourself When You’re About to Binge Eat.]
Next year, they’re doing it differently, by planning to “reverse diet” once the shoot is over. The term, which White says is particularly buzzy in bodybuilding circles, essentially means strategically easing back into normal, sustainable eating habits in order to promote long-term weight maintenance and prevent an unhealthy cycle of dramatic weight loss and gain.
“I think it’s something that most people haven’t thought about for the longest time and now people are starting to think about that transition,” says Jessica Crandall, a registered dietitian in Denver who works with athletes and other types of clients.
The strategy has merit, experts say, mostly because it gives dieters some structure once they’ve reached their goals. Without a post-diet plan in place, many people can be tempted to return to their unhealthy ways or even adopt worse habits than before their diets began. “People lose 30 to 40 pounds and then they regain 50 and that yo-yoing is hard on your body, it complicates things metabolically and it’s devastating mentally,” Crandall says.
Reverse dieting can also be helpful in preventing the opposite problem: reaching a goal, deciding it’s not good enough and spiraling into disordered eating and exercise patterns. “It’s as much psychological as it is physical,” says Madison Keesling, a personal trainer and registered dietitian-in-training in Sarasota, Florida, who’s reverse dieted after competing in bodybuilding competitions. “It helps people gain weight back gradually so it helps ease that [food] fear.”
[See: 10 Signs You’re Exercising Too Much.]
But reverse dieting comes with a few red flags, too. Most glaringly, in order to reverse diet, you first have to be on a restrictive, short-term diet, which health experts rarely endorse for the average person. “I never feel like somebody should go on something that’s so strict that they can’t keep it up, and that’s the problem with dieting to begin with,” White says.
The strategy is also based on a faulty understanding of human physiology and metabolism, says James Krieger, a nutrition and exercise science researcher and writer in Seattle who founded the website Weightology. “The thing that’s causing your metabolic rate to slow down and your [non-exercise energy expenditure] to slow down … is you’re in an energy deficit,” he says. “So the idea doesn’t make any sense because if you slowly just start to add calories back in, you’re still in the deficit, which is what’s creating the problem in the first place.” Better to eat however much your body actually needs to maintain weight as soon as possible, he says.
Still, if you prefer conquering short-term challenges over making slow, sustainable changes and have struggled with weight regain (and then some) after dieting in the past, reverse dieting may make sense for you, Crandall says. The same goes for people who want a clear path out of what could become an unhealthy relationship with food. Here’s how experts say to reverse diet as safely and effectively as possible:
1. Plan.
The time to craft your reverse dieting plan is before your diet begins. That’s in part because after a restrictive diet, your brain may be lacking the fuel to think clearly, which can contribute to out-of-control binges or fuel a desire to restrict your diet even further. “When you deprive yourself so much, your brain is starving,” says White, who recommends working with a registered dietitian or other professional who can help you craft a plan that works for you.
2. Take it slow.
If you’ve eliminated carbs, start by adding one to one meal a day (Keesling starts with eating brown rice at lunch again, for example) before including one with every meal (bring on the breakfast bananas and supper spuds). If you’ve slashed calories overall, begin with adding about 300 extra a day and work up from there, White recommends. Using a food scale or measuring your portions for the first week — but no longer — can help, Keesling says. “For most people I don’t think it’s healthy to obsess over measurements, but it can provide a sense of security because you know you’re in your limits,” she says.
3. Expect weight gain.
Whether you take it fast or slow, eating more after a restrictive diet is going to cause some weight gain. That’s normal, healthy and initially due in part to water retention, particularly if you had eliminated carbs since your body holds onto about three grams of water for every gram of carbohydrate, White says. “I’ve seen bodybuilding clients gain 10 pounds in one day, and that’s not unrealistic,” though most people can expect to gain a few pounds in a week, he says. The lesson: Don’t fixate too much on the scale and instead try to tune back into your hunger and fullness cues, Keesling says. “Bodybuilding competitors get so used to eating on a strict time schedule that they forget how it is to eat when they are hungry and to stop when they are satisfied, rather than when they ‘hit their macros,'” or reach their day’s allotment of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, she says.
4. Keep moving.
If there’s one well-known way to maintain weight, it’s through regular exercise. In fact, research on people who’ve successfully kept weight off burn about 2,500 calories a week through physical activity, on average, Krieger says. “When people stop losing weight and they figure they’re done, people’s calorie intake starts to creep up without them realizing it,” he says. “Having a high amount of physical activity helps as a buffer against that.” If you’re sick of intense workouts, try something restorative like yoga, White suggests.
[See: 10 Healthy Habits of the ‘Naturally’ Thin.]
5. Indulge.
What fun is going off a diet if you can’t have your favorite foods — say, cheese, chocolate or beer? Don’t be afraid of them, just add them in gradually and reasonably rather than taking a full week or month to “cheat,” White says. “An indulgent meal can be very satisfying and can keep you going longer and it can give you fat-soluble vitamins; it speeds up the metabolism,” he says. “A lot of people are afraid to do that.”
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Is Reverse Dieting the Key to Weight Maintenance? originally appeared on usnews.com
