A few episodes back in episode 28, I talked about the 4 reasons your calorie deficit feels miserable. In that episode, I mentioned that your deficit calories are not forever calories, and that after your deficit ends, you start increasing your calories again to live at maintenance for a while before entering another deficit.

That is where reverse dieting comes into play. The fear of eating more after a cut is real. If the thought of adding calories back in feels like undoing everything you worked for, this one is for you. 

Today, we are talking all about reverse dieting: what it is, whether you need to reverse, and the steps on how to approach it.

Reverse dieting is the process of increasing your calories from a calorie deficit back up to maintenance calories. A diet is decreasing calories to lose weight, so people often assume reverse dieting means increasing calories and gaining that weight back. That is not the case, or at least not the weight gain you are probably thinking of.

There are two scenarios where reverse dieting is implemented. Scenario 1 is after a fat loss or calorie deficit phase has ended and you need to work back up to maintenance for a few months before entering another fat loss phase.

Scenario 2 is when you have been under-eating for an extended period of time to the point where your metabolism has potentially down-regulated, meaning your body has adjusted to the lower calories you have been feeding it. In this case, the calories you have been eating are so low that the only direction to go is up.

Hearing that you may need to reverse diet when you still have fat to lose can feel defeating. The intention behind a reverse diet has your long-term health in mind. If you attempt to enter a fat loss phase without being in a healthy metabolic state, meaning your metabolism has slowed due to chronic under-eating, you will be left wondering why results are not happening. The best route may be to increase your calories back to maintenance and stay there for a few months, or longer depending on your dieting history, before pursuing fat loss again.

This is not time wasted. Maintenance can be incredibly beneficial if you give it a chance. You get to eat enough to fuel your workouts, regulate your hormones, and experience more dietary flexibility than you probably realize.

At this point, in June of 2026, I have coached 475 women through fat loss phases, and I can remember 1 person who truly needed to reverse diet and live at maintenance for an extended period of time before entering a calorie deficit. One person out of 475 women who was truly under-eating to the point where we could not safely take her calories any lower without compromising basic health needs.

She needed to slowly increase her calories over time to arrive at a place where she was eating more, her body was thriving, her hormones were regulated, and all of her biofeedback, meaning sleep, digestion, energy, mood, and hunger, were in a healthy place.

Most women think they have a slow metabolism, when in reality they are eating more calories than they realize and burning fewer calories than they realize. Overall, they are either eating around maintenance, eating in a surplus, or eating in such a small deficit that results feel nonexistent. These women just need to track every bite, lick, and taste of food in a calorie deficit for several months. That would show them they do not have a slow metabolism. It was their lack of consistent tracking that created that perception.

So yes, a reverse diet is necessary when there is a history of significant under-eating, but those cases are far less common than most people think.

Who Needs a Reverse Diet?

Ask yourself these questions:

+ Are you exiting a fat loss phase? 

+ Has your progress stalled for an extended period of time? 

+ Is your current calorie deficit so low, or have you been in a deficit so long that your biofeedback markers are suffering?  That includes sleep, energy, mood, hunger, and digestion.

If the answer to any of these is yes, you may need to reverse diet up to maintenance and stay there for a few months.

You may also just need a diet break, which is not the same as reverse dieting. A diet break is anywhere from a weekend to a few weeks off from being in a deficit, eating at maintenance calories to give your body a short reset. If you are looking to end the deficit for good and return to maintenance, that is where the reverse diet comes in.

The Harsh Truth

Reverse dieting is rarely fun because we want results and we want them quickly. That is not always how fat loss works. If you have a significant amount of weight to lose, it is rarely going to happen in one dieting phase. Fat loss is a slow chipping away over time.

Here is what that can look like in practice: You start at 175 lbs and lose 15 lbs during your first cut. You now weigh 160 lbs. You reverse diet up to maintenance and the scale goes up 3 lbs, putting you at 163 lbs. Those 3 lbs are a combination of additional food volume being digested and water retention from more carbs. You track just as diligently at maintenance as you did during your cut, so you do not gain beyond that. You enter your next deficit and lose 10 more lbs, bringing you to 153 lbs. You reverse back to maintenance, gain 2 lbs, and sit at 155 lbs. You head into your third cut and lose another 10 lbs. You now weigh 145 lbs.

Your starting weight was 175 lbs. In 18 months and three calorie deficit phases, you now weigh 145 lbs. That is the slow chipping away I am talking about.

Metabolism health generally equals continued results. The way you see those continued results is by not forcing the calorie deficit to last forever and being willing to cycle through deficit, reverse dieting, maintenance, and another cut. This cycle is called nutritional periodization, and it deserves its own episode entirely.

Why It Is Worth It

Reverse dieting works you back up to maintenance calories. It supports continued fat loss over time. It reduces rapid weight loss, which is neither healthy nor sustainable. It allows for greater food flexibility and encourages a thriving metabolism and healthy hormones.

Additional benefits include improved gym performance, better cognitive function, improved sleep if that suffered during your cut, and more flexibility with your overall diet.

Step 1: Find Your Starting Point

If you were in a calorie deficit and were not chronically under-eating beforehand, whatever your calories are when you end your deficit is your starting point for the reverse.

If you believe you have been chronically under-eating, track what you are currently eating for one to two weeks. Include every bite, lick, and taste of food, including weekends. That is your true calorie baseline. Not just your Monday through Friday calories. That is where you begin increasing from.

Step 2: Increase Your Calories

You have two options.

Option 1 is to jump straight up to maintenance calories right away. This works if your current intake is not too far below maintenance and you have not lost more than around 10 lbs during your cut. Some women prefer this approach, but because the scale can heavily influence thoughts and mood, I generally prefer stair-stepping calories back up so that a sudden scale spike does not feel like erased progress.

If you do not eat above your true maintenance calories, any scale increase is going to come from additional food volume in your stomach being digested and water retention from more carbs. A small scale increase when returning to maintenance is expected.

Option 2 is to increase calories by 100 to 200 above your current baseline. If your calories are significantly below maintenance, if you have lost a substantial amount of weight, or if you have been in a deficit for a long time, this is the option I suggest.

In both scenarios, keep your protein goal the same and let the calorie increase come from carbs and fats. You can adjust your carb and fat numbers until you reach your new calorie goal while keeping protein constant.

If you want to get specific about how to divide those additional calories, allocate 70% to carbs and 30% to fats.

Here is the math: 1 gram of carbs equals 4 calories. 1 gram of fat equals 9 calories.

If you are increasing by 200 calories:
70% to carbs = 140 calories = 35 grams of carbs
30% to fat = 60 calories = approximately 7 grams of fat

Your goal is to get to maintenance while avoiding significant weight or fat gain.

Step 3: Monitor Your Numbers and Biofeedback

Stay at that 100 to 200 calorie increase for a minimum of one week, possibly two, to give your body time to adjust.

Weigh yourself daily first thing in the morning to watch for major swings. A weight increase of 1 to 4 lbs during a reverse diet is completely normal. If weight increases more than 4 lbs and does not level out within two weeks, adjustments may be needed.

That weight gain could mean your body needed to put on weight after a period of under-eating, or it could mean you overshot maintenance. Keep in mind that increasing carbs leads to temporary water retention. For every 1 gram of additional carbs, your body retains 3 to 4 grams of water. Eating more food also adds the physical weight of that food being digested. Maintenance is a theoretical number influenced by many factors, so your actual maintenance may end up slightly higher or lower than what was originally calculated.

If weight gain reaches 5 or more lbs during a reverse diet, ask yourself: 

• Have I been under-eating for an extended period of time? 
• Has my activity level decreased, meaning I am burning fewer calories throughout the day? 
• Am I truly tracking every single bite, lick, and taste of food so all calories are accounted for?

Beyond the scale, here is what to track:

Body measurements taken bi-weekly. Use a fabric measuring tape and measure the smallest part of your waist, the widest part of your hips, your bust, and around your biceps. This is optional for my 1:1 clients since many rely on scale weight and progress photos, but if you want all the data, measurements give you a fuller picture.

Scale weight monitored daily, or at minimum three times per week for a reliable average. The scale cannot be your only progress marker. You can lose or gain inches without the scale moving much at all, which can indicate fat loss or muscle gain happening simultaneously.

Biofeedback monitored weekly: sleep, stress, hunger, and workouts. Has each one improved with the increase in calories?

Non-scale victories recorded weekly. What positive thing did you experience outside of the data you are tracking? Maybe you hit a new lift at the gym or ran a faster mile. Those things matter and should be noted.

Step 4: Find Maintenance

If you jump straight to maintenance, make your first jump to 90% of your maintenance calories. If your calculated maintenance is 2,000 calories, jump to 1,800 first. Stay there for one to two weeks and monitor your weight. If weight holds steady, increase by another 100 calories per week while continuing to monitor.

If you are stair-stepping your way up, follow the same approach at a slower pace. Along the way, your body will land at or close to maintenance and your weight will stabilize.

The goal of the reverse diet is to get up to maintenance calories while maintaining the progress you made.

Tough Love

We are trying to avoid long-term calorie restriction and plateaus. Everyone wants results quickly, but that is not how this works, especially when there is a substantial amount of weight to lose. It will most likely take several deficit and maintenance phases to reach your goal weight. A slow chipping away over time.

The lowest scale weight you see during your deficit is most likely not going to be your maintenance weight. In a calorie deficit, lower carb intake and reduced glycogen stores also reduce water weight, so your lowest scale weight may be temporarily lower than where you will typically sit during maintenance when glycogen and hydration are more fully replenished.

Glycogen is your body’s stored carbohydrate energy. It is stored in your muscles and liver. When calories are low, glycogen stores are also low. When you raise calories and increase carb intake, more energy gets stored as glycogen, and that weighs something.

Bringing this all the way back to episode 28 where this started: deficit calories are not forever calories. Reverse dieting is not failing. It is the bridge between where you are now and your next round of results, if you choose to go another round.

If this resonated with you and you need help navigating your own reverse diet, that is exactly what I do inside my 1:1 coaching. HERE is the link to my 1:1 nutrition coaching.  

Until next time, keep adding another penny in the jar.