First, to lose weight, we need to be in a calorie deficit. This is the only reason why we lose scale weight. What this means is we need to be burning more calories than what we are consuming over a consistent time period. Now when someone wants to lose weight and their calories are already quite low keeping the calories this low is the only choice we have so that’s the easy part. The hard part is the number of calories this person will need to burn to lose any scale weight. Because what will happen over time is this person’s metabolism will catch on to what we are doing and down the track when they are wanting to get leaner once the scale weight and fat loss equation plateaus (which it will) there really is nowhere to go with this person’s calories.
The only real solution and what they must do in this situation is reverse diet back out again. What ‘reverse diet’ means is you need to slowly and I mean SLOWLY increase your calories back out to a higher number. I know if you’re in this position you don’t want to hear this, but it really is the only way. The best way to do this is aim for small 5 – 10% increases each week or every few weeks for an extended period.
Depending on how damaged the person’s metabolism is the range of time they may need to do this can be anywhere from 3, 6 and 12 months’ time.
I personally did this exact process a few years ago where I slowly built my calories all the way up to 7,000 calories a day across a 2-year lean bulk phase.
What this did was boosted my metabolism and gave me a huge starting point for when I wanted to get lean again. Doing this process for an extended period had a massive range of benefits.
When you start dieting again (aka put yourself back into a calorie deficit) but this time with your calories high it now means that you can get lean on more calories than before giving you more wriggle room for later down the track. Plus, it also means little to no suffering when your back in a calorie deficit again. It also means your energy in your gym sessions won’t suffer and you will still able to get some pretty good pumps from the gym as your calories are still high and not ridiculously low. As we all know when the food starts to drop the energy and focus in the gym and in your everyday life can dip which is not what we want.
Another important point to mention is because I did this ‘reverse diet’ slowly across a 2-year period it meant my body fat didn’t get too out of control and ensured I stayed relatively lean during this process.
This is why when doing this you MUST track your progress. I would “check in” every Sunday and record my scale weight first thing in the morning and would also take progress photos to keep a very close eye on my body fat %. I wanted to be gaining but gaining very SLOWLY during this process – this was key. I was aiming to gain anywhere between 600g to 1.4kgs of weight each week which was ideal. Anything over that meant I was gaining a little too quickly and most of it was being stored as unwanted body fat. Sure, our body fat is bound to go up in this process, but I wanted to make sure most of it was lean muscle. Tracking my scale weight, taking progress photos allows you to NOT play the guessing game and then make any necessary adjustments along the way depending on what’s happening to your body. Tracking things carefully is so important in this process to ensure we are maximising our results while still staying relatively lean during this reverse diet process.
Remember this game is a marathon and not a sprint so in summary if your calories are currently low and have been for a while aim to reverse diet back out SLOWLY because the slower you do it the better the muscle you will build. Not to mention the major benefits of boosting and building your metabolism through-out this process.
I hope this helps!
