haxy
Iron
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2025
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REVERSE DIET
We all have specific conditioning, physique goal in mind and once you get to the point where you’re satisfied with your conditioning/body fat levels(beach ready, shredded, stage ready...) you have 2 options!
You can either progressively get back to maintenance or even go into surplus and focus on chasing gains.
The real question is: how to “bounce back” without regaining the fat back?
After all you’ve been in a caloric deficit for some time and considering your metabolic rate dropped.
Drastic hormonal changes occurred and your body is doing everything in its power to get you out of deficit!
This means you cannot simply start eating a lot more calories and expect everything will go to muscle and if you do that it’s most likely you’ll gain some body fat back really quickly and we want to avoid that at all cost.
What is the point of getting shredded if it’s going to last only a few weeks right? That is why “reverse dieting” is here.
Example:
Let’s say you finished your cut by eating 2000kcal daily while your starting maintenance was 3000kcal , you’re at the point where you’re satisfied with your conditioning and you want to maintain your current physique/conditioning.
Common reverse dieting approach would be to simply add 200kcal weekly til’ you get back to your previous maintenance.
You’re simply repeating the process til’ you get back to previous maintenance which was 3000kcal.
Usually that increase in calories should come from carbs but increasing fats slightly is also an option as long as you don’t overdo it and go slow(200kcal increase a week).
This is the most common reverse dieting approach!
ALTERNATIVE REVERSE DIETING
Instead of doing block increases of 200kcal per week I found that increasing 100 calories per day works just as fine for most people without possibility of regaining fat.
Example:
In our example where individual finished his cut at 2000kcal it would simply mean he’d add 100kcal every day til’ he reaches his previous maintenance which was 3000kcal.
It would mean only like 10 days of transition phase and while it might seem too short; in reality whole adaptational process and hormonal stabilization takes no longer than that.
Which way should I do reverse diet?
Both ways work just fine and you should pick the one you find more reliable and works for you.
If this is the first time you cut down to low body fat than I advise you to go with longer more common version since you want to make sure you don’t regain any fat and give your body as much time as possible to adapt to low body fat levels.
Ultimately it is your choice!
We all have specific conditioning, physique goal in mind and once you get to the point where you’re satisfied with your conditioning/body fat levels(beach ready, shredded, stage ready...) you have 2 options!
You can either progressively get back to maintenance or even go into surplus and focus on chasing gains.
The real question is: how to “bounce back” without regaining the fat back?
After all you’ve been in a caloric deficit for some time and considering your metabolic rate dropped.
Drastic hormonal changes occurred and your body is doing everything in its power to get you out of deficit!
This means you cannot simply start eating a lot more calories and expect everything will go to muscle and if you do that it’s most likely you’ll gain some body fat back really quickly and we want to avoid that at all cost.
What is the point of getting shredded if it’s going to last only a few weeks right? That is why “reverse dieting” is here.
Example:
Let’s say you finished your cut by eating 2000kcal daily while your starting maintenance was 3000kcal , you’re at the point where you’re satisfied with your conditioning and you want to maintain your current physique/conditioning.
Common reverse dieting approach would be to simply add 200kcal weekly til’ you get back to your previous maintenance.
You’re simply repeating the process til’ you get back to previous maintenance which was 3000kcal.
Usually that increase in calories should come from carbs but increasing fats slightly is also an option as long as you don’t overdo it and go slow(200kcal increase a week).
This is the most common reverse dieting approach!
ALTERNATIVE REVERSE DIETING
Instead of doing block increases of 200kcal per week I found that increasing 100 calories per day works just as fine for most people without possibility of regaining fat.
Example:
In our example where individual finished his cut at 2000kcal it would simply mean he’d add 100kcal every day til’ he reaches his previous maintenance which was 3000kcal.
It would mean only like 10 days of transition phase and while it might seem too short; in reality whole adaptational process and hormonal stabilization takes no longer than that.
Which way should I do reverse diet?
Both ways work just fine and you should pick the one you find more reliable and works for you.
If this is the first time you cut down to low body fat than I advise you to go with longer more common version since you want to make sure you don’t regain any fat and give your body as much time as possible to adapt to low body fat levels.
Ultimately it is your choice!
