Reverse Dieting: The Best Way to Boost Your Metabolism Without Gaining Fat
Mar 19, 2025 mindpumpIf you’ve dieted for long enough, and gotten lean enough, you know how that can feel. Your metabolism feels like it’s come to a halt, you get cold even when it’s warm, you start dreaming about food, and your energy tanks. You may have tried jumping right back into a surplus only to find you put on fat faster than ever. This is where reverse dieting comes in. It’s a strategy that allows you to restore your metabolism and increase your food intake without piling on fat.
What Is Reverse Dieting?
Reverse dieting is the process of gradually increasing your caloric intake after a period of dieting to restore metabolic function and prevent rapid fat gain. When you diet for a long time, and get super lean, your metabolism will start to slow down in compensation. It’s recognizing that not enough food is coming in, so it adapts by not expending as much in order to keep you alive. It doesn’t know you want to be lean, it’s only recognizing that you’re taking in less energy. This is why we can only diet for so long.
By reverse dieting we are increasing calories slowly, to allow your metabolism to catch up and not send us right into fat storage mode. Bodybuilders use this the most often to maintain a lean physique while getting back into a bulk post competition.
Why Reverse Dieting Works
As mentioned earlier, your metabolism adapts to you. Based on your activity levels and food intake, your body is smart at adjusting itself. Just like it slows down as you eat less, it’ll actually expend more as you eat more (granted this is only to an extent). The key is to introduce 100 or so calories each week and see how your body responds.
How to Reverse Diet Properly for Long-Term Success
1. Increase Calories Slowly
Increase by 100-200 calories per week, primarily from carbs and fats. Protein should already be where it needs to be so it shouldn’t need adjusting. If you find your weight isn’t moving and you are adapting really well, you can get a little more aggressive.
2. Monitor Your Weight
You will notice small fluctuations here and there, but the key is to track multiple times per week. This is simply data so we can see if you’re trending in the right direction. How is your energy, strength and performance in the gym? These are all cues that can tell you if your metabolism is adapting properly.
3. Strength Train and Step Count
Continue to lift weights and send that muscle growth signal to your body. Now that calories are being added back in, we want to use any potential excess for muscle growth instead of fat storage. If you have a high step count, keep it high but slowly start to back off to a more manageable count. If you were at 15-20k steps work your way back to 10k.
Be Patient and Trust the Process
It’s not about jumping right back to normal. After a diet, people want to go right back to where they were before dieting. You need to factor in this extra time when returning from a prolonged diet to slowly get you back to where you were. It can take weeks, months or even years, depending on how low you got and for how long. It’ll be worth it as long as you are consistent and trust the process.
