October 20, 2025 • 30 mins
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--
Reverse dieting promises to "fix" your suppressed (or "broken") metabolism through gradual calorie increases, but does it actually work?
Is it the most efficient way to "recover" after a fat loss phase or years of dieting?
Discover what the research actually shows about metabolic recovery, why reverse dieting creates convincing illusions of progress while delaying actual results, and what you should do instead if you're stuck at low calories heading into the new year.
Episode Resources:
- Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS
- Join the 10-Week Recovery Diet Workshop (Tuesday, October 21 at noon ET) - $27 includes workshop, replay, 20-page guide, and bonuses:
http://live.witsandweights.com
Timestamps:
0:00 - Reverse dieting hype vs. evidence
5:00 - Myth 1: Precision reveals "true" metabolism
10:05 - Myth 2: Maintenance is a fixed number
14:50 - Myth 3: Eating more without gaining fat
19:48 - Myth 4: Gradual increases drive recovery
24:25 - What actually drives recovery
26:50 - The 6 steps of a proper recovery diet
🔥 Take a 2-minute Metabolic Quiz for a personalized fat loss report (strength training & nutrition strategies)
🩸 Book a Performance Bloodwork Analysis to find out what's slowing your metabolism and weight loss (20% off - code VITALITY20)
🎓 Lose fat + build muscle in Physique University with evidence-based nutrition coaching (free custom nutrition plan - code FREEPLAN)
👥 Join our Facebook community for fitness & body recomp strategies
👋 Ask a question or find Philip Pape on Instagram
📱 Try MacroFactor 2 weeks free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS (my favorite nutrition and macros app for lifting weights)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
By now you've probably heard of reverse
dieting, and that it is thesolution to your suppressed
metabolism.
Add 50 to 100 calories everyweek, watch your metabolic rate
magically climb, and avoid fatregain in the process.
Except the research shows thatreverse dieting, the way it's
commonly practiced and promoted,is mostly built on myths.
(00:21):
The benefits people experiencehave almost nothing to do with
gradually adding calories, andeverything to do is simply
getting out of a deficit.
Today I'm breaking down whatthe evidence actually shows
about metabolic recovery, whyreverse dieting perpetuates
myths that keep people stuck,and what you should do instead
if you're stuck at low caloriesheading into the new year.
(00:41):
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're going to talk about
one of the most overhypedstrategies in the fitness
(01:05):
industry, reverse dieting.
I've spent years working withclients who have tried reverse
dieting, and I've watched thisapproach evolve from a
post-contest recovery strategyfor bodybuilders into a supposed
metabolic fix for anyone who'sever dieted.
And the problem is that most ofwhat you've been told or see on
(01:26):
social media about reversedieting is not supported by
evidence.
The actual research, andthere's a lot of it now, it's
actually quite interesting,tells a very different story
than Instagram testimonials andcoaching programs selling you on
this approach.
So today we're going to look atwhat the evidence shows, why
reverse dieting does perpetuatethese myths that seem true, but
(01:48):
they're not, and what you shoulddo instead.
Because this is more aboutrecovery dieting and doing it
the right way, not doing reversedieting the way it's usually
perpetuated.
Before we get into it, I wantto share what is possible when
you actually get this right.
I want to share some quotesfrom members of Physique
University who've been workingon their nutrition and training
foundations over the past fewweeks and months.
(02:09):
Joseph says, quote, I'm workingon my lifting form.
Thanks for form checks withinputs from both Coach Carol and
Coach Phillip.
I have expert inputs allowingme to improve my workouts.
Huge plus.
Also, looks like my body fat'strending downward and muscle
mass is on the incline.
So everything's headed in thepositive direction.
Joe said, quote, I can now weara pair of jeans that were
(02:30):
consigned to the same pile asunderwired bras and high-heeled
shoes, labeled not possibleanymore.
They fit perfectly now anddon't hurt anymore.
And Christine told me, quote, Ihad to bring my daughter to get
a new state ID this morning.
She was asking about the realID, so I got my license out.
It I saw that after 39 years, Ifinally weigh less than my
license shows by 30 pounds.
(02:50):
And these are just a variety ofdifferent outcomes that people
are getting depending on theirgoal.
And it's what happens when youunderstand what drives recovery
and stop relying on some ofthese myths.
Joseph is seeing bodycomposition improvements while
getting stronger.
Joe is experiencing real-worldbenefits that she cares about.
And Christina's getting resultsshe hasn't seen in 39 years.
So if you want these kinds ofresults for yourself, I am
(03:12):
teaching the complete systemtomorrow at noon Eastern in the
10-week recovery diet workshop.
Registration is open right upuntil then.
So you can go to the link inthe show notes or
live.witsandweights.com.
So let's talk about why reversedieting isn't what most people
think it is.
I want to start with theconclusion and then work
backward through the evidence.
(03:34):
Reverse dieting, if you look atsocial media and how it's
practiced, promoted, and spokenabout, it's based on a
fundamental misunderstanding ofhow metabolic recovery works.
The idea is that by very slowlyand precisely adding calories,
usually it's something like 50to 100 a week, sometimes I'll
see 200 calories, and trackingeverything, you can somehow coax
(03:55):
your metabolic rate upward.
You could jumpstart yourmetabolism without regaining
fat.
And then you can supposedlylose fat from a higher
metabolism.
At least those are differentelements of this claim.
The research shows this isbackward.
The benefits that peopleexperience from reverse dieting
have nothing to do with thegradual calorie increases.
It comes from getting rid ofthe energy deficit.
(04:18):
That's a different thing.
Those are two different things.
Okay.
Getting out of a deficit causesyour rate to partially recover
back to its current baseline orset point, whatever word you
want to use.
And that happens whether youjump straight to maintenance or
you drag it out and inch yourway there over, say, 12 weeks.
So what reverse dietingactually does then is delay
(04:39):
recovery while perpetuatingmyths that make it seem like the
gradual increases are doingsomething special and that
they're necessary.
And then understanding these isimportant because, you know,
lots of smart, well-intentionedcoaches believe and say these
things, and sometimes in anegative sense in that they are
used preying on your fear to getyou to join a program.
(04:59):
So today we're going to breakdown four myths that keep people
stuck in reverse dieting.
And we're going to talk aboutwhat actually drives recovery.
And then finally, what shouldyou do specifically?
So myth number one is thatextreme tracking precision is
going to reveal your truemetabolism.
Now you might be shocked tohear me say that because I talk
about macrofactor all the timeand how tracking your weight and
(05:22):
your food is going to help youunderstand your true estimated
expenditure.
So if you are, for example,adding 10 grams of carbs this
week and you don't account forthat, then the entire approach
is meaningless somehow, that youhave to track to the gram every
day, or you can't tell if yourplanned increases are having any
effect.
(05:43):
But what's happening when youare tracking, however precise
you are, is that you'rerevealing how much you're
actually eating.
You're not actually revealingyour improved metabolism.
And again, you're like, wait aminute, Philip, it doesn't quite
jive with what you've said inthe past about eating, tracking
your food, tracking your weight,and revealing your metabolism.
(06:03):
Stick with me because there'ssome nuances here.
So I'll see this a lot withclients, right?
Someone comes to me, you know,thinking their metabolism is
just so much lower with age,it's broken, whatever words we
want to use.
And they're like, hey, I'm onlyeating 1400 calories at the
moment.
I can't lose weight anymore.
So I'm not going to go aheadand immediately change their
diet.
What I want to start with istightening up their tracking and
(06:24):
awareness.
I want them to weigh using afood scale.
I want them to use the barcode.
I want them to use AI-basedvision estimates, whatever makes
sense.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
But I do want them to logeverything for the day and do it
every day so that we get themost and the most precise data
in a relatively short time.
(06:44):
Okay.
And suddenly they discover, oh,I'm eating 1800 calories.
So that's one scenario.
And I'll say it's not the mostcommon scenario today because a
lot of people that come to mehave heard the podcast.
They know to do this.
They're not gaslit about howmany calories they're eating, is
the word I'm going to use.
Okay.
But a lot of people aren'ttracking or not doing it
(07:04):
consistently, or they'reskipping weekends, or they're
using an inferior tool likeMyFitnessPal, where they're just
tracking, but they don't knowhow much to target.
So then they feel guilty whenthey don't hit their goals and
then they don't track on thosedays or those meals, right?
And the list goes on and on andon.
And we we know that evenregistered dietitians, right?
People who have lots ofnutrition training are routinely
(07:27):
underestimating their calorieintake unless they actually
track it.
Many of us just are terrible atthis.
You know, 40 to 50% is commonfor non-nutrition people or
people who haven't gone throughthis before.
So even if you're trying to doit intuitively, you could be off
by 20%.
And then it kind of compoundsover time as your diet changes,
your life changes, maybe theadherence is a little bit
(07:49):
spotty, those errors get evenlarger if you're not, you know,
kind of on top of it.
So what makes reverse dietingseem to work is that you are now
more precise with your trackingand it improves your habits.
Because the loose tracking thatyou did before, where you were
quote unquote eating 2000calories, but maybe you were
eating 2,400 on average becauseyou didn't count the weekends,
(08:12):
you didn't count the snacks, youdidn't count the bites, didn't
count the eating off of yourkid's plates, right?
Those sorts of things, aswell-intentioned as you were,
that's gone.
And now you're like, oh, okay,I'm actually averaging a few
hundred more calories than Ithought.
And then your brain goes intothe solution mode of, oh, well,
now I maybe need to meal plan alittle bit differently to bring
(08:34):
that number closer where mymaintenance is.
So it's not that, hey, I usedto maintain on 2000, now I'm
maintaining on 2600, mymetabolism is fixed.
It's not what we're doing here.
That's that's one of the myths.
You are always eating whateverthe value is and maintaining at
that weight.
You just didn't know becauseyour tracking wasn't as
accurate.
So for many of you, you'vealready gone past this point and
you are tracking, but I do wantto address the listener who is
(08:57):
still not quite trackingconsistently because there is
extreme value in that.
Tracking creates a realmeasurable difference in the
numbers you see because you seethe truth.
You see the real loggedcalories.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
By that I mean you should logeverything, but the accuracy,
there's gonna be a little bit oferror, but the error tends to
(09:20):
work itself out.
It tends to be a little highand a little low.
For example, if you're usingAI-based food logging, I think
that's good enough.
I think it's going to be alittle bit high sometimes, a
little bit low sometimes,especially if you give it
context, it's gonna be a littlebit more accurate.
And all of this can beextremely empowering in and of
itself without doing anythingelse.
Of course, it then throws waterin your face because you're
like, oh, I'm actually eating alittle bit more.
(09:41):
So I my behaviors do have tochange a little bit, right?
So if you need that level ofprecision to make reverse
dieting quote unquote work, thatkind of tells you something.
Okay.
I think real changes to yourmetabolism can happen regardless
of whether you're trackingprecisely, right?
They're they're two differentconcepts.
But the the tracking is goingto create the awareness that's
(10:04):
gonna improve the habits thatare gonna help you with your
metabolic change.
Okay, I hope that all madesense for the first one because
some of these myths are a littlebit are a little bit nuanced.
All right.
Myth number two is that yourmetabolism only works at a
specific calorie level.
And what I mean by this is theidea that your true maintenance
is, you know, this one numberand it's not very different and
(10:25):
it doesn't differ very much.
In other words, it's fixed orclose to it.
So let's say your maintenanceis 2200 right now, then your
brain immediately goes to, okay,if I eat 2100, obviously I'm
gonna lose weight.
And if I eat 2300, I'mobviously gonna gain weight.
But the reality is far fromthat.
Let me walk it through.
Okay, so let's say your trueexpenditure, we call it your
(10:47):
total daily energy expenditure,the amount of calories you burn
in a day.
Let's say it is 2200 caloriesper day right now.
If you eat exactly 2200calories a day, your weight will
probably stay fairly stable.
Now, if you eat 2100 calories aday instead, you're in a 100
calorie deficit.
Over three months, we would seea, you know, a couple pounds of
(11:08):
fat loss, let's say.
But because daily weightfluctuates by, say, one to three
pounds for most people, havingnothing to do with fat, but
because of water, you may noteven be able to notice that.
Even if you're using a toollike Macrofactor, you know,
which is as precise as it getsin terms of your weight trend,
it's gonna be hard to see that.
Now, what if you're eating2,300 calories?
(11:29):
So that's a hundred caloriesurplus.
Again, opposite.
You're gonna gain a couplepounds over several months,
barely noticeable, especiallywithin the noise of day-to-day
fluctuations.
So for practical purposes, yourmaintenance is actually a range
of something like 400 calories.
I mean, you know, because 400,we're talking about practicality
(11:50):
here.
So anywhere from let's say2,000 to 2,400 calories a day is
gonna feel like maintenance toyou.
And because the scale isn'tobviously going up or down, your
clothes fit the same, you wouldsay that you're maintaining.
But here's how it createsanother reverse dieting myth.
Let's say someone finishes adiet at 1800 calories and
they're on the low end of theirmaintenance range, maybe even a
(12:13):
small deficit because but butbecause they're losing weight so
slowly, they perceivethemselves as maintaining,
right?
And then they start reversedieting.
Over, say, 10 weeks, they workup to 2200 calories.
So they went from 1800 to 200.
And remember that 400 calorierange.
Well, now they're kind of onthe high end of their
maintenance range that theyended the diet with.
Maybe they're in a smallsurplus, but again, the weight
(12:34):
change is barely perceptible.
And then you think their mindgoes to, hey, I just added 400
calories over those 10 weeks andmy weight stayed the same.
Awesome, reverse dieting works.
But their actual expendituremight have been 2,000 calories
the entire time.
They went from slightly belowto slightly above it, and they
(12:54):
stayed within that invisiblerange of quote unquote
maintenance the entire time.
They didn't reverse metabolicadaptation, none of this reverse
dieting magic occurred.
They just moved from one end ofmaintenance to another.
Maintenance is a range.
And it fluctuates even so, evenbeyond that.
You know, I could think of aclient who, for example, reverse
dieted from 1700 to 2100calories over 12 weeks with a
(13:18):
previous coach and had told methis story how she had done
these reverse diets and she'slike, Yeah, I added 400
calories, I didn't seem to gainweight.
But when you averaged it outbased on the intake, her TDEEE
was really around 1950 theentire time.
When you look at theexpenditure graph, we had to
reverse engineer it with herdata because she wasn't using
(13:40):
macrofactor at the time, andthen we kind of reverse
engineered it.
So that's like she startedslightly below it and did
slightly above it, and it lookedlike metabolic recovery.
And I think this is a powermyth, powerful myth to sit on
here because it creates the itcreates the experience that
reverse dieting promises, whichis eating more without gaining
weight, but nothing's changed.
(14:02):
It's purely a, I'll call it anaccounting error.
It has to do with math andaverages and dynamic dynamic,
your system being dynamic andthe signal versus noise and all
that fun stuff, the kind of theengineering stuff that you
really have to be aware of.
And you can get fooled by ifsomebody is a really slick
marketer and kind of flips thenumbers the right way.
And so this is why tracking andmonitoring your expenditure
(14:24):
matter a lot.
Because when you understandyour actual energy expenditure
via logging food, loggingweight, not just this perception
or this like nebulous range, ithelps you target in on those
smart decisions.
How do I want to adjust mycalorie, calories, but not let
it drag out a long time and notactually have a result?
(14:44):
So I'm teaching this tomorrowat Noon Eastern in the 10-week
recovery diet workshop.
This is not reverse dietingwith all the myths and all the
false promises, but it'sactually called recovery
dieting, where it's based onyour metabolic response and your
personal lifestyle and the needto adjust as you hit various
plateaus and situations.
So I'm going to walk throughhow to assess your foundation.
(15:07):
You know, how are you even inthe place where you can properly
track, measure, and execute arecovery diet and know that
you're doing it?
How to use that data, like yourexpenditure, to make those
informed adjustments, how tomonitor biofeedback, which
honestly is one of the bestindicators of recovery.
And then what to do when yourdata shows that you're ready for
certain changes along the way.
So you don't go too slowly.
(15:28):
I'd rather you get there fastand efficiently if you can't.
So that's tomorrow.
It's $27, includes a 20-pageprotocol workbook and all the
bonuses, all the guides, theworkshop itself.
Live.witsandweights.com orclick the link in the show
notes.
Go to live.witsandweights.com,click the link in the show
notes.
I'm going to continue on nowwith myth number three that you
(15:50):
are eating more without gainingbecause your metabolism's going
up.
Now, again, you might think,well, yeah, isn't that what
happens when you recover?
You eat more, your metabolismfollows, and therefore you don't
gain weight.
And mathematically, it's veryconvincing.
It explains why a lot of peopleare certain that reverse
dieting worked for them.
(16:11):
And again, you're thinking,Philip, this sounds a lot like
what you talk about, but there'sdifferences.
I really want to explain.
I hope I'm doing a good job onthis podcast because it's hard
to do this.
The myth is hey, I'm now eating2,800 calories and maintaining
the same weight I used tomaintain at 2,000 calories.
Therefore, my metabolismincreased by 800 calories.
The problem is that calorieintake is instantaneous, but
(16:34):
body weight change iscumulative.
When you ignore that cumulativemath, you create a myth of
metabolic improvement.
And honestly, as much as I lovemacrofactor and I use it
myself, this is where I have toconstantly question what it's
telling me in terms of theexpenditure and either offset it
one way or the other becausepeople, I think, maybe trust it
(16:55):
too much to be like, this iswhat's going on today, even
though it's a lagging indicator,all right, and doesn't
overrespond, it's veryconservative.
So what's actually happeninglooks like this.
Let's say you finish your diet,you go on a fat loss phase, you
lose some fat, you finish yourdiet, or maybe you're
plateauing, whatever.
Let's say your expenditure atthe end of the diet is 2,400
(17:16):
calories, but you're not quitesure that's what it is.
You've been eating somethingbelow that, right?
Like let's say 1800, what didwe say?
1800 calories?
I don't think I gave you anumber, but let's say 1800
calories.
And so you're like, I'm gonnado a reverse diet, I'm gonna
jump up to 1900, and I'm gonnago up 50 calories a week for the
next X number of weeks until Irecover my metabolism.
So in the first, let's say,eight weeks, if you're going up
(17:39):
50 calories a week, you'rebasically still in a deficit
because you didn't really trusthow high you should go and you
didn't want to lose fat, right?
And then at some point you hityour maintenance, but you're
still going and you start toovershoot, and eventually you
get into a surplus and you startto gain a little bit of weight,
but all of this isimperceptible.
It's all imperceptible.
And then by let's say three orfour months later, you've been
(18:01):
trying to do this, it may nottake that long, maybe a shorter
time frame.
You're actually eating a higherlevel than your true
maintenance that's even fullyrecovered.
And your cumulative energybalance over that entire time is
approximately zero.
You haven't gained weight, butyou think you've boosted your
metabolism by that amount ofcalories, let's say 800
(18:22):
calories.
Except in reality, you took along time to get to your true
maintenance, and then you took along time slightly going past
it.
And again, going back to mythnumber one, you're effectively
in that range the entire time.
And yet you've probably endedup on the top end, and now you
may be in a surplus and start togain weight, but it's gonna
happen slowly over time.
(18:43):
So it's this lack of data andlack of confidence where you
think, oh, the reverse dietworked and I'm maintaining my
weight, and you're not really,you're actually starting to
slowly gain weight at thatpoint, maybe a lot of weight,
and it just slowly catches up.
And so I think this part exthis myth explains the most
common reverse dietingtestimonial, quote unquote, you
know, I'm I'm eating so muchmore than I used to, and I
(19:04):
haven't gained weight.
Okay.
Because it's true, at least onthe surface, but they haven't
been eating that much more forvery long, and the cumulative
energy balance really hasn't hadtime to catch up.
And because they're nottracking their data accurately,
they don't know it.
And so this is where, hey, Igained eight pounds or 10 pounds
months later, and I'm not, andI don't know why.
(19:25):
So this is kind ofdisconnecting calorie intake,
which is what you eat today,from body composition, which is
what you've eaten over manymonths.
And the illusion of reversedieting manipulates the timing
to create this myth of eatingmore without gaining, but the
cumulative math is gonna catchup eventually.
And that brings me to mythnumber four that gradual calorie
(19:45):
increases drive the metabolicrecovery.
And this is the most importantmyth to understand because it
gets at the coremisunderstanding of what
actually drives metabolicrecovery.
The reverse dieting myth saysthat gradually increasing your
calories causes your metabolicrate, your metabolism to
increase.
Add 50 calories this week, yourmetabolism speeds up a bit, add
another 50 next week, it speedsup more, keep going.
(20:07):
And then you rebuild yourmetabolic capacity through this
careful manipulation ofcalories.
And again, the research showsus and experience shows us this
is backward.
What actually happens iseliminating the energy deficit,
the calorie deficit, causes ametabolic, your metabolic rate
to increase.
That's different thanincreasing calories causing it
(20:29):
to increase.
You have to eliminate thedeficit.
When you transition from anegative energy balance to a
neutral energy balance,maintenance, metabolic
adaptation partially reversesbecause you're no longer in an
energy depleted orresource-depleted state.
And guess how fast thishappens?
Within days, it has nothing todo with whether you jumped
(20:51):
straight to maintenance orinched your way there over 12
weeks.
Once you get to maintenance,right, and that's the important
part, you're gonna startrecovering very quickly, which
is why we want to do it quickly.
Okay.
Metabolic adaptation is drivenby two things: the loss of fat
mass and body weight and thepresence of an energy deficit,
right?
Those are two different things.
(21:12):
You're getting lighter on thescale and you're in a deficit.
When you get rid of thedeficit, that portion of
adaptation driven by the deficitreverses very quickly.
The portion driven by your lossin body mass is going to
persist until you regain itbecause you're just a lighter
person.
Of course, that was your goal,right?
To be a lighter person.
So you take that along for theride.
(21:34):
So reverse dieting gets thecausality backward, the cause
and effect.
You're not able to add morecalories because you're
carefully manipulating yourmetabolism upward.
You're able to add morecalories because eliminating the
deficit increased yourmetabolic rate.
And now your old maintenance isactually a slight deficit,
right?
The maintenance you ended yourdiet with, technically, right,
(21:56):
is now a slight deficit becauseyou've recovered to your true,
full recovered maintenance asquickly as you could.
I think it's almost like aparallel to progressive overload
and training, right?
You don't get stronger becauseyou added five pounds to the
bar.
You're able to add five poundsto the bar because you got
stronger from the previoustraining.
I know it sounds like aparadox, but the weight increase
(22:17):
is the effect of you adaptingand getting stronger, which is
why we're not reallyoverloading, we're actually
loading right to the edge andthen causing that adaptation.
The same thing happens withreverse dieting.
The calorie increases are theeffect of metabolic recovery
from eliminating the deficit.
So you're kind of like allowednow to increase your calories
because you're slowly gettingout of that deficit, and the
(22:40):
recovery happens because ofthat.
The gradual increase in thosecalories are you just getting up
to that point, albeit slowerthan I would like you to, which
is kind of the whole point ofthis whole discussion.
And this matters because ifreverse dieting is the effect
instead of the cause, then theapproach is redundant.
What do I mean?
(23:00):
Well, you're engaging in weeksor months of this guesswork, and
maybe you are tracking, butit's still this very mentally
fatiguing calorie manipulationto accomplish something that
happens when you automaticallyautomatically when you just go
to maintenance.
You just jump up to maintenancenow, like within a day.
(23:20):
So the research actuallyconfirms this.
When people transition out ofan energy deficit right to their
true maintenance, theirmetabolic rate goes up within
days, not weeks, not months,days.
And it increases the sameamount whether you jump to
maintenance now or your reversediet, you're way there weeks
later.
But we want it now, don't we?
We want to recover.
Your body's gonna feel muchbetter for it.
(23:41):
What does not increase quicklyis the part of your metabolism
driven by your body weightbecause you're lighter and you
can't change that.
It's a biological reality.
That's the other confusionbecause you're not gonna
recover, you may not recoverfully to the metabolism you had
before.
Now, the difference beingyou're probably also building
muscle over time.
So that's gonna slowly inch upyour metabolism as well, just a
(24:03):
little bit.
But in the short term, you'renot gonna have any of that going
on.
You're just gonna be a littlebit lower because your body
weight, but you should recoverbecause you're not in the diet.
And I actually see this in thedata when when I work with
clients or in physiqueuniversity and we're using
macrofactor and we're doing thisthe right way.
We'll sometimes see theexpenditure bottom out, and then
within a few days or at most acouple weeks, it really starts
(24:24):
to climb and get back to itsnormal level.
It's always gonna have ups ordowns, though.
You gotta understand that it'svery dynamic, but it's going to
recover.
So putting this all together,and then I'm gonna talk about
what to do instead in a moment.
The evidence tells us thatmetabolic adaptation, it's not
permanent damage.
It's just temporary, atemporary change in metabolism
that reverses when you eliminatethe deficit.
(24:45):
And then if you gain yourweight back, it'll go all the
way back to what it was before.
Or if you gain muscle, it'sgonna go up, right?
That's adaptation.
The adaptation adds friction tothe whole process and it adds
confusion.
And that's why I do theseepisodes.
But we're talking about amodest impact, not a huge
(25:05):
impact.
Effectively, effectively, whenmetabolism drops during dieting,
it's gonna add several weeks tothe whole process.
Or it's gonna cause you to haveto eat a little bit less.
That's basically what it comesdown to.
And you can choose do I want togo faster and have it be a
little bit harder with morehunger, or do I want to go
slower and face the reality ofit?
The portion driven by thedeficit will reverse within days
of returning to maintenance.
(25:25):
That's, you know, primarilyhormonal, right?
Your thyroid, we know it dropsby like 6% on average in a
500-calorie deficit, but then itgoes right back up when you get
out of the deficit within days.
We know this from bodybuildersas well.
You know, the research onphysique athletes, those who
tried to kind of restrict theirweight regain because they were
worried about getting too muchfat back, they actually had this
(25:46):
persistent long-termsuppression of their metabolism.
While people who said, youknow, I'm gonna come right back
to my set point right now,recovered faster.
And then ironically orcoincidentally, your metabolism
then pops back up where it needsto be.
So, what should you do instead?
So instead of reverse dieting,you want to do what's called a
recovery diet.
(26:06):
It's not about gradually addingcalories and hoping, guessing,
taking time, being stuck in thatmaintenance window and not
actually recovering.
It's understanding what drivesrecovery and then optimizing for
those factors.
And I'm gonna give you sixquick ones here.
And again, we're gonna coverthese in detail in tomorrow's
workshop.
First is to assess yourfoundations.
These are things like sleep,stress, training, activity,
(26:28):
nutrition quality.
All of that is going to helpyou regain your or not regain,
it's going to help you come backto your uh recovered state
without gaining fat, right?
Because that's what we'retrying to do.
Number two is transitioning tomaintenance as quickly as you
can instead of inching your waythere over many weeks or
(26:48):
potentially months.
And you can do that with a lotof confidence without worrying
about fat regain when you followthe kind of approach that we
take.
Number three is to be trackingyour dynamic maintenance.
Again, we use MacroFactor, usemy code Wits and Weights, all in
Word.
It is the only food logger thatcan do that right now.
The only other way to do it iswith a spreadsheet.
Although I'm gonna drop a hintright now, there's an app that
(27:11):
I'm developing that will also dothat for you in the background.
But anyway, your metabolic rateis gonna climb slightly after
you eliminate the deficit.
And you want to get first towhere it is right now as quickly
as you can, and then you startto jump up to where it's going
to be in the short term.
So that's not reverse dieting,that is a quick jump and then
(27:33):
some subsequent jumps as youknow how your metabolism is
changing.
Number four is to accept thereality of biology that, you
know, if if you're extremelylean to get fully, fully, fully
recovered, you're probably gonnagain a little bit of fat back,
or you're just gonna have tostay, you know, to stay lean,
you're gonna have to just beeating a little bit less, not a
(27:55):
lot less, like a diet, but it'snot gonna be as much as you were
when you were heavier, right?
You can't override that withany system or magic reverse
dieting protocol.
Number five is tracking thingsthat really matter during this
whole process, like yourstrength, your energy, your
sleep, the performance in thegym, all of that is telling you
that recovery is happening.
(28:16):
So even if you didn't have allthis data about calories, you
could tell quitestraightforwardly, I don't know
if that's an adverb, based onyour biofeedback that you're
recovering.
And then number six is usingyour recovered capacity now in
an intelligent way.
What I mean by that is let'ssay you come to our workshop
(28:36):
tomorrow and then follow the10-week protocol.
Now, it doesn't take 10 weeksto recover.
A lot of that time has to dowith building the foundational
habits, okay, and assessingthese things and doing it the
right way.
It's actually gonna happenfairly quickly, but you're gonna
finish your recovery, you'regonna enter the new year at a
well-known maintenance with goodbiofeedback, then you're ready
(28:57):
to go hard at a proper fat lossphase.
Not because you boosted yourmetabolism, but because you're
not fighting thisdeficit-driven, this lack of
foundation-driven suppression inyour metabolism.
That is recovery dieting, okay?
And that is what I'm teachingtomorrow with all the
implementation details, with theworkbook, with the plan and
everything.
In tomorrow's workshop, just goto livewitsandweights.com.
(29:20):
Again, just go tolive.witsandweights.com or use
the link in the show notes.
It's $27, includes a complete20-page protocol workbook.
It includes the foundationassessment, it includes the
dynamic maintenance approach wetalked about today, how to
actually execute it.
It includes how to bio how tomonitor your biofeedback, and I
even have a troubleshootingguide in there for all of the
(29:40):
things that will come up in thedata, in your plan, and in your
life, especially since it'sduring the holidays.
So again, go to live.wits andweights.com or click the link in
the show notes if you want tostop wasting time on all these
diets and the reverse dieting.
And you want to understand thisis how I recover, and then I
can go after good fat loss inthe future.
Until next time.
Keep using your wits, liftingthose weights, and remember your
(30:02):
metabolism isn't broken, it'sjust adapted.
And understanding thedifference is what actually
drives recovery.
My name is Philip Pape, andyou're listening to the Wits and
Weights podcast.
Talk to you next time.
By now you've probably heard of reverse
dieting, and that it is thesolution to your suppressed
metabolism.
Add 50 to 100 calories everyweek, watch your metabolic rate
magically climb, and avoid fatregain in the process.
Except the research shows thatreverse dieting, the way it's
commonly practiced and promoted,is mostly built on myths.
(00:21):
The benefits people experiencehave almost nothing to do with
gradually adding calories, andeverything to do is simply
getting out of a deficit.
Today I'm breaking down whatthe evidence actually shows
about metabolic recovery, whyreverse dieting perpetuates
myths that keep people stuck,and what you should do instead
if you're stuck at low caloriesheading into the new year.
(00:41):
I'm your host, Philip Pape, andtoday we're going to talk about
one of the most overhypedstrategies in the fitness
(01:05):
industry, reverse dieting.
I've spent years working withclients who have tried reverse
dieting, and I've watched thisapproach evolve from a
post-contest recovery strategyfor bodybuilders into a supposed
metabolic fix for anyone who'sever dieted.
And the problem is that most ofwhat you've been told or see on
(01:26):
social media about reversedieting is not supported by
evidence.
The actual research, andthere's a lot of it now, it's
actually quite interesting,tells a very different story
than Instagram testimonials andcoaching programs selling you on
this approach.
So today we're going to look atwhat the evidence shows, why
reverse dieting does perpetuatethese myths that seem true, but
(01:48):
they're not, and what you shoulddo instead.
Because this is more aboutrecovery dieting and doing it
the right way, not doing reversedieting the way it's usually
perpetuated.
Before we get into it, I wantto share what is possible when
you actually get this right.
I want to share some quotesfrom members of Physique
University who've been workingon their nutrition and training
foundations over the past fewweeks and months.
(02:09):
Joseph says, quote, I'm workingon my lifting form.
Thanks for form checks withinputs from both Coach Carol and
Coach Phillip.
I have expert inputs allowingme to improve my workouts.
Huge plus.
Also, looks like my body fat'strending downward and muscle
mass is on the incline.
So everything's headed in thepositive direction.
Joe said, quote, I can now weara pair of jeans that were
(02:30):
consigned to the same pile asunderwired bras and high-heeled
shoes, labeled not possibleanymore.
They fit perfectly now anddon't hurt anymore.
And Christine told me, quote, Ihad to bring my daughter to get
a new state ID this morning.
She was asking about the realID, so I got my license out.
It I saw that after 39 years, Ifinally weigh less than my
license shows by 30 pounds.
(02:50):
And these are just a variety ofdifferent outcomes that people
are getting depending on theirgoal.
And it's what happens when youunderstand what drives recovery
and stop relying on some ofthese myths.
Joseph is seeing bodycomposition improvements while
getting stronger.
Joe is experiencing real-worldbenefits that she cares about.
And Christina's getting resultsshe hasn't seen in 39 years.
So if you want these kinds ofresults for yourself, I am
(03:12):
teaching the complete systemtomorrow at noon Eastern in the
10-week recovery diet workshop.
Registration is open right upuntil then.
So you can go to the link inthe show notes or
live.witsandweights.com.
So let's talk about why reversedieting isn't what most people
think it is.
I want to start with theconclusion and then work
backward through the evidence.
(03:34):
Reverse dieting, if you look atsocial media and how it's
practiced, promoted, and spokenabout, it's based on a
fundamental misunderstanding ofhow metabolic recovery works.
The idea is that by very slowlyand precisely adding calories,
usually it's something like 50to 100 a week, sometimes I'll
see 200 calories, and trackingeverything, you can somehow coax
(03:55):
your metabolic rate upward.
You could jumpstart yourmetabolism without regaining
fat.
And then you can supposedlylose fat from a higher
metabolism.
At least those are differentelements of this claim.
The research shows this isbackward.
The benefits that peopleexperience from reverse dieting
have nothing to do with thegradual calorie increases.
It comes from getting rid ofthe energy deficit.
(04:18):
That's a different thing.
Those are two different things.
Okay.
Getting out of a deficit causesyour rate to partially recover
back to its current baseline orset point, whatever word you
want to use.
And that happens whether youjump straight to maintenance or
you drag it out and inch yourway there over, say, 12 weeks.
So what reverse dietingactually does then is delay
(04:39):
recovery while perpetuatingmyths that make it seem like the
gradual increases are doingsomething special and that
they're necessary.
And then understanding these isimportant because, you know,
lots of smart, well-intentionedcoaches believe and say these
things, and sometimes in anegative sense in that they are
used preying on your fear to getyou to join a program.
(04:59):
So today we're going to breakdown four myths that keep people
stuck in reverse dieting.
And we're going to talk aboutwhat actually drives recovery.
And then finally, what shouldyou do specifically?
So myth number one is thatextreme tracking precision is
going to reveal your truemetabolism.
Now you might be shocked tohear me say that because I talk
about macrofactor all the timeand how tracking your weight and
(05:22):
your food is going to help youunderstand your true estimated
expenditure.
So if you are, for example,adding 10 grams of carbs this
week and you don't account forthat, then the entire approach
is meaningless somehow, that youhave to track to the gram every
day, or you can't tell if yourplanned increases are having any
effect.
(05:43):
But what's happening when youare tracking, however precise
you are, is that you'rerevealing how much you're
actually eating.
You're not actually revealingyour improved metabolism.
And again, you're like, wait aminute, Philip, it doesn't quite
jive with what you've said inthe past about eating, tracking
your food, tracking your weight,and revealing your metabolism.
(06:03):
Stick with me because there'ssome nuances here.
So I'll see this a lot withclients, right?
Someone comes to me, you know,thinking their metabolism is
just so much lower with age,it's broken, whatever words we
want to use.
And they're like, hey, I'm onlyeating 1400 calories at the
moment.
I can't lose weight anymore.
So I'm not going to go aheadand immediately change their
diet.
What I want to start with istightening up their tracking and
(06:24):
awareness.
I want them to weigh using afood scale.
I want them to use the barcode.
I want them to use AI-basedvision estimates, whatever makes
sense.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
But I do want them to logeverything for the day and do it
every day so that we get themost and the most precise data
in a relatively short time.
(06:44):
Okay.
And suddenly they discover, oh,I'm eating 1800 calories.
So that's one scenario.
And I'll say it's not the mostcommon scenario today because a
lot of people that come to mehave heard the podcast.
They know to do this.
They're not gaslit about howmany calories they're eating, is
the word I'm going to use.
Okay.
But a lot of people aren'ttracking or not doing it
(07:04):
consistently, or they'reskipping weekends, or they're
using an inferior tool likeMyFitnessPal, where they're just
tracking, but they don't knowhow much to target.
So then they feel guilty whenthey don't hit their goals and
then they don't track on thosedays or those meals, right?
And the list goes on and on andon.
And we we know that evenregistered dietitians, right?
People who have lots ofnutrition training are routinely
(07:27):
underestimating their calorieintake unless they actually
track it.
Many of us just are terrible atthis.
You know, 40 to 50% is commonfor non-nutrition people or
people who haven't gone throughthis before.
So even if you're trying to doit intuitively, you could be off
by 20%.
And then it kind of compoundsover time as your diet changes,
your life changes, maybe theadherence is a little bit
(07:49):
spotty, those errors get evenlarger if you're not, you know,
kind of on top of it.
So what makes reverse dietingseem to work is that you are now
more precise with your trackingand it improves your habits.
Because the loose tracking thatyou did before, where you were
quote unquote eating 2000calories, but maybe you were
eating 2,400 on average becauseyou didn't count the weekends,
(08:12):
you didn't count the snacks, youdidn't count the bites, didn't
count the eating off of yourkid's plates, right?
Those sorts of things, aswell-intentioned as you were,
that's gone.
And now you're like, oh, okay,I'm actually averaging a few
hundred more calories than Ithought.
And then your brain goes intothe solution mode of, oh, well,
now I maybe need to meal plan alittle bit differently to bring
(08:34):
that number closer where mymaintenance is.
So it's not that, hey, I usedto maintain on 2000, now I'm
maintaining on 2600, mymetabolism is fixed.
It's not what we're doing here.
That's that's one of the myths.
You are always eating whateverthe value is and maintaining at
that weight.
You just didn't know becauseyour tracking wasn't as
accurate.
So for many of you, you'vealready gone past this point and
you are tracking, but I do wantto address the listener who is
(08:57):
still not quite trackingconsistently because there is
extreme value in that.
Tracking creates a realmeasurable difference in the
numbers you see because you seethe truth.
You see the real loggedcalories.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
By that I mean you should logeverything, but the accuracy,
there's gonna be a little bit oferror, but the error tends to
(09:20):
work itself out.
It tends to be a little highand a little low.
For example, if you're usingAI-based food logging, I think
that's good enough.
I think it's going to be alittle bit high sometimes, a
little bit low sometimes,especially if you give it
context, it's gonna be a littlebit more accurate.
And all of this can beextremely empowering in and of
itself without doing anythingelse.
Of course, it then throws waterin your face because you're
like, oh, I'm actually eating alittle bit more.
(09:41):
So I my behaviors do have tochange a little bit, right?
So if you need that level ofprecision to make reverse
dieting quote unquote work, thatkind of tells you something.
Okay.
I think real changes to yourmetabolism can happen regardless
of whether you're trackingprecisely, right?
They're they're two differentconcepts.
But the the tracking is goingto create the awareness that's
(10:04):
gonna improve the habits thatare gonna help you with your
metabolic change.
Okay, I hope that all madesense for the first one because
some of these myths are a littlebit are a little bit nuanced.
All right.
Myth number two is that yourmetabolism only works at a
specific calorie level.
And what I mean by this is theidea that your true maintenance
is, you know, this one numberand it's not very different and
(10:25):
it doesn't differ very much.
In other words, it's fixed orclose to it.
So let's say your maintenanceis 2200 right now, then your
brain immediately goes to, okay,if I eat 2100, obviously I'm
gonna lose weight.
And if I eat 2300, I'mobviously gonna gain weight.
But the reality is far fromthat.
Let me walk it through.
Okay, so let's say your trueexpenditure, we call it your
(10:47):
total daily energy expenditure,the amount of calories you burn
in a day.
Let's say it is 2200 caloriesper day right now.
If you eat exactly 2200calories a day, your weight will
probably stay fairly stable.
Now, if you eat 2100 calories aday instead, you're in a 100
calorie deficit.
Over three months, we would seea, you know, a couple pounds of
(11:08):
fat loss, let's say.
But because daily weightfluctuates by, say, one to three
pounds for most people, havingnothing to do with fat, but
because of water, you may noteven be able to notice that.
Even if you're using a toollike Macrofactor, you know,
which is as precise as it getsin terms of your weight trend,
it's gonna be hard to see that.
Now, what if you're eating2,300 calories?
(11:29):
So that's a hundred caloriesurplus.
Again, opposite.
You're gonna gain a couplepounds over several months,
barely noticeable, especiallywithin the noise of day-to-day
fluctuations.
So for practical purposes, yourmaintenance is actually a range
of something like 400 calories.
I mean, you know, because 400,we're talking about practicality
(11:50):
here.
So anywhere from let's say2,000 to 2,400 calories a day is
gonna feel like maintenance toyou.
And because the scale isn'tobviously going up or down, your
clothes fit the same, you wouldsay that you're maintaining.
But here's how it createsanother reverse dieting myth.
Let's say someone finishes adiet at 1800 calories and
they're on the low end of theirmaintenance range, maybe even a
(12:13):
small deficit because but butbecause they're losing weight so
slowly, they perceivethemselves as maintaining,
right?
And then they start reversedieting.
Over, say, 10 weeks, they workup to 2200 calories.
So they went from 1800 to 200.
And remember that 400 calorierange.
Well, now they're kind of onthe high end of their
maintenance range that theyended the diet with.
Maybe they're in a smallsurplus, but again, the weight
(12:34):
change is barely perceptible.
And then you think their mindgoes to, hey, I just added 400
calories over those 10 weeks andmy weight stayed the same.
Awesome, reverse dieting works.
But their actual expendituremight have been 2,000 calories
the entire time.
They went from slightly belowto slightly above it, and they
(12:54):
stayed within that invisiblerange of quote unquote
maintenance the entire time.
They didn't reverse metabolicadaptation, none of this reverse
dieting magic occurred.
They just moved from one end ofmaintenance to another.
Maintenance is a range.
And it fluctuates even so, evenbeyond that.
You know, I could think of aclient who, for example, reverse
dieted from 1700 to 2100calories over 12 weeks with a
(13:18):
previous coach and had told methis story how she had done
these reverse diets and she'slike, Yeah, I added 400
calories, I didn't seem to gainweight.
But when you averaged it outbased on the intake, her TDEEE
was really around 1950 theentire time.
When you look at theexpenditure graph, we had to
reverse engineer it with herdata because she wasn't using
(13:40):
macrofactor at the time, andthen we kind of reverse
engineered it.
So that's like she startedslightly below it and did
slightly above it, and it lookedlike metabolic recovery.
And I think this is a powermyth, powerful myth to sit on
here because it creates the itcreates the experience that
reverse dieting promises, whichis eating more without gaining
weight, but nothing's changed.
(14:02):
It's purely a, I'll call it anaccounting error.
It has to do with math andaverages and dynamic dynamic,
your system being dynamic andthe signal versus noise and all
that fun stuff, the kind of theengineering stuff that you
really have to be aware of.
And you can get fooled by ifsomebody is a really slick
marketer and kind of flips thenumbers the right way.
And so this is why tracking andmonitoring your expenditure
(14:24):
matter a lot.
Because when you understandyour actual energy expenditure
via logging food, loggingweight, not just this perception
or this like nebulous range, ithelps you target in on those
smart decisions.
How do I want to adjust mycalorie, calories, but not let
it drag out a long time and notactually have a result?
(14:44):
So I'm teaching this tomorrowat Noon Eastern in the 10-week
recovery diet workshop.
This is not reverse dietingwith all the myths and all the
false promises, but it'sactually called recovery
dieting, where it's based onyour metabolic response and your
personal lifestyle and the needto adjust as you hit various
plateaus and situations.
So I'm going to walk throughhow to assess your foundation.
(15:07):
You know, how are you even inthe place where you can properly
track, measure, and execute arecovery diet and know that
you're doing it?
How to use that data, like yourexpenditure, to make those
informed adjustments, how tomonitor biofeedback, which
honestly is one of the bestindicators of recovery.
And then what to do when yourdata shows that you're ready for
certain changes along the way.
So you don't go too slowly.
(15:28):
I'd rather you get there fastand efficiently if you can't.
So that's tomorrow.
It's $27, includes a 20-pageprotocol workbook and all the
bonuses, all the guides, theworkshop itself.
Live.witsandweights.com orclick the link in the show
notes.
Go to live.witsandweights.com,click the link in the show
notes.
I'm going to continue on nowwith myth number three that you
(15:50):
are eating more without gainingbecause your metabolism's going
up.
Now, again, you might think,well, yeah, isn't that what
happens when you recover?
You eat more, your metabolismfollows, and therefore you don't
gain weight.
And mathematically, it's veryconvincing.
It explains why a lot of peopleare certain that reverse
dieting worked for them.
(16:11):
And again, you're thinking,Philip, this sounds a lot like
what you talk about, but there'sdifferences.
I really want to explain.
I hope I'm doing a good job onthis podcast because it's hard
to do this.
The myth is hey, I'm now eating2,800 calories and maintaining
the same weight I used tomaintain at 2,000 calories.
Therefore, my metabolismincreased by 800 calories.
The problem is that calorieintake is instantaneous, but
(16:34):
body weight change iscumulative.
When you ignore that cumulativemath, you create a myth of
metabolic improvement.
And honestly, as much as I lovemacrofactor and I use it
myself, this is where I have toconstantly question what it's
telling me in terms of theexpenditure and either offset it
one way or the other becausepeople, I think, maybe trust it
(16:55):
too much to be like, this iswhat's going on today, even
though it's a lagging indicator,all right, and doesn't
overrespond, it's veryconservative.
So what's actually happeninglooks like this.
Let's say you finish your diet,you go on a fat loss phase, you
lose some fat, you finish yourdiet, or maybe you're
plateauing, whatever.
Let's say your expenditure atthe end of the diet is 2,400
(17:16):
calories, but you're not quitesure that's what it is.
You've been eating somethingbelow that, right?
Like let's say 1800, what didwe say?
1800 calories?
I don't think I gave you anumber, but let's say 1800
calories.
And so you're like, I'm gonnado a reverse diet, I'm gonna
jump up to 1900, and I'm gonnago up 50 calories a week for the
next X number of weeks until Irecover my metabolism.
So in the first, let's say,eight weeks, if you're going up
(17:39):
50 calories a week, you'rebasically still in a deficit
because you didn't really trusthow high you should go and you
didn't want to lose fat, right?
And then at some point you hityour maintenance, but you're
still going and you start toovershoot, and eventually you
get into a surplus and you startto gain a little bit of weight,
but all of this isimperceptible.
It's all imperceptible.
And then by let's say three orfour months later, you've been
(18:01):
trying to do this, it may nottake that long, maybe a shorter
time frame.
You're actually eating a higherlevel than your true
maintenance that's even fullyrecovered.
And your cumulative energybalance over that entire time is
approximately zero.
You haven't gained weight, butyou think you've boosted your
metabolism by that amount ofcalories, let's say 800
(18:22):
calories.
Except in reality, you took along time to get to your true
maintenance, and then you took along time slightly going past
it.
And again, going back to mythnumber one, you're effectively
in that range the entire time.
And yet you've probably endedup on the top end, and now you
may be in a surplus and start togain weight, but it's gonna
happen slowly over time.
(18:43):
So it's this lack of data andlack of confidence where you
think, oh, the reverse dietworked and I'm maintaining my
weight, and you're not really,you're actually starting to
slowly gain weight at thatpoint, maybe a lot of weight,
and it just slowly catches up.
And so I think this part exthis myth explains the most
common reverse dietingtestimonial, quote unquote, you
know, I'm I'm eating so muchmore than I used to, and I
(19:04):
haven't gained weight.
Okay.
Because it's true, at least onthe surface, but they haven't
been eating that much more forvery long, and the cumulative
energy balance really hasn't hadtime to catch up.
And because they're nottracking their data accurately,
they don't know it.
And so this is where, hey, Igained eight pounds or 10 pounds
months later, and I'm not, andI don't know why.
(19:25):
So this is kind ofdisconnecting calorie intake,
which is what you eat today,from body composition, which is
what you've eaten over manymonths.
And the illusion of reversedieting manipulates the timing
to create this myth of eatingmore without gaining, but the
cumulative math is gonna catchup eventually.
And that brings me to mythnumber four that gradual calorie
(19:45):
increases drive the metabolicrecovery.
And this is the most importantmyth to understand because it
gets at the coremisunderstanding of what
actually drives metabolicrecovery.
The reverse dieting myth saysthat gradually increasing your
calories causes your metabolicrate, your metabolism to
increase.
Add 50 calories this week, yourmetabolism speeds up a bit, add
another 50 next week, it speedsup more, keep going.
(20:07):
And then you rebuild yourmetabolic capacity through this
careful manipulation ofcalories.
And again, the research showsus and experience shows us this
is backward.
What actually happens iseliminating the energy deficit,
the calorie deficit, causes ametabolic, your metabolic rate
to increase.
That's different thanincreasing calories causing it
(20:29):
to increase.
You have to eliminate thedeficit.
When you transition from anegative energy balance to a
neutral energy balance,maintenance, metabolic
adaptation partially reversesbecause you're no longer in an
energy depleted orresource-depleted state.
And guess how fast thishappens?
Within days, it has nothing todo with whether you jumped
(20:51):
straight to maintenance orinched your way there over 12
weeks.
Once you get to maintenance,right, and that's the important
part, you're gonna startrecovering very quickly, which
is why we want to do it quickly.
Okay.
Metabolic adaptation is drivenby two things: the loss of fat
mass and body weight and thepresence of an energy deficit,
right?
Those are two different things.
(21:12):
You're getting lighter on thescale and you're in a deficit.
When you get rid of thedeficit, that portion of
adaptation driven by the deficitreverses very quickly.
The portion driven by your lossin body mass is going to
persist until you regain itbecause you're just a lighter
person.
Of course, that was your goal,right?
To be a lighter person.
So you take that along for theride.
(21:34):
So reverse dieting gets thecausality backward, the cause
and effect.
You're not able to add morecalories because you're
carefully manipulating yourmetabolism upward.
You're able to add morecalories because eliminating the
deficit increased yourmetabolic rate.
And now your old maintenance isactually a slight deficit,
right?
The maintenance you ended yourdiet with, technically, right,
(21:56):
is now a slight deficit becauseyou've recovered to your true,
full recovered maintenance asquickly as you could.
I think it's almost like aparallel to progressive overload
and training, right?
You don't get stronger becauseyou added five pounds to the
bar.
You're able to add five poundsto the bar because you got
stronger from the previoustraining.
I know it sounds like aparadox, but the weight increase
(22:17):
is the effect of you adaptingand getting stronger, which is
why we're not reallyoverloading, we're actually
loading right to the edge andthen causing that adaptation.
The same thing happens withreverse dieting.
The calorie increases are theeffect of metabolic recovery
from eliminating the deficit.
So you're kind of like allowednow to increase your calories
because you're slowly gettingout of that deficit, and the
(22:40):
recovery happens because ofthat.
The gradual increase in thosecalories are you just getting up
to that point, albeit slowerthan I would like you to, which
is kind of the whole point ofthis whole discussion.
And this matters because ifreverse dieting is the effect
instead of the cause, then theapproach is redundant.
What do I mean?
(23:00):
Well, you're engaging in weeksor months of this guesswork, and
maybe you are tracking, butit's still this very mentally
fatiguing calorie manipulationto accomplish something that
happens when you automaticallyautomatically when you just go
to maintenance.
You just jump up to maintenancenow, like within a day.
(23:20):
So the research actuallyconfirms this.
When people transition out ofan energy deficit right to their
true maintenance, theirmetabolic rate goes up within
days, not weeks, not months,days.
And it increases the sameamount whether you jump to
maintenance now or your reversediet, you're way there weeks
later.
But we want it now, don't we?
We want to recover.
Your body's gonna feel muchbetter for it.
(23:41):
What does not increase quicklyis the part of your metabolism
driven by your body weightbecause you're lighter and you
can't change that.
It's a biological reality.
That's the other confusionbecause you're not gonna
recover, you may not recoverfully to the metabolism you had
before.
Now, the difference beingyou're probably also building
muscle over time.
So that's gonna slowly inch upyour metabolism as well, just a
(24:03):
little bit.
But in the short term, you'renot gonna have any of that going
on.
You're just gonna be a littlebit lower because your body
weight, but you should recoverbecause you're not in the diet.
And I actually see this in thedata when when I work with
clients or in physiqueuniversity and we're using
macrofactor and we're doing thisthe right way.
We'll sometimes see theexpenditure bottom out, and then
within a few days or at most acouple weeks, it really starts
(24:24):
to climb and get back to itsnormal level.
It's always gonna have ups ordowns, though.
You gotta understand that it'svery dynamic, but it's going to
recover.
So putting this all together,and then I'm gonna talk about
what to do instead in a moment.
The evidence tells us thatmetabolic adaptation, it's not
permanent damage.
It's just temporary, atemporary change in metabolism
that reverses when you eliminatethe deficit.
(24:45):
And then if you gain yourweight back, it'll go all the
way back to what it was before.
Or if you gain muscle, it'sgonna go up, right?
That's adaptation.
The adaptation adds friction tothe whole process and it adds
confusion.
And that's why I do theseepisodes.
But we're talking about amodest impact, not a huge
(25:05):
impact.
Effectively, effectively, whenmetabolism drops during dieting,
it's gonna add several weeks tothe whole process.
Or it's gonna cause you to haveto eat a little bit less.
That's basically what it comesdown to.
And you can choose do I want togo faster and have it be a
little bit harder with morehunger, or do I want to go
slower and face the reality ofit?
The portion driven by thedeficit will reverse within days
of returning to maintenance.
(25:25):
That's, you know, primarilyhormonal, right?
Your thyroid, we know it dropsby like 6% on average in a
500-calorie deficit, but then itgoes right back up when you get
out of the deficit within days.
We know this from bodybuildersas well.
You know, the research onphysique athletes, those who
tried to kind of restrict theirweight regain because they were
worried about getting too muchfat back, they actually had this
(25:46):
persistent long-termsuppression of their metabolism.
While people who said, youknow, I'm gonna come right back
to my set point right now,recovered faster.
And then ironically orcoincidentally, your metabolism
then pops back up where it needsto be.
So, what should you do instead?
So instead of reverse dieting,you want to do what's called a
recovery diet.
(26:06):
It's not about gradually addingcalories and hoping, guessing,
taking time, being stuck in thatmaintenance window and not
actually recovering.
It's understanding what drivesrecovery and then optimizing for
those factors.
And I'm gonna give you sixquick ones here.
And again, we're gonna coverthese in detail in tomorrow's
workshop.
First is to assess yourfoundations.
These are things like sleep,stress, training, activity,
(26:28):
nutrition quality.
All of that is going to helpyou regain your or not regain,
it's going to help you come backto your uh recovered state
without gaining fat, right?
Because that's what we'retrying to do.
Number two is transitioning tomaintenance as quickly as you
can instead of inching your waythere over many weeks or
(26:48):
potentially months.
And you can do that with a lotof confidence without worrying
about fat regain when you followthe kind of approach that we
take.
Number three is to be trackingyour dynamic maintenance.
Again, we use MacroFactor, usemy code Wits and Weights, all in
Word.
It is the only food logger thatcan do that right now.
The only other way to do it iswith a spreadsheet.
Although I'm gonna drop a hintright now, there's an app that
(27:11):
I'm developing that will also dothat for you in the background.
But anyway, your metabolic rateis gonna climb slightly after
you eliminate the deficit.
And you want to get first towhere it is right now as quickly
as you can, and then you startto jump up to where it's going
to be in the short term.
So that's not reverse dieting,that is a quick jump and then
(27:33):
some subsequent jumps as youknow how your metabolism is
changing.
Number four is to accept thereality of biology that, you
know, if if you're extremelylean to get fully, fully, fully
recovered, you're probably gonnagain a little bit of fat back,
or you're just gonna have tostay, you know, to stay lean,
you're gonna have to just beeating a little bit less, not a
(27:55):
lot less, like a diet, but it'snot gonna be as much as you were
when you were heavier, right?
You can't override that withany system or magic reverse
dieting protocol.
Number five is tracking thingsthat really matter during this
whole process, like yourstrength, your energy, your
sleep, the performance in thegym, all of that is telling you
that recovery is happening.
(28:16):
So even if you didn't have allthis data about calories, you
could tell quitestraightforwardly, I don't know
if that's an adverb, based onyour biofeedback that you're
recovering.
And then number six is usingyour recovered capacity now in
an intelligent way.
What I mean by that is let'ssay you come to our workshop
(28:36):
tomorrow and then follow the10-week protocol.
Now, it doesn't take 10 weeksto recover.
A lot of that time has to dowith building the foundational
habits, okay, and assessingthese things and doing it the
right way.
It's actually gonna happenfairly quickly, but you're gonna
finish your recovery, you'regonna enter the new year at a
well-known maintenance with goodbiofeedback, then you're ready
(28:57):
to go hard at a proper fat lossphase.
Not because you boosted yourmetabolism, but because you're
not fighting thisdeficit-driven, this lack of
foundation-driven suppression inyour metabolism.
That is recovery dieting, okay?
And that is what I'm teachingtomorrow with all the
implementation details, with theworkbook, with the plan and
everything.
In tomorrow's workshop, just goto livewitsandweights.com.
(29:20):
Again, just go tolive.witsandweights.com or use
the link in the show notes.
It's $27, includes a complete20-page protocol workbook.
It includes the foundationassessment, it includes the
dynamic maintenance approach wetalked about today, how to
actually execute it.
It includes how to bio how tomonitor your biofeedback, and I
even have a troubleshootingguide in there for all of the
(29:40):
things that will come up in thedata, in your plan, and in your
life, especially since it'sduring the holidays.
So again, go to live.wits andweights.com or click the link in
the show notes if you want tostop wasting time on all these
diets and the reverse dieting.
And you want to understand thisis how I recover, and then I
can go after good fat loss inthe future.
Until next time.
Keep using your wits, liftingthose weights, and remember your
(30:02):
metabolism isn't broken, it'sjust adapted.
And understanding thedifference is what actually
drives recovery.
My name is Philip Pape, andyou're listening to the Wits and
Weights podcast.
Talk to you next time.
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