Reverse Dieting Calculator

Reverse Dieting Calculator

Let’s be honest – dieting to lose weight sucks. Weeks or even months of restricted eating can sour your mood, mess with your sleep, disrupt your metabolism, rob you of energy, and cause severe hunger and cravings.

The only good thing about most diets is that they eventually end!  

However, the hard work is usually worth it, and reaching your target weight or body fat percentage is incredibly satisfying. You’ll look damn good at the end, too.

Sadly, a large percentage of dieters soon regain the weight they’ve lost. This is often called yo-yo dieting. Your weight goes down, only to shoot back up again, and all your hard work is wasted.

Reverse dieting is nutritional strategy designed to minimize fat regain and ease your transition from dieting to regular eating. But how many calories and what macros should you eat when reverse dieting?

Use our calculator to find the answer!

What is the Reverse Dieting Calculator? 

Reverse dieting is the process of gradually increasing your calorie intake after a fat-loss diet. The idea is to transition smoothly from strict dieting back to a more relaxed style of eating while avoiding fat regain.

Typically, reverse dieting involves increasing your calorie intake by 50-100 calories per week, for example:

• Calorie intake during diet: 1,500
• Week 1 – 1600
• Week 2 – 1700
• Week 3 – 1800
• Week 4 – 1900, etc.

However, some reverse dieting experts suggest increasing your caloric intake by 10% per week. So, using the percentage method, your reverse diet would look like this:

• Calorie intake during diet: 1,500
• Week 1 – 1650
• Week 2 – 1815
• Week 3 – 1996
• Week 4 – 2196, etc.

Needless to say, all this number crunching can be laborious, and what do you do about your macros?

Our reverse dieting calculator does all the math for you, so you can bring your diet to a close, ease back into a more sustainable eating plan, and avoid regaining the weight you’ve just worked so hard to lose.

How to Use the Reverse Dieting Calculator

Our reverse dieting calculator is very straightforward to use. Follow these step-by-step instructions to determine how many calories and the macros you need for your reverse diet.

1. Enter your current intake of protein, carbohydrates, and fats in grams.
2. Select your tolerance for fat gain, choosing between low, moderate, or high.
3. Hit “calculate.”
4. Read off your results

Interpreting your Results and Next Steps

After hitting “calculate,” you’ll get the following results:

Your current calorie intake, i.e., the number of calories you’re consuming per day on your diet.

Increased calories, which is the number of calories you’ll be eating during the first phase of your reverse diet.

Your weekly macro increase, which is the macro breakdown for your reverse diet.

Armed with this information, you can plan the start of your reverse diet. Hit these values for a week and then use the calculator again to determine your nutritional intake for the next week.

Repeat this sequence until you reach your target body weight, body fat percentage, or calorie intake. On reaching this point, your reverse diet is officially over, and your weight and caloric intake should remain relatively stable after that.

Reverse Dieting Calculator FAQ

Do you have a question about reverse dieting? No sweat – we’ve got the answers!

1. What does fat gain tolerance mean, and how will it affect my results?

Some people gain fat more easily than others. This is a genetic predisposition. The fat gain tolerance function allows you to fine-tune your macros to further reduce the risk of fat gain.

The calculator does this by manipulating your calorie, carb, and fat intake.

Select low if you want to increase your calorie and food intake by the smallest amount, medium if you can tolerate more calories, and high if you want to eat more food. However, most people should select low to minimize the risk of fat regain.

Medium and high can also be helpful if you are extremely hungry after your diet, and eating according to the low setting does not satiate you.

2. Reverse dieting seems like a lot of work; can’t I just go back to eating normally?

Low-calorie diets affect your resting metabolism, causing it to decrease. Because of this, if you go back to eating normally too soon, you’ll create a large calorie surplus, making fat regain inevitable. You may even gain back more fat than you lost and end up dieting yourself fatter instead of leaner.

Reverse dieting IS quite labor intensive and means extending your diet by several weeks. But, it helps to avoid overloading your body with so many calories that you gain back the fat you lost.

Unless you like yo-yo dieting, which is very unlikely, reverse dieting will help you keep the weight off that you spent the last few months working so hard to lose.

3. What evidence is there to support reverse dieting?

Reverse dieting comes from bodybuilding, and, like a lot of the things that bodybuilders do, it’s mainly based on anecdotal evidence and “bro-science.” However, thousands of bodybuilders and physique competitors have used reverse dieting, so it seems to be an excellent way to end a diet without regaining fat.

Just because there isn’t much research to support reverse dieting doesn’t mean you should write it off as a fad or fallacy. It’s worked for enough people that it’s worth trying, especially if you’ve previously experienced yo-yo dieting and want to avoid it at the end of your next diet.

4. How should I adjust my workouts during a reverse diet?

It’s common for dieters to do more training, especially cardio, during a diet to maximize fat loss. This is often exhausting and unsustainable. So, in addition to gradually increasing your calorie intake through reverse dieting, you should also ease back on the volume of your workouts until you reach a sustainable level of exercise.

However, avoid cutting back too much or stopping exercise entirely, as doing so could lead to fat regain. Also, make sure you continue lifting weights to preserve your muscle mass.

5. Where can I read more about reverse dieting?

Reverse dieting is quite a big topic, and you must understand all the ins and outs before attempting reverse dieting for yourself. The good news is that you’ll find all the information you need to be successful in this guide to reverse dieting. Make sure you check it out and use it in conjunction with our reverse dieting calculator.

Wrapping Up

Reverse dieting means gradually eating more and exercising less at the end of a weight-loss diet. The aim of reverse dieting is to minimize or even prevent fat regain, which is a common problem that many dieters experience. Some people even gain back more weight than they lost, dieting themselves fatter and not leaner.

While reverse dieting does require self-control and patience, gradually increasing your caloric intake over several weeks could make your next diet your last.

Use our calculator to determine how many calories and grams of protein, carbs, and fat you should eat during your reverse diet. Use it weekly to adjust your food intake until you reach your target weight, ideal body composition, or calorie intake goal.

Yo-yo dieting? Just say no!

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