There is no one-size-fits-all recommendation for the length of time you should reverse diet. For some people the process might only take three or four months, but for others it can take well over six!
Instead of starting a reverse diet with a specific length of time in mind or a set amount of calories you want to reach, you should listen to your body! The length of your reverse will depend on how your weight and body fat change as calories increase.
Ultimately, the goal of reverse dieting is to eat more without gaining a lot of weight, so the biggest factor in deciding when to stop will be figuring out the point at which you’re happy with your food intake OR when you start consistently gaining weight.
At first, you might gain a half pound one week, lose a half pound another, and then maintain weight for a while. These inconsistent weeks of weight gain followed by weight plateaus can be a sign that your body is continuing to adjust to higher calories. But when you’ve been reversing for a while and start to gain weight for several weeks in a row, this can mean that you’ve reached an upper limit where your metabolism is no longer increasing to burn off the extra calories you’re giving it. When that happens, you should stop reverse dieting and switch to maintenance.
If you reach a point where you’re satisfied and happy with your calorie intake before you ever start gaining weight, feel free to just stop there!
Your response to a reverse diet and the overall length of the process will be impacted by:
Your starting calories (you may need to reverse longer if these are low)
The number of calories you need to eat to feel comfortable
Your dieting history (if you’re a chronic or crash dieter you may need to increase calories more slowly, lengthening the reverse)
Genetics (some people metabolically adapt to higher calories better than others and will gain less weight during the process)
Just remember that once you finish a reverse diet, you’ll need to switch to maintenance for about the same length of time you spent reverse dieting before attempting to lose weight again. This will give your metabolism a chance to fully adapt to the higher calorie intake and will give you a much needed mental break from dieting. When you do decide to lose weight again, you’ll be in a better place physically and mentally, thereby increasing your chances of success.
Some questions you can ask yourself to decide if you’ve reversed long enough might be:
Am I satisfied with the amount of food I’m eating?
Do I have plenty of room to drop calories if my next goal is fat loss?
Have I gained a significant amount of weight for 3 or 4 weeks in a row? If so, this might mean that you should switch to maintenance for several weeks to let your metabolism catch up before continuing your reverse, or that your reverse diet should come to an end if you’ve already been reversing for several months.
For more on when you should end your reverse diet, click here.