How to deal with the “negative effects” of fat loss
Losing fat is one thing, but keeping it off is another topic.
The truth is…
while it sounds kinda interesting, it’s also based on what happens when people finish a diet.
Most people think that once they get to their desired weight (by whatever means/diet they got there), they only have a couple of options:
- Celebrate they ended the diet and go and eat everything they weren’t allowed to eat before
- Feel anxious about gaining the weight back and trying to keep the same amount of food they are eating for the rest of their lives
There are more options (of course), but I’ve seen these are the most common patterns.
And I can see why.
Given that fat loss is not something fairly quick (I mean, you can do it… but, likely, the results won’t last that much), having the idea of going through all of that for nothing is just intimidating.
But what I mean when I say fat loss's “negative effects” is this.
Chances are:
- The amount of food you’re eating is either unsustainable or close to it
- Your level of hunger is not optimal — maybe you’ve been hungry all day long
- You have craved some food during the day (hopefully, not 24/7)
- And for some, it meant that they had to sacrifice part of their social life. Because going out and eating with friends and family didn’t make sense when you had to order something completely different.
Well, let me share something with you.
There is a way (backed up by evidence and research, of course) that gives the option of keeping most — and for some, it will be all — of the weight you lose… while still being able to eat more.
If this sounds too good to be true, then let me introduce you to a not new concept (although it might be for you) called Reverse Diet.
The premise is quite simple.
Once you’ve successfully finished your weight loss process (there are 2 other scenarios where you should do it, but let’s just stick with this one for now), it’s very probably you to the scenario I mentioned above.
Well, you don’t have to just “eat back to normal” and hope you don’t gain much weight — I think you can agree that hope isn’t a strategy — or to basically starve yourself for the rest of your life.
And while I don’t think that giving the details of how all of this works, I can quickly show you how this is done.
Let’s say you were eating about 1,200kcal in your day by the end of your diet.
Well, now you have to get back to normal.
So after you find out how much you have to eat (based on formulas) to maintain your new weight, you see that it’s at 2,300kcal.
That’s a 900kcal difference.
Well, here’s the tedious part…
What if you were to add about 3–5% of calories to what you are eating right now?
That gives you a total of 1,260kcal.
If you haven’t gained much weight (or any), then you add another 3–5% to that number next week.
Now comes the fun part.
Going merely 60kcal not only isn’t a significant difference… but for some, it won’t solve the fact they are hungry and craving food all day long.
In that case, you can simply go more aggressive in your first step and then back it down to a number you’re comfortable with.
So let’s say that you go from 1,200kcal to 1,350kcal.
You stay in there for a week or two, and once you see the progress then you start adding 3–5%.
Does this mean you can only add 3–5%?
No, as it all depends on the level you tolerate (in theory, at least) to gain weight.
I say “in theory” because something interesting happens in many people when they do a reverse diet.
In theory, you should be gaining some weight (not much if you do it correctly, and you’d easily lose it by simply doing this and then doing a less aggressive fat-loss phase).
But this doesn’t happen to everyone.
For many, they won’t even gain weight at all during this process.
And others?… they will actually lose a little bit more weight.
(Ironically, I fall into this category)
The only way to figure out which category you fall in is to do it. Can’t point you to a scientific way of figuring this out.
Still, here’s what you should focus on when doing a revers diet.
If anything, you want to take the time it takes you to get to what is your new number to maintain your weight (not less, and if possible… even more).
Next time you want to lose some weight in which scenario do you think it will be easier and even more enjoyable to lose it?
If you were to start by eating 1,200kcal a day… or by eating 2,300kcal a day?
I’ll leave you with that.
Just know that taking this phase after the diet lightly can make all the sacrifices that someone made to get there can be completely gone when doing this fast or not paying too much attention to it.
Till next time,
Ivan @ Fitnessthetic
