I was tucking into my ice cream the other night after spaghetti and meatballs that I had made for dinner, when I realised that this was my fourth meal that day. Then I realised something else – I had no guilt about this fact whatsoever.
This may sound insignificant to some people, but this time two years ago, I could not imagine eating so many meals in a day without thinking about what exercise to do the next day to burn off the most calories.
How did I escape this cycle of binging and restricting, guilt and “fear foods”? My portions are bigger, I have more energy and am more confident now than I ever have been. Although there are many things which factor into me living a more balanced and healthier life, a concept which has helped myself and so many others is the idea of “reverse dieting”.
So what is reverse dieting? It is the process of gradually increasing your calorie intake overtime to increase your metabolism and minimise weight gain in the process.
For example, if someone has been eating a certain number of calories consistently for a long period of time, they would increase their daily intake by 100 to 200 calories every week which would give their body time to adjust to the change in energy level it has been given and increase their metabolic rate. This is reverse dieting.
Reverse dieting is most popular amongst the bodybuilding community, to increase energy and minimise fat gain after severely cutting their calories. However, it has become more popular with the general health and fitness community as a good technique to help people recover from years of bad eating habits and crash dieting.
It is a method of recovering from undereating which most often ruins people’s metabolisms, as their bodies are not getting enough energy from food. Overtime, your body recognises this depletion in calories and begins trying to conserve this energy. This leads to our bodies slowing down functions such as our metabolic rate and other “non-essential” systems. It is normal for women to lose their menstrual cycle in these conditions.
While I personally did not track my calories to strategically reverse diet, through my journey lifting weights at the gym (I began to take this seriously about six months ago) and becoming less restricted in my portion sizes, I now consume significantly more food whilst my body’s healthy set weight and size.
The main goal of reverse dieting is to eventually reach a place where someone, particularly if they struggle with eating, is able to intuitively eat.
Known as the “non-diet” diet, intuitive eating is the idea of listening to your own body and feeling it’s hunger cues (which many lose over time from yo-yo dieting). There are no restricted food groups, no undereating, no skipping meals. It is simply the process of understanding how to eat for your body to function in its optimum condition.
The concept was developed in the 90s by two dietitians who discovered that the “non-diet” approach achieved the best results with their patients struggling with obesity.
I made a video on my experience with intuitive eating and how to get started to feel like you’re starting to obtain “food freedom”. It was created last year as a part of an IGTV series which explains my references to other videos on there.
Intuitive eating is a simple concept, but in reality, the toxicity of diet culture which is rampant throughout our society and media makes it nearly impossible to escape from the unhealthy ideas of food restriction and feeling the need to lose weight at one point or another.
This messaging is everywhere; from your parents to your friends, to TV shows. The frustration now is even greater than before, because in addition to weight loss constantly being praised, there are certain body types now that you must fit into to achieve our impossible beauty standards. And unfortunately, the narrative always seems to come back around to the foods we eat and our exercise.
Here are a few things to remember when trying to create a healthier relationship with food:
- Weight Loss doesn’t equal health or beauty
We are constantly told skinny = pretty, smaller = better. But for so many, this is not the case. Weight Loss is only one small way for a group of people to become healthier and this should not be the general rule. Without the media and the subliminal messaging, people’s ideas of beauty differ significantly.
2. All food is good in moderation
Once again, a lie told by diet culture is that certain foods (or even food groups like carbs) are bad for you. This is not true at all. Some foods have more nutritional value than others, but most dieticians will agree that all food is able to be consumed in a healthy way. A McDonald’s meal on the occasion does not make you unhealthy. Use food to nourish the body but also the soul.
3. Your bad body image is a result of your mind, not your diet.
So often, my bad body image days are more to do with my mood and perception of myself that day, rather than what I really look like. More than this, The kind of food that you eat does not equate to your negative feelings towards your self image. Bad body image or feeling “unhealthy” comes from a multitude of factors such as sleep cycle, physical activity, the state of our mental health and more.
