Episode 83: Reverse Dieting: The Diet after the Diet
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Episode Description
In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah discuss the “diet” after dieting: reverse dieting. This is a common term used in the bodybuilding and fitness competition industry. You may have also heard people participate in reverse dieting after losing weight. The girls break down what this means for your metabolism and if it works. This is a part 2 to Episode 74: Can You Slow Down Your Metabolism?
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0:33
hello everyone welcome back to another episode of the podcast the podcast okay
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we got we gotta change that if someone's new here they're gonna be like they're gonna forget what they're
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listening to but yeah what is your concern this is the upbeat definitions podcast you're in the right place yes
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um today we are talking about something called reverse dieting it's a question or a topic we've gotten asked about
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quite a few times people have asked us to review this um we did discuss a similar topic back
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in episode 74 so we'll link that below it's this is kind of like the part two to that almost
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um in the episode we talked about metabolic adaptation if you can slow down your metabolism and we kind of
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concluded that yeah you totally can it's a a typical or not abnormal result of
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dieting and in some cases people will do what's called reverse dieting to help
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counteract that metabolic adaptation so again it's kind of like a part two to that I think we mentioned in that
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episode that we plan to discuss this further so if you're weird on that welcome yes here
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you go and one of the things that
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we want to just mention right off the bat is this is a normal survival mechanism
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which is all three components of that phrase are very important and it's not
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that like if it's more so if like your body doesn't get enough calories that it needs
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oftentimes with dieting it'll adapt to keep you alive so
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this is just one kind of piece of the huge puzzle that is weight loss
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and it's Aloft and what makes it very hard to sustain and maintain and whatnot
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additionally metabolic adaptation plays a big part and is supported by set point
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Theory and if you or set point weight Theory so if you haven't listened to that
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episode we will also link that in the show notes so go listen to that episode
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as well it's actually probably one of my favorite ones that we've ever recorded also one of our most popular ones so if
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the other people seem interested you don't want to listen to us listen to
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that yeah but our body essential look to give you kind of
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The Cliff Notes version of a point weight Theory our body has this weight
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range that it kind of wants to be at and prefers to be at and there isn't a calculation or an
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algorithm to figure out what exactly this range is it's just kind of with
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trial and error and incorporating a lot of intuitive eating principles along
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with rejecting the diet mentality and dieting overall your body can kind of hide that
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place where it's at that set point area
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range exactly but yeah that's like why if someone asks an intuitive eating Rd like
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us if they're like am I gonna lose weight while I eat intuitively we can't say yes or no to that because it depends
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on what your set point range is if you're above that as you work towards intuitive eating you might lose weight to get to that set point range
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um if you're already at it you'll likely just kind of maintain around that area you might have like some weight gain and
4:07
loss as you do like make peace with food you might find that you overeat that food for a while or whatever there's a
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million scenarios that could happen but um you also could gain weight during all
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this to get to your set point if you are below that maybe you are under eating as a result of chronic dieting
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um and so you were below your set point and by uh what's the word practicing those
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intuitive eating principles you might gain weight to get to that set point threshold so
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you guys know this you're not new around here that we talk about that all the time how like weight loss is not something that goes right along with
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intuitive eating it just may be a result depending on what your body's preferred weight range is at
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let's talk more about metabolic adaptation and what exactly that can
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look like so so we'll just list them off so right off
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the bat we have gas or flatulence we want the medical term gross bloating
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fatigue heartburn constipation diarrhea increased hunger sleep disturbances
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weight gain plateauing anxiety loss of muscle irregularity with periods or
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menstrual cycles and low immunity so it's not just so you'll get all of
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these not to say you'll only like those in a certain number your experience but these are some possible symptoms that might
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happen when we are slowing down our metabolism exactly some
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pretty telltale signs too that you're just simply not eating enough as well which could as you know lead to that
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adaptation of your metabolism so that's kind of where the reverse
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dieting comes in if you're someone who has a pretty good idea or maybe you work with a dietitian who agrees and they
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support this that you might have experienced that metabolic adaptation where
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um you've been dieting for a long time you feel like no matter what um you know if the minute you get off a
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diet and eat quote unquote normal you gain weight or experience any of those other symptoms um you have a pretty good cell idea that
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you might have experienced the metabolic adaptation you might want to do reverse dieting um as I'll explain it's also very common
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in the fitness and bodybuilding World by those who do follow very strict often pretty low
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calorie um diets approaches in order to get that
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like stage lean look they're looking for and then the reverse dieting is often
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used during the off season to gain muscle so I'll get to that as well but reverse dieting to kind of Define it
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it's exactly what it sounds like it's the opposite of dieting so to speak it's
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the diet after the diet and it involves progressively increasing your calorie intake to boost that resting metabolic
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rate back to its original rate it's all an estimation I mean most of us don't
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have the resources to test our metabolism and it's rate very frequently if ever I've told my bod pod story on
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here before but most of us don't have the resources to to do that I only did
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once and it was a terrible situation as we discussed previously what episode is that we won't link it
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you have to go find out we've mentioned it multiple times it's dramatic for me
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apparently um but yeah this is exactly how it sounds it's where if you've been dieting
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for a long time um whether it is for the purpose of like a bodybuilding show or just weight loss
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in general um then kind of sucked up in the diet culture um you may want to
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get your metabolic rate back up and that is where reverse dieting comes in it is usually beneficial for those in the
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bodybuilding Community because it's done in a very slow Progressive Way like they increase their calories very very
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slightly in order to hopefully what their goal is is to gain muscle mass while minimizing fat Mass gain because
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when we're eating in a caloric Surplus we have a possibility of gaining fat and muscle but if you're a bodybuilder
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you're trying to minimize that body fat that you have it's kind of the whole nature of the competition is to have a
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very low amount of that and have a very specific shape so the goal is if you increase calories slowly to hopefully
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mostly gain muscle and minimize how much fat Mass you're gaining yeah
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so the question is does reverse dieting work
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and the answer is not really there has been a lot of peer
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review research around that time I'll often times if you do find any research
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around it a lot of it's going to be anecdotal and a lot of those like testimonials and we all know I don't we
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don't all know but we will make you in the know is testimonials and anecdotal
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data tends to be one of the weakest types of data
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when it comes to research because it's one individual
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you're not really controlling many parts you don't have a control group you don't have an experimental group is there
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there's no double-blind side of it it's not a randomized control trial
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it's not potentially done in a controlled research or scientific
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environment in the first place it's just someone's experience which we don't know everything going on with that
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so if so no we'll say we'll say no
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we'll say it could work potentially but from an evidence-based standpoint we're
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gonna have to say it's a no-go right now maybe in a couple decades or years or
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however I don't really know the average span it takes for like
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recommendations around different dietary
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recommendations recommendations I'm saying things that are not connecting your mind
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segments on it my brain's brain is working it's not connecting yeah it's like feeding it to the other side the
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other side's like I don't want to eat that it's like no it's like that you're like feeding baby food too yes and it's not
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digesting but anyway a long story short
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no yeah I think it's like it like the concept itself seems to make
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sense you know if our metabolism is um has been lowered from not eating enough
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eating more should help and I I think it does but like reverse dieting as a diet
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so to speak is what we just can't really Define super clearly which I think is why it's not been studied super duper
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well um which kind of leads to the next Point here which is like if you do want to do this the
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there's a lot of experimentation that would have to happen like how many calories do you increase by to get the
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success you're looking for we also have no idea what our set point weight is and that also changes too during different
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life stages so it would be a lot of trial and error which is fine like we're not always looking for like this perfect
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black and white cut and dry thing to follow but
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how do you test that to see if it as a whole is like what everyone should be doing who experiences metabolic
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adaptation like we just can't know for sure if it's the one and only best way yeah
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and I feel like this is a really good segue because there are some instances where
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reverse dieting or something like it is incorporated from like in a Medical
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Nutrition Therapy standpoint there are ex there are times that dietitians have
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to incorporate this and one of the first ones I always like to talk about is I'm
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going to butcher this because I don't work with GI issues anymore so my knowledge there isn't
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as great I think it's I want to say small bowel obstruction
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or nope one of the small ball resections
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oftentimes you have to like slowly increase calories again and it puts you
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at risk of something called refeeding syndrome and this is essentially that you have to have the calories low enough
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for a while that the body can process it because you took out a part of in in the
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specific case that I'm talking about you're taking out part of your digestive tract so your body has to adapt to that
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and what can happen is if you increase too quickly it can cause this influx of
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like electrolytes and Spike insulin and lead to other nutritional complications
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other instances where something like reverse dieting might be incorporated is
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oftentimes with like eating disorders that's what I was gonna say especially like
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anorexia nervosa or ones that there's a little bit more that severe
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restriction you don't want to just someone you don't want someone to go from eating 600 calories a day to like
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2500 their body is going to freak out and there's a way as medical
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professionals that we work through that so that their body adjusts properly so
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that they're eating adequate amount every day but we don't want there to be any of that imbalance of electrolytes or
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fluid or whatnot exactly which is why we recommend if you
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are going to work through this to do it under supervision of a professional if you're able to
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um like a dietitian would be preferred um because we do specialize in this kind of stuff but if that is not a available
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resource for you um I guess best advice if you are going to do it solo is to just take it very
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slow especially if you have been dieting for a long long time um and maybe eating pretty low calorie
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and that can be very subjective to you and what your body's needs are
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um it's going to be very important to increase slowly not only for the benefit of hopefully like the whole bodybuilder
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thing of maximizing muscle gain and minimizing fat gain but also for this refeeding syndrome as well
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yeah yeah um another thing to watch out for with this reverse dieting
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um could be obsessive calorie counting which I know I just said to like take it slow take it slow and like be
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aware of the calories um and we talk about this a lot I do on
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social media too when it comes to calories it's kind of like one of my things on tick tock
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uh here we go okay so calorie counting is
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not inherently a bad thing and my brain just like short-circuited it
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like forgot that was me five minutes ago like if it's not connecting so I was
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like blocked out like I literally couldn't see for a second there that was weird first episode recording of 2023.
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it's going crazy this is this is how we're doing guys this is not going to be uh
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but I can't think of words this is not going to be how the rest of the year goes this is not a snapshot of what's to
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come um okay I'll put it simply so I don't have to use my short circuiting brain calorie counting's not inherently bad
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but if you are trying to pursue an intuitive eating approach it could definitely stand in the way of that if
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we're always focused on our calorie counting app and food labels and all of that that'll make it really
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tough to tune into our bodies hunger and fullness cues so if you know you have a tendency to get pretty obsessed with
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calorie numbers and goals if you've done them before um very specific reverse dieting may not
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be a good fit for you because if you want to do it the quote-unquote right proper way
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um that specific calorie intake and adjustment and monitoring to make sure
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you are doing it properly and getting the results you're looking for is going to be necessary
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um if that's your goal but like we said reverse dieting is not what you have to do so you're not missing out
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like if you feel like that would happen where you become obsessed um you don't have to do like reverse
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dieting however you wanted to find that I feel like that's like almost the whole
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message of this episode is like you don't have to reverse diet exactly it's
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a thing it's out there it's commonly used in like the fitness world but it's not like this magic wand thing that's
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gonna like fix the metabolism that is broken slow down so to speak yeah
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exactly well next one of our last points to focus on when
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we are potentially participating in Reverse dining is ignoring hunger and
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fullness cue so when you're slowly increasing food your
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body might not be used to eating as much so this can go either way your body
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might not be used to eating as much and you might get full earlier and you're like oh my gosh I have to push past the
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X amount if we are fixating on calories or macros or whatever it is and then on
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the other side of it maybe we are a little bit more hungry and we're experiencing like tummy grumbling or
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headaches or lower energy but you're like oh my gosh I already
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ate my a lot allocated I was going to say allotted is that a
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word I know and you're asking the wrong person not today you're uh maybe you already ate allotted
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that's a word allotted I was gonna say allocated I think that's a word too what's the difference that's what I'm
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asking you a lot in about Hello Kitty Alex I'm
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feeling more confident allocated I think a lot is a word I think it is too I just don't
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know but right now I I usually like really like grammar and
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stuff but not today apparently no that's okay oh you guys know what we're talking about
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so once you've eaten your allocated amount or you're designated about that you've set aside for yourself but you're
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still hungry and then you're like oh my gosh I can only increase my
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x amount of calories and I'm not going to say an amount because I know someone will hear it and fixate on it exactly
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and you're like I can't eat past this and then you have a headache for the rest of the day for the rest of the
19:06
night whenever it is so that's kind of like an instance where we're once again it goes along a little bit with like the
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obsessive calorie counting but we'll say in the sense of like obsessive almost like sticking to rules which if you have
19:18
a long history of dieting you probably might have that All or Nothing mindset and I feel like you have to be really
19:24
strict with nutrition so it might cause you to
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ignore those hunger informed excuse which we don't want to do your body sends those signals for a reason
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yeah and if you are lucky enough to like hear them and have them consistently that's a good thing because not everyone
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even knows what those feel like or sound like so if you do take advantage of that
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so Bottom Line This is Again part two essentially
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um so we'll Snips to 74 to learn more about like what metabolism like really even is could you really explain that today
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um because we did go over a lot more in detail on that episode um but if you feel that you are experiencing some metabolic adaptation
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or just a slowed metabolic rate as a result of likely chronic dieting
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um it could be possible that refeeding briefings and drama reverse dieting don't get refeeding syndrome no please
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don't it could be possible that reverse dieting may be beneficial for you but if possible
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um we obviously recommend working with a professional to make sure you're not doing it too rapidly or too I don't say
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too slowly it's not really a thing but doing it properly and not in a dangerous way but if you are not able to do that
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um first of all you don't have to like Emily and I both already said but um if you do want to just do it really
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really slow and don't feel like you have to increase calories by like double triple quadruple over
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like a week's time because that would not feel very good no
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so that's reverse dieting
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we hope you enjoyed it let's talk about our bonus question
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so I'm excited for this one I feel like I know your answer but
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I want to hear it anyway because I know they want the people yeah
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so the question today is do you like ice in your Beverages and I'm gonna make you
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go first I have a solid answer for this one I love ice and beverages like I've
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got ice like up to here in this water bottle right now everything
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what's your favorite type of Ice Cube like you know like Hospital like kind of
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crispy like yeah so like a little yes
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you can crunch it it's not like painful that's the best we have crushed ice now
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at our house which is a game changer got a fancy fridge because at the apartment we had to use
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like the ice trays first world problems it was obviously fine but yeah as an ice girly it's nice
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to just have options and I can get ice like whenever I want yeah you should use that hashtag ice girly
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ice cream I feel like that could be you know how like the clean girl is like oh
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yeah I'm gonna be an ice cream ice girly I feel like that's like there's a niche for that there's tons of I my for you
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page like gets a lot of like ice people like the different like ice cube trays
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and stuff that could be me but the ice cube trays I like the the ease of my fridge just
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pushing a little button I'll figure out my way to to incorporate it incorporate it but yes
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I put ice in almost everything and like lots of it if I can do
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sorry you got you well I was gonna say I will say if I like go to a restaurant and it's like I'm getting it like to go
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like say like fast food um I try not to get too much because then I'm cheap and you don't get as much
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beverage if you do too much ice that's a financially conscious decision to make
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and I'm a cheapy icy Queen girly that's too long to be a hashtag
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cheap icy Queen girly please post that on just one video put
23:27
it in the comment section oh my gosh yeah right I won't even throw in the video yeah buddy okay I don't know your
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answer I think I I think the answer is like not really but I don't know I feel like
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I can go without it yeah there when it's like a fun beverage to me and fun to me
23:46
is like anything that's not water safe I didn't like Coke earlier and I was thriving yes yeah yeah like I love
23:54
anything bubbly with ice like yeah this weekend we had sparkling apple cider and
24:00
that was really good I've had like Arizona teas a lot recently and been adding ice and I also have an ice maker
24:06
but I actually have the like whole Ice Cube and crushed ice cube same I'm like
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I feel very privileged with this and I have been chewing so much ice
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my dentist would not be happy to hear that um but yeah I feel like it's like
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I would very much also enjoy I feel like it's more of like I want to be cold
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I like cold better than like room temperature of those things yeah I think the only thing I might get a not
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mine is like water because I just like water because I'm dehydrated yeah yeah I
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love water in general but I like it a lot more if it's like really cold um
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I have a question because I know you're not a huge fan of like bubbly drinks does having ice in it help you like it
24:56
more no you still don't like it's the same amount of like I the thing is I like
25:01
bubbly drinks I don't like when they make my stomach bubbly and Bloated
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got it yeah ice I'm sure it doesn't really have a whole lot to do there I mean maybe it
25:14
dilutes it a little bit if it melts yeah it's true all right
25:20
um it cannot stop the digestive wreck that is coming
25:27
I had ice cream the other day
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um go ahead go ahead I was gonna say it was that picture I posted with the sprinkles do you see my sprinkles no
25:39
oh my gosh I think I did when you visit we're gonna go to this place it's called Margie's and their Sundays are
25:48
like literally like to go things are like this big oh my God and I was like craving a waffle cone and sprinkles and
25:55
I probably very well could just like eat in two bites of ice cream with a waffle
26:01
going sprinkles um but it was not good no bueno
26:07
that's not good um do you like slushies very much I love slushies which are basically just like
26:13
straight up ice oh my gosh remember that Sonic oh whatever that was with the Nerds
26:19
that's like one of the best drinks I've ever drained the Sonic near me closed down and I'm
26:25
sad about it every day oh my gosh I know I don't know why Sonics don't do as well
26:32
as they do I know I love them I know I don't know what it is and like it's a great idea the food's great
26:39
there's so many options I'm wondering if it's their like pull-up
26:45
like where you have to like pull up in order so just like that drive through because I'm like if it was a drive
26:50
through I feel like it's like the same exact very similar premise to a
26:55
lot of other restaurants that's true but we're American so
27:02
heaven forbid me Park our car and you're right and wait place an order
27:10
uh well I like it and I wish I'd come back to Fort Wayne
27:15
but I'll survive I got lots of other options I'm going to a new place tomorrow I'm excited there's like a new
27:21
market if I like it I'll take you when you come it's like a whole bunch of like different vendors yeah [Music]
27:27
so they have like a Sushi Station a burrito station barbecue a meat market they have like I think
27:35
um remember that like uh that what's it called that beer place we went when you
27:40
came back oh yeah I think they have a booth there oh that Brewing Company Brewery that's the word is it indoors I
27:48
think so yeah yeah yeah they have outdoor seating but I think all the vendors are inside oh my gosh well that
27:54
sounds fun I don't know I brought that up but oh cause we don't have Sonic but I love other things so I'm gonna try
28:01
that tomorrow I'll report back yeah okay ask me next let us know I'll ask you next week okay or go look
28:07
at Hannah's Instagram story because honestly I'm sure I'll share something I mean this is coming out next week though so
28:13
preemptive Lego look right where you need to read all of our minds and what we're saying we hope you looked last
28:20
week if you're new here you learned your lesson by not following us already yeah you missed out my birth now you missed
28:26
out yeah which are coming I'm excited I have I'm gonna whip out some college pictures
28:34
I'm not sure if I want to do videos or pictures it's always maybe I'll do a collage it's 2023 so videos in
28:42
that's true it's true I also just felt weird saying it's 20 23.
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have you written it yet on anything no I'm not no I don't really write very
28:53
much I typed it a lot yeah I'm sorry
28:59
yeah well once again the bonus question has gone into like a third of the episode so if you're still here God bless you
29:08
thanks for hanging around we appreciate it let us know if you like ice in your beverages we're dying to know
29:16
yes and start using the hashtag ice girly please or as Hannah says
29:23
ice queen girl what did you say before Chi that was cheese ice queen girly yes
29:31
let's get it trendy um we can save it for another bonus question but I've been really into glass
29:37
straws lately and I want to know your preferred straw type I'm gonna add to the list okay I feel like that's another
29:43
question we'll hold you'll they'll have to stick come back well they know my answer now I love my glass draws but to
29:50
know Emily's answer come back come back probably next week probably yeah all
29:56
right guys thank you for joining us and learning all about metabolism once again if you have any other questions about this let us know we
30:03
are always looking for new episode ideas so let us know and we can answer your questions
30:08
all right have a good one guys bye happy New Year Happy New Year
