 All right our first question is from Bella in New York. Hi Bella how can we help you? Hi thanks so much for having me um so I recently just started a reverse diet and I'm wanting to know if I'm sort of on the right track and what should my expectations be or what should I anticipate throughout the process I just feel a little bit lost. Okay that's a great question um a lot of people ask about reverse dieting because obviously we've talked about on the show helps speed up the metabolism can help if you've come off of a long period of cutting your calories sometimes it can help with hormone balancing and all that good stuff but I do need to ask you a few more questions before I can help you out. Number one what are you doing for your workouts? So I have the RGB bundle so I did maps anabolic and now I'm on phase two of maps performance and I've done weightlifting for a bit before I started the programs. Excellent okay so you're obviously following good programs are you seeing any strength gains and performance gains? Yeah actually I'm my strength has gone up in pretty much everything except uh squats but I think that's just because I've been doing a lot more mobility so um just bigger range of motion but other than that one lift everything else has gone up. Now did you did you see that Bella when you were sorry did you did you actually see the strength gains going up while you were in a cut or since you've been reverse dieting? Um since I've been reverse dieting well I've seen some small strength gains when I was in a cut but it was like months. Okay and what now what is your what is your purpose for going on a reverse diet what what's the goal for you? So I was gaining body fat or just weight on a pretty low calorie diet I was consistently eating about 1400 calories for a couple years so I just kind of want to get out of that funk and you know I've consistently worked out so I'd kind of like to see the results come to fruition. Okay so you felt like your metabolism just needed a kick into gear and so that's your that's your goal for reverse dieting? Yeah yeah okay and now how are you performing it how many calories are you increasing on a on a weekly or monthly basis? So I started increasing when I did when I started a new phase was sort of how I timed it a little bit um and so right now I'm at around 1800 calories and I've just been increasing um by like 100 150 um each phase. Oh cool so a phase typically for people who don't know last anywhere between three to four weeks so about every three to four weeks you're going up about 100 to 150 calories and now you're up to 1800 calories you've gotten stronger have you gained any weight on the scale? I don't I don't exactly know because I don't have a scale but I do feel like my clothes are a little bit tighter um which I guess has sort of made me a little nervous um because that's not my end goal but I'm trying to you know trust the processor. Yeah so what could help with that would be a body fat test um because that could tell you if you're gaining muscle uh losing body fat or gaining both I think you're on the right track uh in terms of increasing the calories you can go very slow with this you know so if you feel like increasing your calories is starting to put more body fat on your body then you could always pause you could even do a slight cut and then go back to the reverse but this can be a very slow process you know I've worked with people and where we've reversed them on and off and what I mean by on and off is we'll increase calories uh oh they're getting a little too much body fat we'll bring it down a little bit and then start back up in a few weeks and it can take you know up to a year or more just to get to that point where you feel like things are roaring and things feel good especially you know here's the thing that is a clue to that you were at 1400 calories for a long time so it might just take you a little while to get to get them to go up in the right way okay that's helpful and so how do you know when to stop the reverse or what cues or are there cues how long have you been on the reverse diet just just for for information um about late september okay I'd like to know can can I get an idea of about where you are I know it's uh totally rude to ask wait but I would like to know about what you weigh even though you don't weigh consistently do you have an idea of around you your weight yeah I weigh about 135 but I'm only five feet tall okay so I mean 1800 calories is not bad I mean 1400 is a little low but 1800 is not bad I know typically we recommend that people don't become slaves this scale and and they don't weigh themselves twice a day every day but I do think when you're reverse dieting I do think there's some value to this and it's not like oh my god I'm getting fat or I'm gaining a bunch of weight but just to keep an eye on it because when I'm reverse dieting my goal is to not see the scale really shoot up too much now if it goes up a pound or two I'm not worried about that at all I also don't want to see my my scale go down if you're reverse dieting and you're adding calories and I'm actually losing weight you know that I'm going to keep bumping my calories so the scale does have some value when you're trying to do something like this or body fat testing it's just easier to have a scale than it is a body fat test I mean if you have access to check your body fat every couple weeks then that would have value but the goal really is here is that okay we would like to increase our calories whether that's 50 to 100 a day or as high as two to 200 a day over a period of time without seeing a huge you know swing in the scale up or down and so that's kind of what I'm looking for when I'm reverse dieting is can I continue to add calories into my diet and not see my scale do this this huge fluctuation and by huge fluctuation I mean consistently putting on you know two pounds or more every single week if you go one to three pounds and you kind of go up and down that's a good place to be that means you're kind of hovering around probably what maintenance is for you and you're starting to speed the metabolism up you can keep that maintenance and also see strength increase that you really do well yeah so some signs to look for strength going up energy improving libido improving better sleep skin hair all the signs that your health is doing well are great signs of a reverse diet so you should start even your appetite going up if a reverse diet's done properly the person's building strength and muscle sometimes they'll actually start to get hungrier and that's actually a great sign that means things are moving in the right direction things that tell you that maybe you're going up too fast like adam said a lot of weight gain not feeling good digestive issues you know sleep starts to get worse essentially your health starts to kind of go down that may be that you're because your calories have gone up too fast also keep in mind if we are if we're increasing calories right that means probably carbs are going up sodium is probably going up maybe even fluid intake is going up so it's very normal to see see your body put on a little bit of size so if you notice your clothes are fitting a little bit tighter that's also normal during this process now excessively if you're going up you know pant sizes every few weeks we're definitely increasing too fast but it's very normal too for you to be holding a little bit of extra water for you to see a little bit more weight on you but the key really that i'm looking for when i'm looking at my own body or i'm assessing a client is if i'm putting on muscle it should look good like so when you look at yourself even though you might have gone up a little bit weight or clothes fitting tighter you feel good about how you look in comparison to maybe what you look like two months ago you're probably heading on the right track especially if you're seeing markers like justin alluded to like strength going up in the gym if strength is going up you feel good about the way you're looking as far as muscle being built on your body you're probably heading in the right track okay great this was so helpful thank you guys so much no problem thanks for calling yeah have a nice day yeah that reverse diet is such a a mind screw for a lot of people right because you're going to see the scale go up a little bit i mean you could be building muscle water could be going up and usually the people that have to do a reverse diet are the ones that are usually chronically trying to lose weight so now you're telling them to eat more food and so it's it's challenging it could be very very challenging but the rewards are and tremendous i mean i've gotten people's metabolisms to change so much and then when they go to try and get lean it's so much easier because now they're working with so many more calories that their body's burning just on its own yeah and then just the length of time in the you know taking a real gradual approach to it too is another psychological hurdle a lot of clients have like to to completely change their focus from trying to lose weight now to just gradually you know get their metabolism to go back up is pretty pretty challenging well this is also too where i see a lot of value in having a coach or another pair of eyes to be uh instead of yourself right because the mind plays games it's hard to be objective it is very hard to be objective when when you are somebody who's tried to lean out or lose body fat or lose weight and now you're doing a reverse diet and you see scale going up you see clothes getting tighter i mean for me like when i was coaching a client i wanted to see i wanted to see my clients every week check in and then i'd make them you know pose in the same outfit at the same time of the day and as i'm adding calories i'm the one who's looking at their body from the week over week and saying hey we're doing great i don't care the scale went up three pounds this week i'm looking at you and i can tell that we're focused on performance metrics yeah look at what you're doing yeah i can see your you we're our bench presses up our squat is up i can see your shoulders and your legs are building muscle so i i think i like right where we're at you know or you know the other side i see that oh we look kind of flat she could definitely use some more calories oh we actually stayed the same weight or lost a little bit of weight let's bump it up a little bit so this really helps to have another person to do this with you especially a professional who can kind of look at them and kind of help them through this process because i can see how it's tough when you are reverse dieting for the first time especially when you're somebody who's been in a cut trying to lose the the mental game