Of course, going on a diet will not be the easiest and most fun thing you can do in your life. The restrictions, the presence of anxiety and the possible absence of results, can cause you to throw in the towel. Of course, all diets are not the same, but there are times when you get stuck and don’t know why and, above all, how to get out of it. Therefore, the reverse diet can be your solution.
The nutritionist
Albert White explains that the reverse diet consists of a slight increase in calories that you can take, in order to accelerate the metabolism following periods of weight loss and subsequent stagnation. “In this way, it will be possible to continue with the weight loss later or establish its maintenance.”
“This diet is aimed at people who have lost a lot of weight, have plateaued in this loss and are still in values of overweight and obesity”, indicates Blanco. It can also be useful for those who have already achieved their goal of losing weight, because this way they might prevent a possible rebound effect, restoring the number of calories that the body needs.
And it is that in those moments of frustration, not seeing an improvement in weight, we can increase the amount of calories (and food). So the patient will feel more comfortable than restricting more and more the amount of food, with the hunger that this can entail.
On the other hand, it might be interesting to athletes who have made a muscular definitionbecause it is a period in which caloric intake is usually quite limited compared to the caloric expenditure they have.
In any case, there is still no scientific evidence to prove the effectiveness of this diet. So the important thing, as with the rest, is to be supervised by a dietician-nutritionist, who will be the one who controls the calories.
Possible contraindications
Blanco states that in sedentary people it can generate an increase in weight and body fat. In addition, this type of diet focuses too much on the number of calories, instead of looking at the quality of them. This can generate greater anxiety and stress, especially in people who tend to peck during these episodes.
On the other hand, Guillermo Gómez, dietician-nutritionist and technical director of
Utilityshares that this diet is often confused with returning to past ‘freedom’ or flexibility, where cheat meals or skip the regimen indicated they make you exceed the calories and the quality of the meals is lowered.
This can lead to a poor relationship with food, leading to reward-punishment thinking and increasing the likelihood of an eating disorder.
For those who want to carry it out, Gómez points out that the healthy concept must remain present. “This requires continuing portion control and reducing the flexibility of less healthy foods; increase NEAT, that is, routine activities that cause caloric expenditure in our body; and keep training.
“Thus, patients and athletes who have continued with the process correctly have increased their basal metabolism and their caloric intake without gaining too much fat, at most a kilo or a kilo and a half”, explains the nutritionist. However, others think this means going back to previous flexibility and gaining weight too quickly or over a longer period of time. “That’s why this diet is not for everyone.”
