Eat More, Weigh Less: 8 Surprising Reverse Diet Tips

Have you hit a weight loss plateau despite your best efforts? Nutrition coach Dani Marenburg has a solution: reverse dieting. This counterintuitive approach involves gradually increasing your caloric intake after prolonged dieting, allowing your body to recover from metabolic slowdown. Dani, a double-certified nutrition coach, has guided over 1,000 women through this process, helping them maintain their results and avoid regaining weight.

On her podcast Mindin’ My Macros, Dani explains how reverse dieting works by slowly adding calories back into your diet to reach your maintenance level. This not only helps rev up your metabolism but also supports muscle building when paired with strength training. Whether you've been in a calorie deficit for months or years, reverse dieting can help you break through plateaus and improve your overall health. Here are eight surprising tips to help you eat more and weigh less using reverse dieting principles.

Understanding Reverse Dieting

Dani explains on her podcast, "Reverse dieting is a term for the phase that comes after a deficit period, and we'll get into how to know if it's the right time to enter a reverse diet. But a reverse diet is a process of systematically and slowly adding calories back into your diet on a week-by-week basis or a biweekly basis, and we'll get into that, too, to build back up to your maintenance to maintain overall results from your deficit or to rebuild your metabolism after long periods of undereating."

She further elaborates, "So this is the phase that essentially you will slowly start to eat more to build up to your estimated maintenance. Now, I've already spilled a few reasons why a reverse diet is important to include after a deficit or after you've been undereating for an extended period of time. Number one is it can help to increase your metabolism and eat more without the weight gain or with limiting weight gain."

Who Should Consider a Reverse Diet?

According to Dani, there are three categories of individuals who could benefit from implementing a reverse diet:

1. Post-Deficit Dieters: If you're concluding a planned calorie deficit, such as a cut or fat loss phase, a reverse diet can help you transition back to maintenance calories.
2. Long-Term Low-Calorie Eaters: Those who have been on a low-calorie diet for more than four months may benefit from a reverse diet. This includes individuals who have been in a calorie deficit for years.
3. Negative Biofeedback Experiencers: If you're experiencing negative biofeedback (physical signs from your body), potentially due to under-consuming calories or not meeting your body's nutritional needs, a reverse diet could be beneficial.

Dani explains that biofeedback refers to signals from your body, which she elaborates on later in the discussion. If you fall into any of these categories, a reverse diet might be a suitable approach to improve your overall health and fitness.

How to Implement a Reverse Diet

Dani outlines the reverse diet process, emphasizing a methodical approach to calorie increase:

Track Your Progress

Dani gives us the lowdown on how to pace your reverse diet:

It's not one-size-fits-all. Some folks need to take it slow, while others can ramp up their calories pretty quick. So how do you know what's right for you? It's all about tuning into your body's signals.

Keep an eye on how your clothes are fitting. Are your jeans getting tighter or still comfy? Dani's a big fan of taking measurements too. She thinks it's one of the best ways to track your progress.

Here's a heads up: You might see the number on the scale go up during a reverse diet. But don't freak out! That doesn't automatically mean you're gaining fat. Your body's going through changes as you up your calories, and that can affect your weight in different ways.

The key is to pay attention to how your body's responding and adjust accordingly. That way, you can boost your calorie intake without packing on unwanted pounds

Determine the Length of Your Reverse Diet

Dani tackles this common question head-on. The short answer? It depends on you.

But don't worry, she gives us a handy way to ballpark it:

1. Start with your current calorie intake
2. Figure out your estimated maintenance calories
3. Plan on adding about 100 calories per week

Then, do a bit of quick math. How many weeks would it take to get from where you are now to your maintenance level? That's your rough estimate.

For example, if you're eating 1500 calories now and your maintenance is 2000, you're looking at about 5 weeks (500 calorie difference / 100 calories per week).

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Identifying Your Maintenance Level

So you've been reverse dieting for a while, but how do you know when to call it quits? Dani breaks it down for us:

It's not an exact science. There's no magic number that screams "You're at maintenance!" It's more of a trial and error thing.

Sure, you might have a rough estimate of what your maintenance calories should be. That's great - use it as a general guide. But don't get too hung up on hitting that exact number.

Instead, think of it as your "north star." It gives you a direction, but the real test is how your body responds.

You'll need to pay attention to things like:

• How your clothes fit
• Your energy levels
• Your workout performance
• How you feel overall

When you're consistently feeling good, your weight is stable, and you're not seeing any unwanted changes in your body composition, that's a good sign you've hit your sweet spot.

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What to Expect During a Reverse Diet

Dani gives us a reality check about reverse dieting:

First off, don't freak out if you see the scale moving around. It's totally normal, and here's why:

1. Muscle Gains: If you're hitting the weights (which is a great idea), your body's gonna be all about building muscle now that you're feeding it more. More food means more building blocks for those muscles.
2. Water Weight: Here's a fun fact - for every gram of carbs you eat, your body might hold onto up to four grams of water. So if you're upping your carbs, you might see a temporary bump in weight from water alone.

Understanding Weight Changes During a Reverse Diet

Trying to lose weight can feel overwhelming with countless diets and conflicting advice. As a 77-year-old businesswoman and former model, Candace Cima has spent years researching and testing what truly works for sustainable weight loss. Through her platform, Living My Life in My 70s, and social media presence @Lifeinmy70s, she's helped thousands achieve their health goals using evidence-based methods. Here are her ten proven strategies, backed by scientific research, that can help you achieve lasting weight loss success.

Set Small Goals for Big Health Wins

"I want to encourage each of you that even a loss of 5% of your body weight has proven health benefits," Candace explains. "If you're 250 pounds, losing 12 and a half pounds can make a difference." She says that this modest weight loss can help prevent or even reverse conditions like type 2 diabetes, making it a realistic and worthwhile goal for beginners.

Keep Track of Everything You Eat

"By simply becoming more aware of what you're eating, you will change some bad habits," Candace notes. She points to research that consistently shows self-monitoring leads to successful weight loss. "A study in 2011 reviewed 22 studies and found a consistent relationship between self-monitoring and successful weight loss," she adds, recommending apps like MyFitnessPal for easy tracking.

Learn Your Daily Calorie Needs

Understanding your personal energy requirements is crucial for success. "Weight loss comes down to calories in versus calories used," Candace states. "An average deficit of 500 calories a day will result in an initial weight loss of about one pound a week." She advises that as your weight decreases, you'll need to adjust these numbers accordingly.

Cut Out Hidden Calories First

"Eliminate easy sources of excess calories like sugared beverages, switch to simply drinking water," Candace advises. She illustrates this with a practical example: "A beer has about 150 calories, so if you're drinking three beers a night, you're consuming 450 extra and unnecessary calories a day. If you keep this up every day, you'll gain about a pound a week or four pounds a month."

Choose a Diet You Can Stick To

"The fundamental point is to adopt a diet that creates a negative energy balance on adequate food quality," Candace emphasizes. While she acknowledges that different approaches work for different people, she particularly recommends the Mediterranean diet. "This diet is high in fruits, veggies, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and olive oil. It allows moderate amounts of fish, poultry, and dairy, but has little red meat," she explains.

Consider Structured Support Programs

For those feeling overwhelmed, Candace recommends commercial weight loss programs. "I like these programs because they're convenient, provide the food and provide a lot of support with them," she says. Research shows Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig participants maintain significant weight loss after 12 months, though she cautions against very low-calorie or liquid diets.

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Use Smart Technology

Modern weight loss apps can be powerful tools when used correctly. "Choose any app that has interactive features with personalized messages and goal setting," Candace recommends. "The more specific and tailored it is to you, the better it will be." Studies show these apps help users reduce caloric intake and increase healthy food consumption.

Make Eating a Mindful Activity

"I want to encourage everyone to make eating an activity that connects you with other people," Candace shares. "Turn off the TV, gather around a table, eat with someone else, carve time out in your day and make it an intentional activity." This approach helps develop a healthier relationship with food while strengthening social connections.

Focus on Diet Before Exercise

While exercise matters, Candace emphasizes proper order: "I would ask you to shift your focus to your diet when weight loss is the desired goal. You need to lower your calories." She recommends gradually increasing physical activity over time to maintain weight loss rather than relying on it for initial results.

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Build Habits That Keep Weight Off

"The biggest predictor of keeping the weight off? Well, exercise," Candace reveals. She recommends 30 minutes of physical activity five to seven days a week, spread throughout the day if needed. Daily weigh-ins also help: "If you know early that you're gaining weight, you can make small adjustments." Regular participation in accountability groups provides additional support for maintaining success.

💪🔥Body Booster

Key Takeaways:

• Begin with a realistic 5% weight loss goal
• Track everything you consume
• Know your personal calorie needs
• Eliminate liquid calories first
• Choose a sustainable eating plan
• Consider structured support
• Use technology wisely
• Practice mindful eating
• Prioritize diet changes
• Build maintenance habits.

And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.

Do you want to lose weight with some easy, expert-backed tips? Cori Lefkowith is the founder of Redefining Strength and is devoted to helping people get in shape no matter their age. In a new YouTube video, she reveals a few of her simple tricks for losing weight fast. “Stop believing that losing weight and maintaining your results has to be a full-time job because it doesn't. And the more we act like it has to be, the more we're ultimately sabotaging ourselves. We're just creating unsustainable habits that, while they may yield some fast initial results, also lead to a quick plateau and us just regaining the weight and even more,” she says in the clip. “To help you stop this extreme dieting cycle, I'd found myself personally caught in for years. I wanna share five weird but extremely effective weight loss tips to help you build your leanest, strongest body ever.”

1. Stop Trying So Hard to Lose Weight

Her first trick is one of the “oddest sounding weight loss tips ever,” she admits in her post. “Stop focusing on losing weight. That goal weight you have in mind that you've tried countless times to get back to is actually stopping you from losing weight,” she says. “It's causing you to eat less as you train harder, which doesn't make you actually lose fat any faster. Our singular focus on that scale and that number changing leads to burnout and metabolic adaptations that make each weight loss attempt harder and harder.

Measure Success by Non-Scale Victories

“Instead, we need to focus on multiple ways of measuring success and even step away from the scale for a bit because it isn't that number on the scale we're truly after. It's how we feel at that weight that we want back. And that feeling isn't attached to the number. It's how energized we felt,” she says. “Focusing only on that number being our only measure of progress often leads to us giving up on habits that are working habits that would yield the results we want if we gave them time because the scale doesn't really show us true fat loss happening, especially as we retain and even gain muscle.” She recommends using how your clothes fit, progress pictures, and measurements instead. “We need to celebrate the other signs of success such as improved energy, better sleep, crushing our workouts, and inches being lost that show us the habits are working.”

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2. Build Your Diet Based on Meals You Live

The next weird tip, and it's more a way of thinking about how to make diet changes, is to build your diet based on meals you love,” she says. “When we think about adjusting our diet, we go to all the foods we can't have and then find diet meals we now need to make. This makes us honestly often feel deprived and really not enjoy our lifestyle. It makes us dream of going back to what we were doing, and this is why the changes don't stick. We don't evolve our diet to match our needs and goals.”

Tweak Your Meals to Make Them Healthier

“Instead of focusing on diet meals, take meals you already eat and love and find ways to adjust them to match your goals,” she says. If you love pizza, she recommends finding ways to add protein or adjust the portion. If you are a pasta lover, either add more protein or swap regular pasta for chickpeas or lentils. “Take the dishes you ultimately want to enjoy and find ways to tweak them so you don't feel like everything you love is being cut out or that your meal prep and cooking habits all of a sudden have to shift so dramatically you're miserable. Stop making yourself extra miserable, trying to overhaul your diet completely.”

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3. Cut Back on Cardio

“The third tip is something some of you may hate here and others may love: Cut back on the steady state cardio,” she says. “If you love running or cycling, I'm not telling you not to do it, but if you've been struggling to lose weight and see the muscle definition you want, you may want to cut back on your mileage for a bit or really acknowledge the cost of doing this cardio and make massive changes to your strength workouts and diet to account for this. For those of you who refuse to cut back on the cardio, slow down your strength workouts. Lift heavier with lower reps and longer rest periods while increasing your protein more than you want to. And even deprioritize your endurance sports to focus on your lifting when you're freshest.”

Instead, Focus on Building Muscle

“For those of you who are thinking, I don't like cardio, but it's always helped me lose weight in the past. Think about that statement. You are here because you need to lose weight again. So, as a long-term strategy, cardio didn't work. Part of the reason is that we've always used it to try to out-exercise our diet instead of making dietary changes, but also because we haven't really built muscle, and we've even lost it in the process of eating less. As we try to burn more, this negatively impacts our metabolic rate and how many calories we burn, not only in our workouts but at rest. And the more calories we burn at rest, the more muscle we have, the more toned we look, and the easier our results will be to maintain. So instead of turning to cardio, focus on strength workouts, whether you challenge yourself with body weight sessions or hit the gym to lift, focus on building muscle,” she explains.

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4. Don’t Always Be on a Diet

“This next tip was one of the weirder realizations for me, but also why I feel I'm able to stay leaner all year round: Stop acting like the person always on a diet. When we're working to lose weight, we can feel like the friend who can never eat out. We can feel weird at parties or celebrations. We can feel like we have to avoid the baked goods at our work or office lunches. We can feel a bit like we have to isolate ourselves and not really have fun. No wonder most of us dread making diet changes and ultimately fall off the healthy habits we're trying to build. But we often do this because we feel this need to be perfect, to eat clean based on what someone else told us a healthy diet should look like. We also don't own who we are, our current lifestyle, or what we want our lifestyle to look like ultimately. We approach habit changes as being these very set things we have to do in one rigid form instead of finding ways to implement them to match what we need,” she says.

Instead, Practice Moderation

“If your friend invites you out to dinner at your favorite restaurant, instead of saying no, instead of trying to deprive yourself of a meal you love, plan it in. Maybe you go for a lower calorie and higher protein earlier in the day to have flexibility at that meal instead of feeling like you've ruined the day. Just focus on that portion control and getting right back into your healthy habits the day after, too. Don't let that dinner become multiple meals. If you love the baked goods someone surprised you with at work, maybe you have one, but instead of feeling guilty for it so that you end up eating ten or forgetting about the rest of your healthy meals the rest of the day, just enjoy it and even adjust your other meals to create a balance,” she says.

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5. Take More “Movement Snacks”

The final tip that she “found to be super key in not only achieving amazing body recomposition but sustaining it over the course of the year is to take more movement snacks,” she says. “I think so often we put this emphasis on working out and working out intensely over just moving more. But the more active we are, the more we want to be active and the more active we want to be. Often, the more we wanna do other healthy habits that support the fact that we feel good, the more we do, the more we do.”

The More You Move, the Less Likely You Are to “Indulge in Mindless Eating”

“Throughout the day, include movement, snacks, and getting up and doing something, even if it's just for a minute or two. Listen to a song or quick podcast and walk around your office. Get up and stretch to reverse, sitting hunched over. Get up between episodes of your nightly TV show and go roll out or even wash the dishes quickly. Do a quick post-dinner walk, but get up and move around,” she suggests. “The less we're just seated, bored, lazing around doing nothing, the less likely we are to indulge in mindless eating. And often, a big habit we have to break on top of the benefits of moving more is mindless eating. Especially the desire to eat late at night while watching TV. However, just trying to willpower our way through this desire can often lead to losing the battle when stressed because we haven't shifted our patterns or environment. That's why these movement snacks can be so key. We aren't focusing on what we shouldn't be doing. We're focusing on something good. We want to do this mindset shift in focus to help us feel positive or feel like we're fighting something.” And if you enjoyed this article, take advantage of these 15 Quick Ways to Lose Body Fat Percentage in a Week.