"Am I not losing weight because of my hormones?"

As coaches, we get asked this question A LOT.

Our clients are barraged with marketing based around one key buzzword... hormones.

"This supplement balances your hormones, and helps you shed fat overnight!"

"This diet teaches you to balance your hormones, and FINALLY see fat loss results."

So how valid is all of this?

Are your hormones really what's preventing you from losing fat?

What Is "Hormonal Imbalance"?

First, we need to understand "hormones" is very much a blanket statement (and again, buzzword).

So when saying something "impacts your hormones", we need to get more specific.

What hormones specifically are being impacted? And how does this affect homeostasis (balance) within your body?

See, your body's system for maintaining balance - or homeostasis - is called the endocrine system.

Your endocrine system is a series of glands. These glands produce and release hormones your body uses for many different functions, like...

• Growth
• Metabolism
• Appetite
• Mood
  
• Reproduction
• Sexual development
• Growth

...and much more.

Your hormones are essentially "messengers" - they're sent to different tissues in the body (via the bloodstream), and send signals to those tissues to tell them what to do. (1)

So when we don't have the right amount of a hormone (or multiple hormones) being produced to signal your body "how to act"... obviously some issues can arise.

We have a combination of anabolic and catabolic hormones that are MEANT to exist in a balance.

Now, while several of your hormones could be out of whack, the solution to balancing your hormones might not be quite what you think.

Today, we're taking you through a crash course of the most talked about hormones, their functions, and how to balance and improve the levels of each.

Cortisol

Cortisol - commonly known as "the stress hormone".

Most of us are pretty familiar with this guy.

Our body releases cortisol as a response to stress. Cortisol is one of your body's signals to begin mobilizing stored energy.

So in simplest terms, cortisol is a hormone that releasing energy by breaking things down (a.k.a. a catabolic hormone) - be that stored carbs, fat, muscle tissue, etc.

Contrary to popular belief, you NEED some cortisol. Cortisol helps you wake up in the morning. It helps you push harder in the gym. It helps you beat that high-pressure deadline at work.

Cortisol is often released as a response to...

• Intense workouts
• Stress in daily life
• Too little sleep
• Stimulants
• Under-eating
  

Cortisol levels also partially dictated by your circadian rhythm - cortisol has an inverse relationship with melatonin (a hormone that helps you sleep). For healthy individuals, cortisol should be high in the morning, and decrease throughout the day.

Really, the devil is in the dose here.

Acute Vs. Chronic Stress

Some stress is good. Our body adapts to stressors, and grows.

For example, without an intense training session (where much cortisol is likely produced), your body will never be sent a strong enough adaption signal to spark lean muscle growth.

A training session is a good example of an acute stress. It happens over a relatively short time-frame, and leads to positive adaptation.

Problems arise when that stress becomes chronic. Chronically elevated levels of cortisol lead to your body prioritizing "fight or flight" over "rest & digest".

In stressful "fight or flight" situations, your body shuts down or slows many processes you don’t need to survive in the short-term (digestion, hormone production, etc.) The elevated cortisol levels mean your body is constantly breaking things down to create more energy. This could be stored carbs, fats, muscle tissue, etc.

Whereas in “rest and digest” mode, your body is producing hormones, digesting food, absorbing nutrients, building muscle, etc.

From the above, it's clear why too much cortisol is a problem when you're trying to build your leanest, strongest body.

Optimizing Cortisol Levels

→ Follow a smart training program - Remember, training is a stressor. Anecdotally, this is most commonly an issue for clients who love (but overdo) H.I.I.T. Training, CrossFit, and even classes like OrangeTheory.

For online clients I've helped with this in the past, the solution is typically reducing high-intensity work like H.I.I.T. or CrossFit to 2-3 sessions per week, and introducing more "functional bodybuilding" and low-intensity steady state cardio (L.I.S.S.) 2-3x/week. A mixture of high and low intensity modalities like this is much more effective to building the lean, strong body you want.

→ Periodize your nutrition - Dieting is a stressor, so too much time in a calorie deficit can be a problem. This is a large part of why my online clients always follow a smart, periodized plan. (Be sure to check out the blog on Periodizing Nutrition HERE.)

→ Don't be scared of carbs - When you take in food - but especially carbs - your body releases insulin. Insulin and cortisol have an inverse relationship - insulin tells your body it doesn't need to break down energy, because you're already ingesting said energy.

This is also part of the peri-workout (around you workout) nutrition strategy I implement with more advanced online clients - strategically timing a quick-digesting carb like highly branched cyclic dextrin during your training to prevent excess cortisol production and muscle breakdown.

→ Sleep - Too much cortisol can create a vicious cycle here. Too much cortisol disrupts sleep, and under-sleeping leads to more cortisol production.

Some helpful strategies include: establishing consistent sleep/wake times, avoiding caffeine in the afternoon, sleeping 7+ hours/night, wearing bluelight blockers, avoid screens and artificial lights 30-60 minutes before bed, and establishing a relaxing nighttime routine.

→ Manage life stressors - One unique thing I have most of my online clients do, is prioritize "self-care time". Basically, making sure you're taking time weekly to breathe, and do the things that relax you and make you happy (we literally have this in your accountability tracker so I can make SURE you do it). While life stress isn't avoidable all together, it's important to take steps to manage it to the best of your ability.

→ Caffeine - I saved this one for last, because it bums me to write this... but moderating your caffeine intake is necessary. Caffeine causes a stress response. While most don't need to avoid it all together, keep it to a reasonable dose, and cut it off 8-10 hours before bed.

Testosterone

Testosterone is a steroid hormone present in both males & females.

In men, testosterone is more prevalent. It's production is part of a negative feedback loop - the pituatary glad secrets luteinizing hormone (LH), which in turn triggers testosterone production. In a healthy male, your body should detect low testosterone, and release LH to create more.

Testosterone is produced (in smaller amounts) by women in the ovaries.

Regardless of gender, proper levels of testosterone are important. It helps regulate to a large degree fat distribution, muscle gain, libido, reproductive health, energy, clarity, overall feelings of well-being, and more.

Optimizing Testosterone Levels

→ Manage stress - Testosterone has an inverse relationship to cortisol. Both hormones share several base materials, so when lots of cortisol is being produced, it essentially steals base materials from testosterone production. So really, you can take all of the strategies from "Optimizing Cortisol Levels" above, and apply them here as well.

→ Follow a smart training program - In the appropriate dose, training will increase testosterone levels. That said, we have to be careful of creating too much testosterone reducing cortisol here. Follow a periodized training program like my clients do - one that is fit to your experience, goals, and lifestyle. Take deloads, and manage volume properly. (If you need more help setting up your training program, read THIS BLOG.)

→ Nutrition - Too much time in a calorie deficit, or very low of body fat will reduce testosterone levels, so a periodized approach to your nutrition is important. Adequate healthy fat intake (~.3g+/lb body weight), and carbohydrates (for the role they play in decreasing cortisol) are also helpful here.

→ Sleep - Many studies have been done on the relationship between sleep and testosterone levels. (2)(3) The concensus - most need to sleep AT LEAST 7 hours per night to maintain optimal testosterone levels.

Estrogen

Estrogens are a group of sex hormones that generally promote the development and maintenance of female characteristics in the human body.

The three most common members of the estrogen family are: Estrone (E1), Estradiol (E2), and Estriol (E3).

Estrogen is present in both females and males. It's generally more predominant in women, where it is produced primarily in the ovaries. For men, estrogen is primarily created by conversion from testosterone.

Both for both sexes, a balance of estrogen (neither too much nor too little) is important to staying healthy. As you'll find below, an imbalance in estrogen can have negative consequences for either gender.

Low levels of estrogen can lead to:

• Loss of muscle mass
• Reduced sex drive
• Vaginal dryness
  
• An increase in UTI's
  
• Missing or irregular periods
• Moodiness
• Hot flashes
• Breast tenderness
• Depression
• Trouble concentrating
• Fatigue

High levels of estrogen can lead to:

• Bloating
  
• Breast tenderness
  
• Decreased sex drive
  
• Worsened PMS symptoms
  
• Mood swings
• Headaches
• Weight gain
  
• Fatigue
  
• Reduced sperm
  
• Gynecomastia
• Erectile dysfunction
• Slowed growth

Optimizing Estrogen Levels

→ Follow a smart training program - Like everything else, the proper dose is KEY here. Exercise can help in reducing estrogen if you're struggling with excessively high levels. But also realize that TOO much exercise keeps your body in a fight or flight state, where hormone production is NOT a priority. This can lead to your body under-producing estrogen, and often loss of menstrual cycle.

→ Managing life stressors - Again, to avoid excessive time in a fight or flight state, I'd implement the strategies from "Optimizing Cortisol Levels" here.

→ Periodize your nutrition - Higher body fat levels can lead to an excess amount of estrogen. On the flip-side, under-eating can result in a shortage of fats essential to producing estrogen (again, it's a good idea to eat AT LEAST .3g fat/lb body weight). The stress of chronic dieting and/or low levels of body fat takes your body's focus OFF it's reproductive health - this can also lead to too little estrogen. So it's smart to periodize your nutrition like my online clients do, with phases designated to eating in a calorie deficit, at calorie maintenance, and in a calorie surplus.

Insulin

Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas, and released to coincide with rises in blood sugar.

Think of insulin as a "shuttling agent" for our blood glucose/blood sugar - it allows other cells throughout your body to transform glucose into energy. Without insulin, cells have no energy source.

Basically, insulin should help you regulate blood sugar levels, convert glucose to usable energy, and store glucose as muscle glycogen and/or body fat.

Insulin levels should really only be high after eating, as the spike in insulin is needed to manage your blood sugar.

The term insulin sensitivity describes how sensitive your body's cells are in response to insulin.

• High insulin sensitivity - The cells of the body to use blood glucose more effectively, reducing blood sugar. Higher insulin sensitivity ALSO means that your body is better able to shuttle nutrients to muscle when needed, and in turn, grow lean muscle.
  
• Low insulin sensitivity or insulin resistance - Your cells don't absorb as much glucose, which can lead to excessively high blood sugar levels, and eventually type 2 diabetes. 

Optimizing Insulin Sensitivity

→ Follow a smart training program - Resistance training is one of the most effective things you can do to manage insulin, as it increases insulin sensitivity, and causes nutrients to be shuttled to your muscles.

→ Periodize your nutrition - Muscle insulin sensitivity is reduced faster than fat insulin sensitivity when you gain weight. So the more fat tissue you have, the more nutrients will be shuttled to fat cells instead of muscle. Thus having too much body fat leads to poor insulin sensitivity.

Getting leaner increases muscle insulin sensitivity, and results in more of the nutrients you consume being partitioned to muscle.

But when we get too lean,  your body once again prioritizes fat gain to try to return to healthy levels. (As has been the theme throughout this blog, your body WANTS to maintain homeostasis.)

→ Nutrient timing - This isn't the MOST important thing. But when it comes to improving you insulin sensitivity, nutrient timing does help. It's something I focus on with my more advanced online clients.

Here's some general reccomendations:

• Protein Timing Across The Day - Consuming protein (optimally 25-40g+) increases muscle protein synthesis for ~3-6 hours. So, to maximally stimulate muscle protein synthesis through your day, it's most optimal to spread your protein (and meals as a whole) across 4-6 meals, with 30-40g protein at each.
• Carb Timing Pre-Workout - Some prefer to have a fast-digesting carb source pre-workout as well (e.g. white rice), but the reality is having available glycogen to fuel your training is a product of what your nutrition has been like the last 24 hours. If you're in a building phase, it's smart to eat 25-50g carbs here. If in a fat loss phase, I'd save them for after.
• Carb Timing Post-Workout - Insulin sensitivity is highest post-workout. (Basically, your body will most efficiently use carbs for muscle-building purposes at this time.) So it makes sense to time lots of fast-digesting carbs post workout (e.g. white rice, spotted bananas). THIS is the most important time to consume carbs, as far as timing goes. Carbs also help decrease cortisol levels. So consuming carbs post workout will help you enter a more anabolic environment.
• Carb Timing Intra-Workout - Ok, this is definitely more geared towards those of you trying to optimize lean muscle gain, than those just trying to improve overall health. But an extremely fast digesting carb source like highly branched cyclic dextrin can help slightly improve your training quality and recovery. This will give you a bit of extra fuel almost immediately, help give you better pumps (which helps with muscle growth), and kickstart your muscle growth by already having available carbs during the period of increased insulin sensitivity.
  
• Fat-Timing Pre & Post Workout - Eating large amounts of fat with your pre or post-workout meals will slow digestion a bit, so it’s best to keep these meals lower fat.

All of these recommendations combined leave your day looking something like:

Meal 1: Low carb, moderate protein, high fat.

Meal 2 (Pre-workout): Higher carb, moderate protein, lower fat.

Meal 3 (Post-workout): Higher carb, moderate protein, lower fat.

Meal 4: Low carb, moderate protein, high fat.

Following a strategy like this, you're creating the largest insulin spikes around your training (due to the increase in carbs/blood sugar), and minimizing insulin spikes the rest of the day.

But remember - adherence is the most important factor for getting results. If worrying about meal timing prevents you from sticking to your overall calorie goals and losing fat, you're missing the forest for the trees.

Summary: How To Optimize Your Hormones

You undoubtedly noticed something...

The prescription to optimize each hormone is VERY similar:

→ Follow a smart training program

→ Periodize your nutrition, with a focus on whole foodss

→ Get plenty of sleep (7+ hours)

→ Manage life stressors

Most of us have the cause and effect mixed up when we think of hormones.

We think:

• Cause - Imbalanced hormones
  
• Effect - Suboptimal body fat levels, poor lifestyle
  

The truth:

• Cause - Suboptimal body fat levels, poor lifestyle
  
• Effect - Imbalanced hormones
  

You don't fix your hormones, and then drop fat and improve your lifestyle. To improve your hormones, you have to start living a healthier lifestyle FIRST.

The prescription for optimizing your hormones is EXACTLY what we focus on when you start online coaching, becuase it's ALSO the prescription to build the leanest, strongest, and most confident version of yourself.

If you're ready to get accountable to a smart plan fit to you, CLICK HERE NOW to apply for online coaching.

If you want to FINALLY create the leanest, strongest, and most confident version of yourself in 2020, you MUST have a plan.

Going into the year hoping for good results, without a specific strategy will give you the EXACT same results as every other year.

But not to worry - in this blog, I’m going to show you EXACTLY how I would periodize an entire year of nutrition and training for you in my online coaching program.

My online clients get great results, because we have a plan and structure for MONTHS in advance - reverse engineered from your end goal, to where you are now. (We literally map out the next 6-12 months of working together on the initial strategy call.)

We also implement periodization - strategic nutritional & training phases with different focuses (e.g. reducing training stress, pushing fat loss, practicing nutrition maintenance, etc.). is a KEY part of what we do in online coaching to help you build your best body ever, and is MUCH more effective than a non-periodized approach.

Now, realize that everything I do as your coach is fit specifically to your lifestyle, goals, and needs - that’s how we make your results SUSTAINABLE. So view the following as a template to build your 2020 strategy from, NOT the exact recipe.

Achieving specific results requires a specific strategy. BUT, I guarantee having the structure this blog provides alone will make an amazing difference for your results in 2020.

Client Avatar

This strategy will work for a plethora of different people - really, if you’re someone that’s looking to get leaner, stronger, and more confident, this periodization strategy will likely work for you.

That said, I want to define a client avatar, just to give you an idea of the example client we’re applying this strategy to and WHY these changes are needed.

Sample Client

Jen. In her mid-30’s. She’s had a decent amount of training experience in the past, and actually coaches a few clients of her own on the side. But, since her most recent child was born (a few years ago), she’s had A LOT of trouble with consistency - both with her nutrition and training, and is 10-30lbs heavier than she’d like to be as a result.

Sick of constantly feeling like she’s letting herself down and not practicing what she preaches to her clients, Jen realizes she needs accountability and structure.

Here’s the strategy we create for her:

January 1st - Mid-January

Nutrition - Primer phase
When a new client starts nutrition coaching with the goal of fat loss, their nutritional periodization starts before we focus on fat loss, with The Primer Phase.

Now, the length of the priming phase depends on the clients experience, lifestyle, exact goals, and nutrition and training history - so this is very individualized to the client. In Jen’s case, as she IS experienced with nutrition & training, we don’t need too long here.

That said, here's a broad overview of the what and why behind The Primer Phase:

→ Building a Foundation - The reality is, most new fat loss clients aren't ready for an intense fat loss phase right out of the gate.

More often than not, simply giving someone fat loss macros and saying "GO!" leads to failure.

As a new client, you generally need time to be educated on proper food choices to fuel your body, how to track macros accurately, managing life stressors, training and recovery, and how to identify and change behaviors and habits that have held you back in the past.

This is the low-hanging fruit that we can clean up right away. For relatively little effort, you'll achieve a much better place mentally and physically. You'll also now have all the education and a good grasp of the tools we'll be using in your fat loss phase.

→ Recovering From Your Last Diet - Depending on how long ago you dieted and how lean you got, a primer phase is a must to set you up for another successful fat loss phase.

The recovery of many hormones such as testosterone, cortisol, and thyroid hormone, along with your metabolism and regaining lean mass (a big part of your metabolism) can take anywhere from 2 to 6 months. Jen hasn’t dieted in a long time - another reason her primer phase is only a few weeks.

→ Breaking Free From The "All-or-Nothing Mindset" -  The primer phase is also a time I use to educate clients on the dangers of all-or-nothing thinking.

The reality is, no matter how disciplined you are, at some point in your diet you'll feel like you've "failed" - be it from missing your calorie goal, or seeing progress at a slower rate than you'd like.

With the wrong mindset, this temporary "failure" usually leads to you quitting the diet altogether.

The primer phase helps us avoid this, educating online clients on the idea of consistency over perfection, and teaching you to become focused on the process, knowing that this will lead them to your desired outcomes.

→ Optimizing Metabolic Capacity - To use an analogy I learned from Cliff Wilson, you can think of metabolic capacity like the gas tank of your car.

Anything you can do to create fat loss is "in the metabolic gas tank"... the amount of cardio you can add to your routine, and the amount of calories you can deduct from your intake.

When a new client starts coaching maintaining their weight on relatively high calories and low cardio, they have a very full metabolic gas tank.

However, if someone starts coaching looking for fat loss, but already eating extremely low calories and doing tons of cardio, their tank is empty. We can't create more fat loss without it being very detrimental to the client's hormones, psychology, lean muscle, and health.

If this is the case, you need to spend some time in primer phase, focusing on refilling your metabolic tank by increasing calories and decreasing cardio before starting a fat loss phase. Starting a trip with an empty gas tank means you won't make it very far before things stall.

Training - 3x/week full body training + step goal (7k/day).

Jen has been inconsistent in the gym over the last few years.

She’s experienced, and used to even train 6x/week. BUT, the most important thing here, is that we start here with a training strategy she can adhere to extremely consistently.

Basically, we want to start at her “minimum effective dose” - the amount of training volume we know will get her results, but also she can FOR SURE stick to.

When you start online coaching, but have a very limited amount of time like Jen does, a 3x/week full body training split is often perfect. In her position, we know we can create a large amount of fat loss quickly, simply by getting her nutrition & training dialed in.

This means that we DON’T need to implement cardio yet to get Jen quick changes. But we do need to make sure that she’s consistent with her daily movement outside of the gym. We know that Jen will soon be in a calorie deficit to push fat loss. As a defense mechanism against fat loss, your body actually subconsciously down-regulates movement - as you eat less, you move less… and fat loss slows.

So if you’re not paying attention to daily movement, then fat loss can often stall despite eating fewer calories (thanks to the decrease in movement).

This is exactly why when you start online coaching with fat loss goals, we set a movement goal.

Here’s how I’d generally program a 3x/week full body training split for an online client.

Mid January - Mid March

Nutrition - Fat Loss Phase
Jen crushed it in the primer phase. Now that she has all of the necessary habits in place, is eating plenty of protein and calories, adequate food quality, and consistent training, we know she’s ready to push for her short term goal - fat loss.

Now, the length (and therefore periodization) of your fat loss phases depend on how much fat you're looking to lose - but generally, a good speed rate of weight loss is .5-1% of your body weight per week, which usually equate to .75lbs - 2.5lbs of weight per week.

Losing slower than this often makes it hard to keep client motivation high, as changes week to week are barely noticeable… but going too fast is also a bad idea for most.

→ Slower rates of weight loss are associated with the ability to build/maintain (depending on your training experience) more muscle -  You're able to eat more food, train harder, and do less cardio with. This leads to better training performance, recovery, strength, and muscle. In turn, when you hit your fat loss goals you'll have a body that looks leaner, feels stronger, and a faster metabolism (due to increased muscle).

→ Reduced Stress On Your Body - Fat loss is very stressful for your body - both physiologically and psychologically. Extreme diets can drastically alter many hormones and your overall health.

With the above recommendations, we can conclude that Jenny will need ~5 months total to achieve her fat loss goal.

Now, when you diet, you experience something called metabolic adaptation - which is your metabolism and hormones down-regulating as a response to you eating fewer calories and your body getting smaller/lighter:

• Since your body is smaller, it requires fewer calories to fuel basal functions. Thus, your Basal Metabolic Rate is lower.
• Moving your smaller body requires less energy, so you burn fewer calories via exercise. The Thermic Effect of Exercise is lower.
• You're eating less food, so you burn fewer calories during digestion. The Thermic Effect of Food is lower.
• NEAT decreases. In a subconscious effort to maintain homeostasis and prevent fat loss, you'll move less. As you take in less energy (calories), you’ll naturally expend less energy. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is decreased.
• The hormone leptin decreases. When leptin drops, your body reduces energy expenditure, and levels of Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) rise. Obviously, this makes you hungry, making dieting more difficult. The increased hunger signal is another mechanism your body uses to try to maintain its body fat. Evolutionary, it makes sense for your body to want to hold onto body fat, as periods of food scarcity could be in the near future.
• Cortisol levels rise. Cortisol is the “stress hormone”. While some cortisol is good, the devil is in the dose. Since dieting is a stress, dieting is associated with increased levels of cortisol. Constantly elevated levels of cortiosl lead to MORE ghrelin release, poor training recovery, and poor sleep (which leads to even more hunger, and even fewer calories burned.)

The longer you diet, the more pronounced all these adaptations get.

To add to all of the physiological adaptations, dieting is just very hard psychologically. Honestly, this is the BIGGEST problem that stalls people fat loss - you're just sick of dieting, and not able to adhere consistently enough to make progress.

Now, while nutritional periodization as a whole is a very big part of regulating these adaptations and staying healthy, caloric periodization within your fat loss phase is also important.

There are a few tools I implement within an online client's fat loss phase to get them to the end of the phase in a much better place muscularly, psychologically, and hormonally.

In this case, we’ll have Jen following an 11/3 Macro Split.

Here’s how it works - for 11 consecutive days, you'll be in what should be a solid deficit for you - this is where your fat loss is created. This will be followed by 3 consecutive days at your maintenance intake. Spending at least 3 days at maintenance has been shown to help reduce some of the negative hormonal & metabolic adaptations to dieting.

Calories are increased via carbs, because carbs most directly effect the hormone Leptin. When we diet, leptin drops quickly (especially for women). As a result, energy expenditure decreases, and hunger increases. 48 hours+ of increased carb intake actually increases leptin. This strategy keeps you in a better place hormonally and metabolically as you diet, and is one of my favorites to implement for the women I coach online.

Training

Training stays at 3x/week for now - when it comes to fat loss, nutrition is BY FAR the biggest difference maker, and we’ve already made some massive changes by implementing the fat loss phase.

Now, it’s VERY important here that we’re tracking multiple metrics to measure Jen’s fat loss progress.

One of the BIGGEST mistakes I see people make in their mission to build a leaner, stronger body - they're not tracking their progress, and thus have no idea if what they're doing is actually working or not.

When you start online coaching, we track ALL the following metrics, to be sure we’re everything we’re doing is pushing you to be your leanest, strongest, and healthiest:

→ Weight - You should be tracking your weight (at least 3x/week). Weigh yourself at least three times per week. First thing in the morning, before eating or drinking, and after using the bathroom.

Don't get caught up in weekly weight changes. Look at the trend over multiple weeks/the month.

You're still aiming to lose .5-1% of body weight weekly, but don't worry if this doesn't show up on the scale every week. Most SHOULD see a monthly trend of 2-4% of total body weight lost, but obviously there ARE exceptions here.

The scale should generally show a downward trend for fat loss clients (depending on whether you're losing or simply recomping), but you can't always trust it as a true measure of progress. This is ESPECIALLY true for women, as hormonal fluctuations can cause drastic changes in water retention.

→ Body measurements - Body measurements give a much more accurate picture of progress. They're also a bit more time consuming, so don't take them as often as weight. Online clients typically take these once per week.

Take the following measurement once per week, at the same time you weigh in. For accuracy, measure in centimeters with a soft tape measure.

• Chest. Take a circumference measurement, with the tape at the level of the nipples.
• Navel. Take a circumference measurement of your torso with the tape 2" above the navel, at the navel, and 2" below the navel.
• Hips. Take a circumference measurement around the broadest part of the hips.
• Thigh. Take a circumference measurement around the broadest part of the right thigh.
• Arm. Take a circumference measurement around the broadest part of your right bicep (flexed).

→ Progress Pictures - Your body at the start of a diet is like a full roll of paper towels.
If you pulled a single sheet off daily, would the roll ever look any different to you?

Nope. The daily changes are tiny.

But if you pulled a sheet off daily for three months, the paper towel roll would be a much different size.

Same concept with you. You'll never look in the mirror and notice a big difference from the day before. This is why progress pictures are important - they give you a better view of the visual changes you've made.

• Take progress pictures front/side/back in a lighting and time of day you can replicate easily.
• Retake with similar lighting/time of day monthly.

→ Training Numbers - Like mentioned, every single online client that I write a training program for tracks their weights lifted in a tracked sheet I send them along with their fully-customized training program. We can both see this sheet 24/7.

This helps us be sure that your nutrition isn't just getting you the fat loss results you want - it's also fueling your performance in the gym to help you build a stronger version of yourself.

→ Biofeedback - this is another part of online coaching that is always very individualized to your goals & needs. But generally we’re tracking things like stress, motivation, mood, cravings, etc.

Tracking biofeedback allows us to take into account ANYTHING that could be impacting your results - not just nutrition and training. This is an essential part of why my online clients get such great results - we take your whole life into account.

Mid March-Late March

Nutrition - Diet Break

Jen has seen some GREAT changes over the last 2 months, dropping 11lbs, lots of inches, and gotten MUCH stronger.

BUT, the last two weeks of the diet, here adherence to the nutrition plan has been a bit lower. In her biofeedback, we see that hunger and cravings are MUCH higher than normal, and motivation has fallen off a cliff the last two week.

This is normal after an extended period of dieting, and tells us it’s time for Jen to take a diet break.

A diet break essential provides the same benefits as a the 3 days at maintenance we talked about earlier - reduced hunger, increased energy expenditure, and reduced diet fatigue - but on a much larger scale.

A diet break is 4 days or more with calories at maintenance intake, again with the increase coming primarily from carbs. Diet breaks have a much greater effect on your hormone levels and metabolism than refeeds, due to the increase time frame (most client's diet breaks last 1-2 weeks).

Training

No changes yet. Jen has been super consistent, and has mentioned she’s feeling ready to take on more training soon. We also know that she’s still well within the amount of training volume she can recover from.

April-Mid June

Nutrition - Fat loss phase

Now that Jen is in a great place metabolically and hormonally, it’s time to push the fat loss again.

Jen wants to feel great in a swimsuit by this summer, and her body has changed A LOT already. We know that by the end of the cut, she should be nearly as lean as she wants.

Now, through this fat loss phase, our goal with Jen is to keep her calories as high as possible while still losing .5-1% of bodyweight per week. Especially with the increase in training volume coming up (see below) which we know will lead to an increase in calories burned, plus her consistent progress last phase, we likely won’t need to decrease calories much across the course of this phase.

Training - 4x/week upper/lower split

Jen has seen GREAT progress so far. Now that she’s super consistent with 3x/week, recovering well, and feeling motivated to train more - we’re going to increase her training volume to 4x/week Upper/Lower. We also know this will speed up her fat loss a bit, and make sure we have her as lean as she wants by summer.

Towards the end of this phase, mid May-Mid June, we also add a low-intensity cardio day AND fat loss focused finishers to speed up fat loss a bit more (Jen prefers to add exercise as opposed to decreasing calories).

Here's a sample of how I program a 4x/week upper/lower split for online clients:

Mid June-July

Nutrition - Maintenance Phase

By this point, Jen is feeling lean, strong, and confident as hell. As she wraps up the fat loss phase, it’s ESSENTIAL that we make sure she knows how to maintain these results long-term. My BIGGEST goal for online clients is giving them the education and tools to SUSTAIN these results forever.

This is why post-diet maintenance phases are crazy important, and a huge piece that most are missing from the typical yoyo dieter's nutrition protocol.

The reality is, after a long fat loss phase, your body is primed for fat gain:

→ As we lose weight, our fat cells shrink - Smaller fat cells produce less leptin, which leads to an increased appetite (as leptin decreases, ghrelin, the hunger hormone - increases) and drastically decreased energy expenditure.

The above, paired with a few other changes to your shrinking body and fat cells creates an environment that promotes fat storage.

→ Post-weight loss, your body wants to restore it's previous weight - You experience this "want" as excessive hunger signals and low energy. This combo makes eating excess calories hard to avoid - IF you enter the post-diet phase without a plan. The weight regained is preferentially stored as body fat.

→ Body Fat Overshooting - It’s also thought that you can INCREASE the number of fat cells you have by gaining weight too quickly, this is called body fat overshooting. This increases the odds that you’ll regain more fat than you lost.

Plus, the negative changes that come with shrinking fat cells - increased hunger, less energy expenditure, etc. - will be amplified next time you try to lose, due to having more fat cells.

Basically, all of the hormonal and metabolic adaptations, your decreased body mass, and your body being so far from it's previous set point add up to you being really damn hungry, and your body preferentially storing excess calories as fat.

Now, does any of this mean that you should be scared to lose weight?

Absolutely not.

It just illustrates the importance of  a.) Having a plan for the diet AFTER the diet. (A huge focus for all nutrition clients.) b.) Understanding what is going on with your body after losing a lot of weight.

These negative adaptations won’t last forever, and with smart nutritional periodization, you CAN maintain a lean, strong body.

As implied by the name, a maintenance phase is simply a time where focus on maintaining your new leaner body post-diet.

Here's what we do:

→ Increase calorie intake to your NEW maintenance intake - You have a new body. It's smaller, and different hormonally and metabolically than it was at the start of your fat loss phase. You likely won't be able to maintain your new body composition on as many calories as you could eat to maintain your old, heavier body.

→ To find your new maintenance intake - We know that 1 lb of fat loss require a deficit of ~3,500 calories. Thus, if you've been losing an average of 1 lb per week, we know you're in a weekly deficit of ~3,500 calories, or a daily deficit of 500 calories (3,500/7=500). We'll apply this logic to find your specific maintenance, and increase your macros to match that.

From here, as your hormones and metabolism start to normalize, you'll start burning more calories.

My goal as a coach is to help you maintain during this time period - losing weight would be counterproductive in a maintenance phase. So the fact that you'll start burning more means I'll also likely have to give you frequent macro (but relatively small) macro increases to keep you maintaining.

→ You're just going to chill at maintenance - I push most of my clients who have gone through a lengthy weight loss to spend 1-2 months in a maintenance phase, at least.

Some key changes happen during the maintenance phase that make your results more sustainable:

• Hormones like thyroid, leptin, and testosterone increase.
• Your energy levels, and the energy you burn through non-exercise activity thermogenesis increase.
• Hunger decreases.
• The chronic stress on your system dissipates.

Basically, your system normalizes, and your body gets used to this new weight. Everything starts to feel normal again over time, and your body stops fighting you so hard to regain the weight you lost.

Your body really doesn't like change. It wants to return to it's old normal as quickly as possible.

So the maintenance phase is a must to allow you to cement a new normal for your body. This is also a very important time for you to create new habits - the lifestyle that you lived before got you the body composition you had before.

Periods of practicing maintenance allow you to learn new habits and behaviors around your food choices, training, daily movement, dietary flexibility, and what your entire lifestyle will need to look like to maintain this new body.

The maintenance phase is a key part of what we do in our work together to make sure that you can sustain this new leaner version of yourself long-term.

August-October

Nutrition & Training - Lean Gains

Jen was STOKED about the way her body has changed - but realizes that she needs to build more muscle to create the physique she wants long-term.

One of the MOST impactful things the ladies I coach do to create leaner, stronger bodies - SPEND TIME FOCUSING ON EATING MORE CALORIES AND BUILDING MUSCLE.

This is a HUGE thing that most people are missing in their mission to build a lean, strong body. (Missing this essential piece is also why most people spend YEARS chronically dieting, but never getting as lean as they want.)

Say you're 155, with 20lbs of fat mass & 135lbs of lean mass. If you gain 5lbs of lean muscle (now 160lbs, 20lbs fat mass, 140lbs lean mass), your overall body fat percentage still decreases.

You look and feel leaner, even though you haven't had to lose any more fat.

This is why when a client is near the "floor" of their body fat settling point (can't lose anymore fat without fighting extremely hard), we'll switch to a smart lean gains approach, with an emphasis on building lean muscle without adding excess fat. This works extremely well for both the men and women I've coached.

In a lean gains phase, you’re aiming to gain .25-.5% of body weight per week. Body measurements will give you an idea of what muscle groups are growing, as well as how much your waist is growing - we’ll increase or decrease calories accordingly.

When you enter a lean gains phase, our goal is to gradually drive training volume (think: number of hard training sets) up. If done properly, this WILL lead to more gains (but like everything else, the devil is in the dose here).

As you increase training volume, you increase the amount of growth stimulus you’re hitting your muscles with. You’re also increasing calories burned. Both of these mean your body has an increased need for recovery resources (food).

If we DON’T increase your food intake, but continuously increase training volume, you’ll eventually start to lose weight as a result of all the volume burning tons of calories. While great for fat loss, you’re likely NOT building muscle here.

On the flip-side, if we just keep increasing food intake and don’t increase training volume, you’ll start to gain excess fat.

The solution?

We gradually drive up both training volume and carbohydrate intake simultaneously. The extra food is helping you recover and grow from the extra volume. The extra volume is helping the extra food be shuttled to muscle, NOT fat storage.

Now, the thing with volume is - if you just take a MASSIVE jump in number of hard sets, your body won’t be able to adapt to the sudden increase and you’ll get worse results.

Volume needs to be increased gradually.

In Jen’s case, we spend the first 6 weeks following a 4x/week Upper/Lower split. This is followed by 6 weeks in a 5x/week Lower/Upper/Lower/Upper/Lower glute specialization phase.

This shorter period of increased volume leads to quick muscle growth, but we want to make sure that we don’t spend TOO LONG here, as clients recovery will start to suffer.

November

Nutrition - Mini-Cut
Jen is going on a beach vacation in early December, and wants to feel her all-time best.

Now, with the smart lean gains approach she’s been following for the last 3 months, Jen is still super lean - we know that we can get her feeling AMAZING with a few weeks of a strategic mini-cut.

This is an aggressive fat loss phase, with the goal of dropping body fat quickly. Since Jen doesn’t need to lose much fat here, we want to get in and get out as quickly as possible.

A mini-cut is in such a short time-period (usually 3-6 weeks), so you don’t need to worry about muscle loss, or most of the other negative adaptations that come with longer diets (but also, a mini-cut isn’t a smart idea if you have more fat to lose OR don’t already have a solid amount of lean muscle).

Generally, you’ll start in a 20-30% deficit, with the goal of losing ~1.25% of your total body weight per week. Adjust your deficit (+ or - 5-10%) depending on your rate of weight loss.

Training - 4x/Week Upper/Lower + 3x/Week LISS Cardio

We’re dropping training volume. Jen is in an aggressive deficit, so she doesn’t have enough “recovery resources” to recover from intense 5x/week training. 4x/week training + 3 LISS sessions makes sense here - enough training stimulus to maintain all her muscle, while the low-intensity cardio burns calories AND promotes recovery.

December

Nutrition - Maintenance
Jen has a CRAZY holiday season coming up. In the past, the holidays have been the time where she “fell off the wagon”.

But this year, instead of setting unrealistic fitness goals for the holiday season, she’s simply focusing on maintaining all this year’s progress. This is a strategy I take with A LOT of my online clients during the holidays - they make GREAT progress the other 11 months of the year, and focus on maintaining during a time when they used to regress dramatically.

This mindset shift makes a MASSIVE difference in clients being able to SUSTAIN their results year round.

Training - 3x/Week Full Body

Jen loves her training by this point, but her schedule for the month of December doesn’t allow for 4x/week training.

Plus, we know that she can still make SOME progress following a 3x/week full body split (you can actually maintain your current muscle on 1/3rd of the training volume it takes to build).

Come January, Jen is at her all-time leanest, strongest, and most confident, and ready for another year of amazing results.

And that’s how I’d periodize an entire year for a new online client.

Having a plan is ESSENTIAL.

Imagine how much worse this would have gone if Jen just said... “

I want to lose fat this year... hope it goes well.”

This is the mistake SO MANY people make every new year... setting goals, without a specific, individualized, and PROCESS-FOCUSED strategy to achieve them.

• Not tracking biofeedback
  
• Not taking body measurements
  
• Not periodizing your training
• Spending TOO LONG in a deficit
  
• Not using diet breaks
• NEVER spending time in a calorie surplus

You get the idea. Strategy and periodization is important.

There's no better investment than a coach with thousands of hours under their belt to expedite the process, and plan all of this out for you.

Most importantly, you’ll get consist as hell.

Let’s be real - none of these concepts are mind-blowing... or anything you HAVEN’T heard before.

As someone that coaches a lot of coaches, most of my clients know WHAT to do - the consistency and accountability to actually follow through on that is what they’ve been missing in the past.

If this sounds like you, investing in a coach will be life-changing.

It’s time to finally follow through, build the body you want, and create the most confident version of yourself in 2020.

CLICK HERE NOW to apply for online coaching with me.

How many times have you been crushing your nutrition and training, seemingly only a few weeks from your goal body... only to be completely derailed by a trip for work or a vacation?

It takes a month for you to get back on the fitness wagon... by this point, you feel like you're starting over.

For most of us, staying on track when your schedule ISN'T hectic is easy.

It's the times you're out of your normal routine that kill your progress towards a leaner, stronger body.

Reality check: Until you learn to manage times like these, you WON’T be able to maintain the body you want. I know I couldn’t.

This is why you always benefit most from having a coach when your life is at its craziest (and waiting until you're "not busy" to invest in yourself is a bad idea) - you FINALLY have the strategy, structure, and accountability to make these times work with your goals.

You won’t stay sustainably lean without this education.

Here are the strategies I give my vacationing or traveling clients ↴

Get Rid Of The “All-Or-Nothing” Mindset

Being on point 80-90% of the time is enough to build (or maintain) the body you want.

You've seen the transformations my online clients make.

Guess what?

There's never been a client who HASN'T had a bad week of nutrition, or missed a workout - even the ones with the most incredible results.

It's NOT... 100% perfection with the plan or you don't get results.

It's consistently doing your best to manage hard situations, and getting back on track A.S.A.P. after you fall off.

A day if bad eating, a subpar workout, traveling, or the holidays AREN'T a reason to give up on fitness altogether until January.

It's almost Christmas. Most of us will be in "less than ideal" circumstances the next few weeks. You can enter this time with one of two mindsets...

1. "I won't be able to track these calories accurately, or follow my training routine 100%... why try?"  You eat lots of extra calories, and don't train. When new years comes, building the body you want will be A LOT harder. (And you'll lose your results AGAIN the next time "less than ideal" circumstances come along.)

2. "I won't be able to track my calories as accurately, or follow my training routine 100%... but I can still make smart food decisions, track to the best of my ability, and train at least 1-2x this week." While you might not make tons of progress over the next few weeks, you maintain your results and feel great going into the new year.

The reality of living lean is - sometimes, maintaining your results is a win. If you have 26 great weeks in a year, and 26 weeks where the best you can do is maintain - you'll still be in MUCH better shape by the end of the year.

This is what progress looks like for all of us. No one is perfect every week.

But you must first quit with the "all-or-nothing" thinking.

The one sure way to NEVER achieve you fitness goals, is to think: "I can't be perfect this week... why even try?"

Pick Your Battles

I love tequila, street tacos, and churros.

Last week (in Cancun at an all-inclusive resort), I consumed a lot of all three.

These calorie-dense foods aren't ideal for staying lean.

Which is why strategically picking your battles when it comes to food is key.

I knew that out of all the foods and beverages at the resort, these three were the ones I would get the most enjoyment out of, and wanted to experience (a lot).

So instead of eating all the food just because it was available, I saved calories in other areas to allow for more food I would truly enjoy, while still keeping my calories reasonable.

Every time we went to breakfast, I would skip it in favor of black coffee. Sure the breakfast food looked good, but I knew I wouldn't really enjoy it that much. I knew it wasn't worth the trade-off of a.) eating fewer tacos b.) achieving my physique goals.

Through the rest of the day, I looked for other areas I could "save calories" - skipping the guac, not eating the rice the came with my steak - you get the idea.

Take time to think through your food decisions before eating.

It’s so easy to get in the mindset of…

“I have lots of delicious food available, I need to eat all of it!”

This is ESPECIALLY true at all-inclusive resorts, cruises, and over the holidays.

It’s too easy to overdo it on foods that don't really make you happier than a lower-calorie option would, simply because they're available.

It’s crazy important to pick your battles when it comes to food.

Make Protein A Priority

Protein is incredibly important.

Not only does it help you build or maintain your muscle mass, it also is very filling.

Protein is typically the hardest macronutrient to come by when you're traveling (or in holiday treats). Underconsuming protein means you'll be hungrier, and more likely to overeat lots of calorie-dense foods.

One way to auto-regulate your appetite, and prevent overeating when unlimited food is available?

Make protein a priority.

→ Be sure to get AT LEAST 25-40g protein at each meal you eat. Basically, just make sure when you're eat at the resort restaurant, at Grandma's, or wherever... that there's a big chunk of protein on your plate.

→ Bring protein-dense snacks with you. Things like:

• Jerky
• Protein Powder
• Protein Bars
• Cheese Sticks
• Greek Yogurt Cups
• Tuna Packets
  

Snacking on these a few times per day, (or before going to a restaurant you're worried you'll have trouble managing calories at) helps keep hunger and calories MUCH lower.

Don't Worry About Macros - Focus On Protein + Total Calories

Macros allow us to get very specific within your nutrition. This means they're a good idea for online clients that want very specific results (photoshoots, bodybuilding shows, etc.).

But on the road, or in situations where you have less control over food options, hitting a protein, carb, and fat goal is TOUGH.

Plus, the 2018 DIETFITS Study, which showed that there is no noticeable difference when it comes to fat loss when we compare a low-carb approach to a low-fat approach.

When you're in circumstances like this, we'll have you focus on a calorie and protein goal only. From there, you let carbs and fats fall where they may within your total calories.

This eliminates a lot of stress from you as a client, allows more food flexibility without hurting your results, and makes staying "on plan" easier.

Modify Your Training Strategy

You DON’T have to lose your progress on vacation due to a lack of equipment.

But you also don’t have to spend hours in gym.

Here’s how I program for my online coaching clients on vacation (and how I trained in Cancun last week):

Use exercises with lots of limiting factors.

For example, in the video below I strategically made Bulgarian Splits Squats harder by wearing sliders and taking too many tequila shots the night before.

...but mostly, using one limb means you can still train hard, with less weight (the usual limiting factor when traveling).

So when traveling and less equipment or weight is available, it's a good idea to focus on things like...

→ Training single arm & leg movements

→ Adding 3-5 second negatives to each rep

→ Adding 3-5 second iso-holds at the bottom of each rep

→ Working from a deficit to increase range of motion

These strategies allow a great training effect, WITHOUT heavy weight or much equipment.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Jeremiah Bair - Coach (@jeremiahbair) on Dec 14, 2019 at 4:36pm PST

Here’s one of my vacation workouts as an example:
a1.) Bulgarian Split Squats 3x8/side

b1.) Staggered Stance RDL 3x8/side

c1.) Swiss Ball Triple Threat 3x30

c2.) Reverse Crunch 3x10-12

Did I make crazy leg gains from this training session? Nope.

Was it more than enough to maintain, and keep me growing? Absolutely.

Creating the leanest, strongest, and most confident version of yourself isn't complicated.

It just takes accountability and consistency with a smart, realistic plan.

If you're ready to build your best self in 2020, CLICK HERE to apply for online coaching.

"Reverse dieting supercharges your metabolism - you can lose, maintain, and gain on super high calories."

"If you (or one of your clients) can’t lose fat on low calories, you need to reverse diet."

"You NEED to reverse diet after weight loss to prevent gaining the weight back."

"My client increased their calories and got RIPPED reverse dieting!"

Lots of claims are thrown around about reverse dieting... but are they true?

Should YOU be reverse dieting?

You have questions, today’s blog has answers.

What Is Reverse Dieting?

Reverse dieting is a common practice in the fitness and bodybuilding worlds

Generally, the reverse dieting process looks something like…

Post-diet, you very slowly increase calories (usually by 50-100 every 1-2 weeks).

The thinking here is - by slowing increasing calories, you give your metabolism time to speed up to match the small increases. Not only does this keep fat gain to a minimum, but also builds up your metabolism, (sort of like gradually increasing weights in the gym makes you stronger) allowing you to maintain and lose on more calories in the future.

All of this sounds great… but unfortunately, that’s not really how metabolism works.

Understanding Metabolism

Metabolism - The sum of all the stuff your body does to burn calories.

More specifically, we can divide metabolism up into 4 pieces:

→ Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) -  The calories burned for basal processes to stay alive -  like your heart pumping, breathing, etc. Even if you spent the whole day in bed, our BMR wouldn’t change. BMR accounts for ~60-70% of daily calories burned.

→ Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) - It takes calories (energy) for your body to digest the food that you eat. TEF also varies depending on the food you eat. (Protein: 20-35%, Carbs: 5-15%, Fats: 0-5%.) Accounts for ~10% of daily calories burned.

→ Thermic effect of exercise (TEE) - The calories you burn exercising. Accounts for ~5% of daily calories burned.

→ Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) -  Calories burned through movement outside of exercise. (Fidgeting, walking around the house, etc.) Accounts for ~15-25% of daily calories burned, but varies drastically person-to-person.

Adaptive Thermogenesis

Now that you understand the basics of metabolism, let's talk about how changes.

As you get leaner on a diet, your metabolism decreases because...

• Your body is smaller, so BMR decreases
• You're eating less food, so TEF decreases
  
• TEE decreases, because it takes fewer calories to move your smaller body
• NEAT generally decreases, as you feel lethargic due to lack of calories
• Levels of the hormone Leptin decrease. This leads to an increase in hunger (increasing the odds you’ll overeat), and a subconscious decrease in energy expenditure.

This is know as adaptive thermogenesis. As you eat more and gain more fat, the opposite happens - metabolism increases, hunger decreases.

Your metabolism isn't some invisible force screwing over your fat loss efforts. It's ALSO not something we can just "ramp up" indefinitely with reverse dieting. It's mostly just a product of your current body size, food intake, and daily movement.

Reverse Dieting Misconceptions

You have a solid understanding of metabolism, and how we burn calories. Time to separate fact from fiction by working through some common claims about reverse dieting.

→ Misconception #1: Reverse dieting “supercharges your metabolism”, allowing your to diet & maintain on higher calories in the future.

To eat more calories than you could before and maintain your weight, you must be burning more calories than before.

You now know the 4 ways our body can burn calories (metabolism)...

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
• Thermic Effect Of Food (TEF)
• Thermic Effect Of Exercise (TEE)
• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT)

So being able to eat more and maintain, requires an increase in one or more of these factors.

Basal Metabolic Rate - Typically higher the larger you are. We can really only increase this by gaining weight - which means either:

a.) Adding fat

b.) Adding muscle

Adding fat WILL speed up your metabolism… but with the goal of most reverse diets is to avoid fat gain.

Adding muscle mass IS part of why people’s metabolisms can increase slightly over time. Muscle is metabolically active tissue - meaning that adding extra muscle increases the calories you burn at rest. But, it’s not a huge difference. (Daily, you’ll burn ~6 calories more with each additional pound of muscle you gain.) Most of the metabolism boosting benefits of adding muscle come from the fact that moving a heavier body burns more calories.

Thermic Effect Of Food - Calories burned during digestion increases as you eat more. But since a relatively small % of the total calories you eat in a meal are burned through TEF, eating more calories strictly to increase TEF doesn’t make sense - you’re now taking in more calories not burned during digestion as well.

Increasing the % of calories consumed from protein IS a smart strategy to increase TEF, and it does seem that protein is harder for your body to store as fat. But to avoid digestion issues, eat enough fat to stay healthy, and (for most of us) eat some delicious carbs… a diet of strictly protein isn’t realistic. Most people tap out eating more than 1.2-1.5g protein/lb.

Thermic Effect Of Exercise - When you eat more, you can:

a.) Train more. Eating more calories (to an extent) means better recovery, and therefore the ability to train more frequently with overdoing it.

b.) Train more intensely. More energy (calories) in also typically increases our ability to output energy (again, to a certain extent).

Both of the factors mean that eating more usually leads to more calories burned through training. That said, the increase in calories burned here WON'T be massive enough to skyrocket your metabolism. (And you have to remember, you're eating MORE calories the create these effects in the first place.)

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis - People’s NEAT varies a lot with how it responds to increases and decreases in calories.

Last week, we talked about how we can usually split people’s metabolisms up into two categories:

a.) Adaptive Metabolisms - For these people, when you eat more, your body automatically increases NEAT to compensate. (Think: subconscious fidgeting, blinking, pacing, etc.) Their body adapts to higher calorie intake by increasing calories burned through movement - so weight stays the same, even with calorie increases.

People like this can typically maintain at a relatively high calorie intake, but the reduction in NEAT when they decrease also means they have to drop calories lower than expected to lose fat.

b.) Rigid Metabolisms - These people see very little or no increase in NEAT as a response to overeating. Thus fat gain is a bit easier.

But on the bright side, these people usually don't have to decrease calories as much to lose fat (because calories burned through NEAT doesn't decrease as much as it would for an adaptive metabolism).

So unfortunately, there’s nothing here we can “supercharge” by reverse dieting. If you want to be able to eat more and maintain your weight, you can:

a.) Move more

b.) Increase your body size

→ Misconception #2: Your metabolism is hella slow after a diet, reversing is the only way to prevent regaining the fat.

You hear horror stories about people getting super lean... and then regaining the fat overnight.

Reverse dieting is usually pitched at the solution to this.

What's going on here?

The reality is, after a long fat loss phase, your body is primed for fat gain.

a.) As we lose weight, our fat cells shrink - Smaller fat cells produce less leptin, which leads to an increased appetite (as leptin decreases, ghrelin - the hunger hormone - increases) and decreased energy expenditure.

b.) Post-weight loss, your body wants to restore it's previous weight - You experience this "want" as excessive hunger signals and low energy. This combo makes eating excess calories hard to avoid - IF you enter the post-diet phase without a plan. The weight regained is preferentially stored as body fat.

Basically, the fact that you're really damn hungry, moving less, AND burning fewer calories with your now smaller body create a situation where rapid regain is likely if you DON'T have a plan post-diet.

Having a plan post-diet IS incredibly important - it's a HUGE part of why my clients get such sustainable results. (It just doesn't have to follow that traditional reverse dieting model.)

So yes, while your metabolism does "adapt" and down-regulate to match your smaller body size, it is NOT broken or "damaged".

The myth of metabolic damage has been thoroughly dispelled.

You'll also often hear people say something like...

"But I'm only eating 900 calories, and still can't lose fat!"

This is a big driver of the popularity behind reverse dieting, actually. I know I've been at the start of my coaching career, both with myself AND with clients. We we're both seemingly eating low calories, but not losing.

The truth?

We're usually just not good at tracking calories accurately.

In fact, a 2002 study showed the even Registered Dietitians underestimate their calorie intake by 223 calories per day.

In some coaching anectdote, I had a client start recently who couldn't get her body to budge, despite only eating 800 calories per day.

We immediately increased her calories drastically, and she's lost over 10lbs in the last few months.

Was it the actual calorie increase that caused her to lose?

Nah. She works around food all day, and was forgetting to track the little bites and nibbles she took - which turned out to be more that 500 calories per day. Plus, a higher calorie plan was easier for her to stick to - she got more consistent. (Another reason why a more moderate approach to dieting generally works better.)

Once I started teaching my clients how to increase measurement accuracy, I've stopped running into these cases where people "can't lose" on low calories.

Finally, eating low calories increases your cortisol levels, which often causes water retention. This can cause stalls on the scale. Adding in more calories can cause this water to drop.

→ Misconception #3: Lots of people get super lean on reverse diets.

You’ve probably seen a nutrition coach on Instagram, bragging about how their client got "shredded" while INCREASING calories.

What’s often happening here, is simply the effect of actually having a coach for the first time.

These people likely aren’t eating MORE calories than they we’re before, but rather have improved their measurement accuracy, food quality, and are eating macro ratios align with their goals now. Plus, they’re now following smart, we’ll structured training programs.

This is something I see all the time with new clients (re: the above example), but it is NOT actually caused by the fact that people are eating way more calories.

So really, instead of saying....

"Thanks to the reverse diet, this client is now eating 500 calories MORE per day and is RIPPED."

It should be...

"Hey, I got this client to measure her food super accurately, and she realized she was eating more than she thought. She's also following a smart training program now, and is more consistent - with both training and nutrition. All of this added up to a pretty big body composition change."

On top of this, one of our major focuses when you start nutrition coaching with me is on choosing foods that keep you full, longer. This reduces cravings, and really makes eating fewer calories feel like more than before.

Now, can you lose fat reverse dieting?

Absolutely.

If you're increasing calories, but still eating fewer calories than you're burning - you'll keep losing fat. But again, it's not magic.

Sometimes over a reverse diet, people WILL see quicker weight loss, despite being in a smaller calorie deficit.

This is because - like we talked about, dieting leads to higher cortisol levels, and water retention. A lot of times weight can be stuck for WEEKS, even though we know a client is in a calorie deficit, due to the amount of water they're retaining.

To get the water to release, we know we need to eliminate stress. Sometimes, I'll just prescribe a client a 1 day refeed where we increase carbs.The extra carbs and calories basically get your body to "relax", and woosh - you drop water weight. This almost always happens in the first week of a diet break as well.

A Different Strategy

The mistake a lot of people make is trying to reverse WAY too slow and stay super lean after a cut.

What ends up happening is, you spend MONTHS extra in a deficit (which usually correlates to feeling & training like shit). This leads to months of wasted time that could have been productive training and making progress in the gym.

The reality is, we all have a certain body fat percentage we need to be at to feel good, train hard, and actually allow our body to prioritize building muscle. No amount of reverse dieting can make up for the fact that if you're sitting below this point, you won't build muscle, feel good, or have healthy hormones.

Basically, being a bit more aggressive coming out of a diet (to a degree) makes sense.

When reverse dieting we need to consider the desired outcome - which is to get your hormones & training back to a good place, right?

Problem is, if we're just reversing you out of a diet SUPER slowly, you're still in a deficit for another 6-12 weeks.

That means another 6-12 weeks where hormones & training are shit, until we eventually reach maintenance, and then your body can start to recover. Which begs the question - if the goal of the reverse diet IS to recover, why not just take you to your (new & lower with your smaller body) maintenance quicker?

Unless your goal is simply to maintain, the sooner you can get back to productive training, the sooner we can get back to building the physique you want LONG-TERM. Spending actual time eating more food and building muscle is the best way to increase your metabolism, and make getting lean easier in the future.

Next time you get lean, you'll have more muscle mass (even if you don't lose fat, INCREASE muscle mass decreases your body fat - which will make looking lean easier).

Finally, if you follow a smart lean gains approach like my clients do, you WON'T gain lots of excess fat.

Here's my general strategy for clients post-diet:

As I've talked about, I've found clients seem to be that people are better served to return to a new maintenance and more productive training quicker.

Really, reverse dieting is more a mechanism to get client buy-in and prevent binging - we know that left to their own devices, your body and brain WILL push you to eat A LOT over maintenance, which also isn't ideal.

So for most clients, our goal is to get you to your new maintenance as quickly as possible, without overshooting and gaining excess fat.

Generally, I like to increase clients to 90% of their estimated new maintenance calorie intake for their smaller body. From here, we watch body measurements, biofeedback, and adherence, and keep adding in calories in smaller increments until we find the intake said client maintains at (this is a moving target thanks to adaptive thermogenesis, which is why the smaller increases are necessary after an initial large jump).

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