The solution to your plateau

For anyone who has ever dieted, read this

Some of us may have been dieting since we were young. I have had some clients who have been dieting since they were under 10. Thats a lot of restriction and making your body jump through different hoops.

Consider it this way. Imagine you had a new yard to take care of . Rather than watering it every day and mowing the lawn once a week or putting grass seed down once a year. What if you went to one extreme of watering, seeding and mowing everyday. Or if you watered, seeded and mowed once a year. Either way you're going to have a pretty waked yard. Taking care of your yard doesn't have to be over complicated. But there are certain guidelines you should follow to have a flourishing lawn. Also if you're doing things from one extreme to the other it could take some time to fix the damage done.

To take that one step further you have months of doing very specific things to your lawn. Then you have months of it being covered in leaves or snow. You have to trust the process that by spring the lawn will be better than ever. Because of the work you did last summer and the lower key maintenance you will do during the winter

The same is with your body. If You over or underfeed your body. Which leads to being under nourished or having excess fat. It could take some time to repair the damage done. A lot of times we diet hop. One diet works for a time then it stops so we hop to a different one. Or we diet for a while then we're so sick of it we so go back to doing what we were doing before. A lot of times our energy level and motivation is low. Because we're so depleted after restricting things our body needed.

This is where reverse dieting come in

What is reverse dieting? Reverse dieting is a strategic eating plan that involves gradually increasing your calorie intake over a few weeks or months. To allow you to eat more food after a diet while also increasing your metabolism and preventing fat (re)gain. Revere dieting is adding in calories slowly so that you don't put on fat. But also so that you can start to fuel yourself on more food.

Who is reverse dieting for? Reverse dieting like I stated above is for someone who is seeing a plateau in progress. It is a good option for someone who has been dieting for a long time. To take time to get comfortable eating more and repair their metabolism.

Why is it important to reverse diet? It is so important for anyone who has taken time to diet to implement this. You should not be in a caloric deficit for longer than 12-16 weeks. If you have tried to diet for longer than that and now it seems like your body is not responding well. Its because your body needs more. Its important to get your body comfortable on more food. So that you can take it through periods of fat loss but then maintenance. Then you can actually maintain the fat you have lost. Who cares if you lose 15 pounds if you cant keep it off?

The purpose of reverse dieting is to repair your metabolism and get your body back to functioning at 100%. You will feel fatigue and other side effects from restricting your calories. So it's important to make sure you take it through those repair times. And you don't want to have to diet forever, right? Or have to be consumed by the scale your whole life, right? So take time to focus on maintenance.

The biggest result from a reverse diet is being able to maintain fat loss while eating more. The first time I reverse dieted is when I saw the most results in my physique. My body was craving the added calories. A Previous one on one client Taylor saw tremendous results through her reverse diet as well.

How do you reverse diet ? To reverse diet you have to know what your baseline is. So you want to know what you're currently eating. If you have been in a deficit for quite some time. Take time to add 100 calories every 1-2 weeks. Monitor your body and how it responds. See how your energy level is, are your measurements or photos changing? Pay attention to all those things. You can reverse up to a maintenance or keep going after that. Everyone is different and will have varying results. But expect your workouts and energy levels to see tremendous improvement.

So to get started, see where you're at and slowly start to make adjustments from there. You can also calculate your TDEE here to see what maintenance level calories should be for you. This is a great starting point to work towards from where you are at now.

Remember fitness doesn't have to be complicated. But these basic things can lead to a very successful, painless journey.