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Reverse Dieting for Health

Reverse Dieting for Health

What is reverse dieting exactly?

Reverse dieting is approaching a diet and nutrition by ADDING good ingredients. The logic is simple enough…

  1. There is no deprivation or hunger – a reason many diets fail.
  2. By adding good foods there is less room for ‘bad’ foods.
  3. It gives a better chance of ensuring a healthy dose of vitamins and minerals has been achieved.

But does it work? Let’s have a look at each one of these points below….

Reverse Dieting Removes Hunger and Deprivation

No matter how carefully you plan a diet, there is always a point at which a person following a healthy eating plan will suffer feelings of hunger or deprivation. A good diet seeks to minimise these, but sometimes life gets in the way – imagine having to turn down cake at a birthday or being the only one in the restaurant not eating what you want to. Reverse dieting can help you avoid this.

If you followed a reverse diet, you would ensure that you have already consumed lots of healthy food before you eat the rubbish. In theory, you would be less likely to over-eat the less healthy stuff. It doesn’t matter so much about the unhealthy food as the point of the reverse diet is to make sure you are still eating lots of vitamins and minerals to try and maintain a level of nutrient acquiring strategy.

Reverse Dieting Leaving Less Room For Junk

This is two-fold. The stomach doesn’t have limitless storage capacity for food, so by eating healthy foods first there is less room for unhealthy food. It’s a simple matter of physics.

simple health and fat loss tips, reverse dieting

The second point here is the higher protein and fibre content of healthy foods. These foods are more satiating, making you feel fuller for longer. By benefitting more from healthy foods your body would require less of them than the nutritionally-empty foods, so less room left in the stomach aside, you wouldn’t even feel hungry and as a result are less likely to binge on junk foods.

It’s important to note that these strategies obviously only work if you eat your healthy foods FIRST!

Reverse Dieting Helps Ensure a High Vitamin and Mineral Content in the Diet

With reverse dieting, emphasis is placed on the consumption of healthy foods. In order to make the approach work for you, it’s important you prioritise these. If you don’t, you will end up falling short on the effectiveness of the diet.

It is imperative that the basis of the diet is healthy – it is about health, after all. To prevent an over-eating of unhealthy food, my suggestion if you want to follow a reverse diet is to consume massive amounts of vegetables, really reducing your chances of having either the ability or will to binge.

Reverse Dieting Bad Points

It’s not often I suggest a reverse diet to clients – in fact in my nearly 10 years as a personal trainer, I have suggested it only with competitive sportsmen and women. My main reason for not suggesting it is simple – I’d have to trust the dieter and in my experience, that isn’t a successful approach.

What we think we eat and what we actually eat are two very different things.

Add in to the mix a person who already has a skewed relationship with food and it’s a recipe for problems, as essentially you are giving a green light to crap food consumption, as long as they have eating healthy food beforehand. I’d have to really trust the client to eat the good food first, before I would suggest reverse dieting.

I don’t believe reverse dieting is ideal for getting super lean either, as when you get to the point where you are dieting to lose the last few percent of body fat, every calorie counts meaning there is far less room in the diet for treats.

reverse dieting, Bodybuilding, Personal Training, Bodybuilder, Lean, Fitness, Results

When Reverse Dieting Can Work

I like reverse dieting when I know the client has huge energy demands, for example athletes or those with an intense training regimen. That way, I can use their energy expenditure as an insurance policy against the junk food.

The principles still apply though, and those who are training hard need the healthy food more than anyone due to the damage they are causing to their body.

Reverse dieting is effective when you have reached your desired weight/body fat level. It’s an approach that allows flexibility yet keeps the focus of the diet on healthy proteins, fats and carbohydrates.

I supposed the reverse dieting approach is the Pareto principle of dieting. It’s the 80/20 rule – keep 80% of the diet clean and allow a little flexibility with the remaining 20%.

What Would a Reverse Dieting Day Look Like?

Smoothie, reverse dietingIn this example there are 5 meals and 4 of them are healthy – as explained, the 80/20 rule applied to healthy eating.

Is Reverse Dieting For You?

Before you embark on a reverse dieting approach, ask yourself your reasoning for doing so…

Is it to lose weight or for health?

If its to lose weight, be really honest with yourself – are you able to make sure you emphasise the healthy elements of your diet? In order to make this approach work, you will have to eat a huge amount of good to offset the bad.

Where are you on your weight loss journey? If you are starting out, it may be a comfortable way to ease into the transition of a new diet. If you are tapering down towards low digit body fat, I’d suggest a different approach. There is too much temptation on a reverse diet.

If you are reverse dieting for health, it’s a great approach as long as you emphasise the healthy parts of the diet and keep up a steady exercise regime to offset the potential weight gain of the higher calorie moments.

Are you a reverse dieter? What are your opinions on the approach?

Published by

HoylesFitness

Owner of www.hoylesfitness.com. Personal Trainer, Father and fitness copy writer. Working hard making the world fitter and healthier!

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