Are you tired of dieting and not seeing the results you want? Do you feel like you’re eating in a deficit and working out extremely hard, yet you feel stuck and can’t get past a certain plateau? Low energy levels? Then listen up, ladies. Reverse dieting may just be the answer you’ve been looking for!
Yes!! I know, exciting right? To think…you’ve been struggling for so long, eating low calories, working your butt off in the gym, and your body just seems to have come to a dead halt. You question “what the heck am I doing wrong?!” You feel like you’re doing everything in your power to lose weight and it’s not happening. So what happens? The complete frustration can lead to eating – because heck, we’re good at that. We can for sure eat when we’re emotional, am I right?! And the eating leads to more frustration and more guilt. The cycle continues and the weight starts to pile back on after a few weeks of self loathing. So what do you do now? Well the sensible thing would be to start your same diet again, don’t you think? No, babe. Just…no.
This is where things go wrong. It’s this crazy vicious cycle and you feel like you get somewhere for a short time but you can only get so far when your body is functioning on such little calories and you’re working it as hard as you are. So why does this happen? Why do you come to a screeching halt? Well let’s take a look on what your body’s trying to tell you.
There’s two common things that happen. Either you’ve been dieting for a long time (6months +) and you’re now stuck at a plateau and can’t figure out what went wrong when you lost weight great at the beginning. The second thing is usually when someone crash diets and slashes their calories in half – this may work to get some water weight off and a few lbs but in all reality, you’re really hurting yourself from truly being successful. You’re confusing your body!
Why though?! When we’re told that the important thing is “calories in vs. calories out” and we know we have to consume less calories to lose weight and yeah yeah yeah. Well let’s talk about why these two things could be the wrong approach.
When you cut your calories so drastically (crash dieting), there’s only so long that your body can last with such low fuel before it goes into what’s called “starvation mode.” And this is just as it sounds – your body is hardly surviving off of the low calories you’re feeding it – so it does what it can just to keep your body going. Your metabolism starts to slow down, and your body starts to take the food you’re eating and storing it as fat because it’s like…”when am I going to get my next meal, you’re not feeding me enough!”
So here you are – what you thought was hard work (and it was) but you were only sabotaging your success in the long run. Your metabolism and your body are really smart and when you’re not giving your body enough fuel, it will get what it needs from what you’re giving it and you won’t get very far.
Well what about someone who’s been doing things right, but they’ve been dieting for quite some time… something similar may happen to them. Seriously, I wasn’t joking when I said your metabolism is really smart and it’ll adapt to what you’re doing. So say you’re still trying to lose those last few stubborn lbs and you’ve been eating lower calories to achieve weight loss, and now you’ve plateaued…WHAT IN THE HECK IS WRONG THOUGH?! Well, your metabolism may have adapted to the calories it’s currently getting and it will eventually start to slow down. At this point – it’d be a good idea to switch things up. Like, maybe with reverse dieting!
Yes girl, there is H O P E.
Are you ready to get past that plateau? Then keep listening!
Reverse dieting is just as it sounds. It’s dieting in reverse (*wink wink*). It’s taking your current calories and gradually increasing them over a period of weeks and/or months time, usually in pretty small increments. The point of this is to jump start your metabolism – because a higher metabolism equals more calories burned at rest – and get it working in your favor again so you can FINALLY get past the plateau! The key is to increase slowly because a sudden, drastic increase in your calories can be hard on your body, including your mental state. Think of it this way – if you end up gaining fat, you’ll go right back to the frustrated, confused state you were in. And what happens in this state? Binging. Emotional eating and then feeling guilty – eventually going back to the lower calories because that’s your comfort zone.
But not only can reverse dieting help immensely with aesthetics (and let’s be real, we all truly want to feel comfortable with the way our bodies look), this could be very powerful in helping get over the food guilt and thinking you need extremely low calories in order to get the results you want.
Now let me be clear that reverse dieting isn’t for everyone! And it’s not this easy fix where you get to eat more food and lose weight. It takes careful monitoring to ensure you’re consuming the correct amount of calories and to ensure you don’t increase your calories too quickly.
To recap what we’ve talked about: dieting for so long or crash dieting can KILL your metabolism and will sometimes do more damage than good. The idea behind reverse dieting is to get your metabolism working faster again, possibly balance out some hormones, and help you feel better in your body with more benefits than starving yourself (including getting you past that plateau you’ve been stuck at). It’s honestly about as simple as that. Does this sound like something that may benefit you? Well let’s chat, girlfriend! Let me be your coach. You can find me on IG (www.instagram.com/krussell.fit) or you can e-mail ya girl (krussell@mommyirrational.com)!
Talk soon!
Krynda Marie Russell
