WHAT IS REVERSE DIETING ALL ABOUT?
WHAT IS REVERSE DIETING ALL ABOUT?
My background is Italian, I grew up in a family where uncles owned butcher shops, Grandfathers filled pools with soil for veggie patches and where my Nonna successfully reverse dieted every new comer to the family, I want to continue their legacy through this blog post.
When I started working at 5th element wellness I was introduced to the concept of reverse dieting, I liked the sound of this concept from the get go because I love food and I love encouraging people to nourish their body not only with the types of nutrient dense food but with the right amount of nutrient dense food.
My journey with food has never been one of restriction of nutrient dense calories. It was more about exploring the consistency of the amount food week to week and the elimination, introduction and variation of foods over the years in an effort to cultivate physical and mental health and wellbeing, but this is not the common story.
The common story is calorie restriction (nutrient dense or otherwise, usually otherwise) and unsustainable yo-yo dieting to either gain ‘health’ or lose fat fast.
So where does this common story leave the body?
From an internal health perspective, it leaves the body very depleted of nutrients, which could manifest itself as host of health concerns: Fatigue/sleep disturbances, energy fluxes, mood disorders (brain fog, anxiety, depression) low immunity/autoimmunity, gut damage, thyroid dysfunction and low fertility (loss of your period/ difficulty conceiving and/or low sex drive)
From a body composition perspective, it down regulates your metabolism. Your metabolism is responsible for converting the food you eat into energy. When this function is down regulated the common manifestation is either a stalling in weight/fat loss an inability to drop weight/body fat, or stalling or inability to gain lean muscle.
From a mindset perspective, the restriction of calories and/or types of foods can lead to binges and thus your relationship with food becomes one of punishing instead of nourishing, self hating instead of self caring. Emotions connected to our eating and drinking habits are deep and I need another blog post to give it the exploration it deserves, but this relationship is deeply effect by underrating behaviours.
So then I was like ok, so we use this method for those people who…
Are currently underrating or have a history of under eating for a long periods of time
Have been on and off fat loss stimulating medication.
Have stalled in the weight/fat loss despite being on low calories
Are experiencing hormonal problems associated with underrating. Hypo/hyper thyroid, loss of menstrual cycle, loss of sex drive.
Have a healthy relationship with food and would like to gain more lean muscle and/or maximise fat loss when they drop their calories after a reverse dieting phase.
So we can see here that it is a mixed bag of people who can utilise the reverse dieting process, those after health benefits and those after sustainable body comp results.
How does the process work?
The importance of reverse dieting is to rebuild/strengthen your bodies metabolism and thyroid.
Analogy 1: If you were a car your metabolism is a revved engine and your thyroid is the gas. If you have no gas, then you can’t rev your engine. (I’m imagining that scene in grease where they are revving their cars ready to race. I want to be that car, full of fuel, hungry to go and revving my engine, mmm juicy)
Analogy 2: Reverse dieting is metabolism/thyroid training and just like physical training as a beginner we have to start super slow and slowly build up your strength and fitness. We need to allow a lot time for your body to adjust, and adapt to the new amount of energy coming in.
Blowouts, ballooning and fast weight gain happen when your body is expected to deal with a fast influx of calories. The body is saying… “What the hell, I’m not fit enough to deal with all this fuel, but on the bright side I might need it for later so I’ll store it as fat, god I’m doing well, look at me go, I’m looking after me!” That’s why its important to do this process SLOW to decrease the likely hood of a blow out.
The goal is to SLOWLY get you from your low caloric intake, to your base caloric intake which is where the body can function and flourish optimally (increased energy and motivation, improved sleep quality, improved mental acuity, reduced stress on the physical body, improved sex drive, healthier menstrual cycle, Improved thyroid health, fat loss, muscle gain, weight gain for those under weight, skin health, increase physical and mental strength).
Once you’re at your base, its best to stay there for 6-12mths at a stable consistent weight/body fat. If you choose to you can then play with calorie deficits and surplus, depending on your individual health and fitness goals.
For example: I have reverse dieted and maintained my body fat and have had regular menstrual cycles for 8mths and I decided, because I’m feeling so good that I want to step up my training, I may go into small surplus on training days but on my rest days I may go into a little bit of a deficit.
In closing our collective state of health is calling for deep nourishment through food and stress management after a long history of a ‘train more, eat less’ and ‘high energy, low nutrient dense food’ culture. Its time to reverse all the diets and get our engines revved for life!!!!