The Diet After The Diet

Wait, what? There’s a diet after the diet?

Yep!

This is, in my opinion, the most important part of the dieting process. The diet after the diet is what allows you to maintain all of your hard-earned results. Before we dive a little bit deeper into what this actually looks like, let’s go over a common scenario of what typically happens after a diet.

So, say you’ve been busting your ass dieting for 6 months. You’ve lost 30lbs and are finally feeling comfortable and confident in your own skin. At this point you part ways with your coach, because why keep working with your coach if you achieved your results? You are finally ready to live your life and feel confident in your own skin. At this point you go back to your old routine; I mean why follow your meal plan or macro plan anymore? The work is done, right? 

“I deserve to reward myself for all of my hard work.” 

One slice of pizza turns into an entire large pizza. One glass of wine turns into the entire bottle. A couple of chips turns into the whole bag. And at a blink of an eye, eight weeks later you’ve gained back 15lbs. 

Well, no big deal, right? 

“I’ll just follow my program again and start dieting to burn off this 15lbs.” 

But I mean, after 6 months of dieting, who really wants to diet again? Maybe you drop 5-10lbs and call it quits – good enough. Once again, that mentality sneaks up on you that you deserve to have a break, you deserve to have those donuts. And at another blink of an eye, 12 weeks later you’ve gained 20lbs. 

You start to think “well clearly I am incapable and need a coach.” You hire your old coach back to focus losing the weight that you put back on.

This yoyo dieting lifestyle is a vicious cycle that so many people are constantly struggling with. And I want you to know it doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you. Fat loss isn’t the issue, maintaining the fat loss results is. And it’s often because many people aren’t implementing the diet after the diet. The diet after the diet can be implemented with either of the two strategies:

1.    The Reverse Diet Method

2.    The Recovery Diet Method

We will get into what both of these looks like shortly, as well as the pros and cons. But first, let’s go over why it’s so easy to gain all of your hard-earned results back so damn quickly. In our previous example, it’s not uncommon for some to need a 6-month timeline to lose 30lbs. That’s roughly 1lb a week and depending on your body type, this is a healthy rate of fat loss. It’s also common to see someone put all of this weight back on (and then some) quicker than they were able to lose it. Why is that?

After a dieting phase, a lot of people don’t realize how vulnerable their body and hormones are. Going back to your old habits after your done with your coach is what is causing this easy regain phase post diet. 

You have to understand that your hormones take a beating when you are dieting, so when it is time to end the diet, you need to give your hormones time to recover. 

Some of the hormones that are impacted during dieting are:

1.    Ghrelin

2.    Leptin

3.    Thyroid

That’s just to name a few

Ghrelin is known as the hunger hormone and it goes up during the fat loss stage. So, as we are dieting and eating less food over time, it makes sense that we are going to start to feel hungrier. This is ghrelin going up. This is primarily why it is so damn hard to sustain a dieting phase over an extended period of time – the hunger you experience can be mitigated but never completely eliminated. It is normal and can only be ignored for so long. 

Leptin is produced in fat cells and is the opposite of ghrelin. This hormone regulates hunger, meaning it makes you feel less hungry. So, as you diet down, you start to lose fat, which causes this hormone to go down. And when leptin goes down, you start to feel less satiated. 

Thyroid hormones are responsible for your metabolic rate. This one we all know that when you diet, your metabolic rate goes down and the only way to speed up your metabolism is by eating more food over time. 

Clearly there are some significant negative adaptations that dieting has on your body. Your hormones clearly take a beating when you diet and are eating very few calories over a significant period of time. And because of this, going back to your old habits (especially if it involves significant calorie consumption) is a recipe for disaster when it comes to maintaining your fat loss results.

Now you might have been able to piece things together, “well if eating less over overtime causes these negative adaptations to your hormones, doesn’t eating more food cause positive adaptations to your hormones?”

And the answer is, yes! However, it needs to be in a controlled matter because it takes time for your hormones to recover – it’s not going to happen the second you start eating more food. Say you finish your dieting phase consuming 1200 calories a day, you say bye to your coach and go back to your old habits, where maybe you normally consume 2,700 calories a day. That instant spike in your calorie consumption each day isn’t giving your hormones enough time to recover and catch up. 

So now you may be thinking “well I’ll just eat until I feel full and rely on my hunger signals versus going back to my old habits.” The problem with this is you can’t actually rely on your hunger signals accurately after dieting. Remember, your ghrelin is higher than normal, and your leptin is lower than normal – meaning that you may feel a lot hungrier than you actually physically are. This misconception occurs a lot in the bodybuilding community, where after the show the competitor goes out for a celebratory dinner and eats and eats and eats until they feel physically sick. Their stomach has expanded to the point where they know they are physically full, but because their hormones are so out of whack, mentally they still feel hungry. So, you are welcome to give this method a try, I am sure there are situations that this method works for some. But I haven’t seen that to be the cause in my experience.

This is where implementing either a reverse diet or a recovery diet needs to be considered, if you want to not only maintain your fat loss results but do so where you can eat more food in time and not have to starve yourself or diet forever.

Let’s quickly differentiate between these two methods. 

A reverse diet is the process of increasing your calories slowly over a period time, so you can minimize any fat regain and give your hormones the time they need to recover and normalize. Depending on how low your calories are at the end of the dieting phase, often the initial increase in calories will be a little bit higher than the periodic increases as a way to get you to your maintenance calories a little bit quicker. Whereas if your calories at the end of the dieting phase aren’t at a concerning low amount, the method of slowly gradually increasing your calories is advised. 

So, for example, say your calories at the end of the dieting phase are 900 calories. We really don’t want to waste time slowly increasing your food, where you might be at 1200 calories in 4 weeks. Heck even 1200 calories are low. So, depending on the person and how little they are eating, it often makes more sense to get them out of that low calorie state sooner than later. This of course isn’t black and white and depends on the person and situation. 

A recovery diet is the process of bringing your calories up to maintenance calories, so you are out of the calorie deficit sooner than later and then periodic gradual increases occur from there. The idea here is to get the athlete out of the deficit as soon as possible so they can start the hormone recovery process sooner than later.

Now if you are working with a coach, I highly recommend you stick with them and let them help you implement the diet after the diet phase. Making calorie adjustments on your own can be tricky because we are so subjective when it comes to our own progress. Even I have a coach making my macro adjustments. I have been doing this for 7 years and I even struggle to maintain an objective mindset with my own adjustments. So, I highly recommend you stick with your coach and take this phase seriously. 

If for whatever reason you can’t work with a coach and you have to do this on your own, here are some general guidelines for making your macronutrient adjustments. Please keep in mind that these are just guidelines and are subject to change based on the specific athletes needs.

For the reverse diet, I recommend making 2-5% increases in your calories every 2-3 weeks. These increases to your calories can be applied to your carbs, fats and/or both based on your preferences. Keep in mind that the timeframe of every 2-3 weeks varies significantly based on how the person’s body responses to the reverse diet. 

For the recovery diet, I recommend bringing your calories up to your estimated maintenance levels. Keep in mind that your maintenance calories are adaptive and aren’t going to be what you thought they once were. So, I recommend applying a modest approach, where you bring your calories up by 10-20% and then make the 2-5% increases 2-3 weeks later going forward.

The periodic increases in your calories can occur for as long as you would like, ensuring you are consuming a healthy amount based on your age and gender. But it’s your call how much you feel you want to consume. I have been working with a client for 5 years now, she is 56 and we have been reverse dieting for the last 2 years where she is maintaining her weight consuming 2,300 calories a day. This is just a great example of what you are capable of.

Both of these methods are similar and effective, therefore either or is an advisable method. However, there are some pros and cons to consider when deciding which method is more suitable for you. 

The reverse diet method I find to be most optimal for the general population. Unless you are a competitive bodybuilder, most people aren’t reducing their calories down to an extremely low level that would warrant them to pull themselves out of it as soon as possible. If your calories at the end of a dieting phase are within reason, increasing your calories slowly overtime is acceptable. However, it’s important to note that the first few weeks can be challenging, as your hunger signals start to normalize. You are still eating a lower amount of food, where you likely will still feel a lot hungrier than you actually physically are. 

Now you might be thinking, “well I dealt with hunger will I was dieting, what’s so different with continuing to deal with it during the reverse diet?” The difference is your goal is achieved. You reached your fat loss targets, so often that discipline and focus start to go down during the reverse diet, making adherence extremely challenging for some. To offset this, I recommend setting another goal for yourself right away after the dieting phase. What’s something new you can focus on? Perhaps a powerlifting meet? Strength goals in the gym? A marathon? It doesn’t matter. Set a new goal so you can maintain that level of discipline and focus you need to get yourself through those first few weeks of the reverse diet.

Having this information now, you might know yourself and know in advance that you couldn’t handle a few more weeks of feeling hungry after the dieting phase. And that’s ok. It’s probably best then to revert to the recovery diet method.

The recovery diet method I find to be most optimal for those after a contest prep or those who had to take extreme measures to achieve their fat loss results. With extreme measures taken, you definitely don’t want to prolong them longer than you have to, where getting your calories back up to your estimated maintenance levels as soon as possible is recommended. Your hormones have taken a severe beating from the extreme dieting, where we want to restore them as soon as possible. Often with this method, you don’t have much of a delay with your hunger signals as you do with the reverse diet method. Your hormones are still recovering, and you likely will still feel a lot hungrier than you physically are, but with the quicker increase in your food, you do receive the benefits of normalizing your hungry quicker. The trade-off though is an increase in the scale. Now this is typically where I lose people. 

With both of these methods, it’s important to note that some weight gain will occur. This is normal and often necessary to restore your hormones. With the reverse diet method, fat regain is extremely subtle over the first few months where if done correctly, it’s not as alarming. With the recovery diet method, fat regain is often more sudden with that initial increase and then if done correctly, typically stabilizes during the remaining timeframe.

All in all, the end result of the fat regain is typically about the same regardless of each method. It’s just seen at different time periods. It’s important to set these expectations for yourself and understand that the fat regain is normal and is done in a controlled matter versus seeing the scale go up and instantly thinking you need to start dieting right away – that’s the worst thing you can do. 

The best piece of advice I can give you is to stick to the increased amount of food you have been given and weather that storm. Your body craves and needs consistency so if need be, just stop stepping on the scale for a little bit and just focus on being consistent with your new amount of food. 

Because remember how we discussed how increasing food increases positive adaptations? This doesn’t just mean your hormones recover and normalize, there are other positive adaptations that occur too. One of the more important ones being an increase in your Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT is the calories you burn for everything you do that you are not aware of – walking to work, typing, blinking fidgeting etc. You naturally start to do these things more as your calorie intake goes up. Meaning you indirectly burn more calories. This is often the reason why you hear those stories of people losing weight while they are reverse dieting. They are burning more calories in the day, which causes their maintenance calories to adapt, increase and that’s why some can continue to increase their intake and see fat loss. 

Keeping in mind that fat loss isn’t the goal here at all – maintaining your results is. But this is often a positive incentive and by-product for some individuals. So, stay consistent with eating more food. I know the idea of eating more food is scary. But I promise, if you let that fear go, trust your coach with implementing a successful diet after the diet, think of how amazing it would be to never have to diet again? 

Seems worth it to me.

Hope this was helpful!

Coach Krysten