Reverse Dieting: How To Make It Work on Keto

What is reverse dieting, and do you really need it?

Implementing a well-structured reverse diet is absolutely crucial, but it's often overlooked during a post-show high or the euphoria of finally reaching your body composition goals.

And I totally get it.

Now that the show is over, the desire to gorge yourself on all the foods you missed while in the deep phases of your keto bodybuilding prep may be at an all-time high.

However, the dangers of not reverse dieting after keto or other calorie-restricted plans can be devastating. We're talking rapid weight gain, muscle loss, mental health spirals, and more.

Give this phase of your journey the same attention as the first five, and I guarantee you'll come out better than when you went in. Neglect it, and I promise you'll be beating yourself up in a few weeks. 

So let's explore the top reverse diet benefits and the best way to reverse diet on keto to capitalize on all your hard work and success thus far.

What is Reverse Dieting?  🤔

A reverse diet is the process of slowly increasing your food intake after a calorie-restricted protocol to promote long-term weight maintenance and prevent unnecessary weight gain.

In other words, it's how you resume your normal lifestyle post-show without losing all your definition and gaining back the LBs you worked hard to shed.

Research shows that, as you achieve lower body fat levels, several natural metabolic adaptations will try to thwart your maintenance efforts and encourage your body to return to its baseline body mass.[*]

Nothing's more frustrating than dedicating months of your life to achieving mental and physical excellence and then throwing it away in an instant because you don't have a vision of where to go next.

A post-competition reverse diet aims to minimize or overcome those adaptations so you can preserve your hard-earned body composition for as long as possible.

Why Should You Use a Keto Reverse Diet? 🔥

We do everything differently than what traditional bodybuilding bros advocate for in my Savage System Premium Course. We follow a ketogenic diet during prep to lose body fat and build muscle, so continuing with a keto bodybuilding reverse diet only makes sense.

Think about it: You just put your body and mind through incredible strain and likely scored outstanding results using a keto protocol. So, it would be unwise to remove that foundational and beneficial structure you've been leveraging to get to this point.

Deviate from your keto diet by going full carb kamikaze, and you'll likely gain 20 to 30 pounds rapidly post-show.

A ketogenic reverse diet keeps your body in the fat-burning mode of ketosis. It also teaches you how to eat for sustainable performance and health, not just the next competition.

Building sustainable habits significantly reduces the risk of post-competition weight gain, definition loss, and eating disorders — all legitimate concerns for bodybuilders in the off-season and beyond.

4 Benefits of Reverse Dieting for Bodybuilding  🏔️

I like to think of powering through the 7 phases of keto bodybuilding like summiting Mount Everest.

As you go through prep, you're climbing up to the summit. The show date is the summit itself: the peak of the mountain. So, what happens after you take in that astonishing view (and a few selfies)?

You can jump off the cliff like many people do when they throw out the routines that got them there in the first place. But without a parachute, this freefall often leads to negative feedback loops and a harsh downward spiral.

A better approach? You follow a plan to safely get from the zenith you've just ascended back to base camp. In our case, base camp is your body's new baseline.

Doing so allows your body to reap the scientific benefits of reverse dieting, empowering you to:

1. Reset Your Hormones  ⚖️

Calorie restriction throws several key hormones out of whack. These imbalances stick around as you attempt to maintain your new reduced body weight. We're talking:[*]

• Thyroid hormones
• Testosterone
• Ghrelin, aka the "hunger hormone"
• Leptin, the "satiety hormone"
• Insulin
• Cortisol, the "stress hormone"

Following a keto diet during prep can minimize the downregulation of those hormones. Still, it's not going to prevent it altogether. Any diet that puts you in an extreme deficit or extreme environment of stress will cause a downregulation effect. 

Since these hormones play such prominent roles in regulating your body composition, energy intake, and calorie burning, a reverse diet after keto prep protocol can restore them back to their healthy levels.

2. Unlock Beast Mode  🏋️

The back half of prep often brings on lower energy levels, tanking satiety, and an increase in anxiety. That's a recipe for piss-poor gym performance.

Even if you maintained your heavy lifts and total volume, training likely became a burden, and you started resenting it entirely. 

Good news? A keto reverse diet plan can change all that. With a surge in extra calories, you'll likely achieve:

• Higher energy levels and endurance.
• Skyrocketing strength and power. You’ll still be lean and much lighter, resulting in an impressive power-to-weight ratio that yields superb performance.
• Serious muscle growth and muscle pumps.
• Better overall recovery (so you can train more intensely and frequently).

These wins will ignite the excitement and fun you initially felt when you started bodybuilding. Rather than walking in tired and beaten down, you'll feel an enhanced zeal for moving some heavy iron around and enjoy training again.

Many of my best workouts have come in the weeks and months post-show when I felt on top of the world from the competition.

3. Lower Your Metabolic Set Point  📉

Studies show that substantial weight loss is easy; long-term maintenance of that lost weight is the real challenge. According to research, more than half the weight people lose is typically regained within two years; by five years, that jumps to more than 80%.[*]

Your metabolic rate is dynamic by nature.[*] However, everyone has a homeostatic setpoint for their body fat and composition. That's where your body feels most comfortable, and it often fights to stay there.

If you lost a significant amount of body fat during prep and then immediately returned to your pre-prep diet, you'd likely return to your original body fat levels and metabolic setpoint ASAP.

That's why I’m such a huge fan of a gradual ketogenic reverse diet protocol. The longer you spend at a leaner composition, the better your odds of retraining your body to reestablish its homeostatic setpoint at your new leaner composition. 

Reaching a healthy setpoint will make it relatively effortless to maintain a healthy body weight and body fat percentage during the offseason.

Best part? Your body will stabilize at a leaner composition than when you started, improving your setpoint for the next time you compete.

4. Discover The Fountain of Youth  🙌

Bodybuilding can and should be a healthy sport. A solid reverse diet phase makes the entire process sustainable and enjoyable rather than toxic and debilitating.

When it comes to the benefits of a reverse diet for keto bodybuilders, think of it as the yin to the competition prep’s yang. You can't optimize one without optimizing the other.

The way you make this sport healthy is to get better every single year, and a reverse diet is your best gameplan for doing so. You'll likely end this phase with:

• A lower baseline body fat percentage than when you started
• More lean muscle mass
• A higher functioning metabolic rate
• A higher caloric intake (i.e., more caloric runway to work with next time)

These all give you a tremendous advantage when you're ready to transition into your future competition preps.

Translation: You'll capture many more long, healthy years of enhanced human performance as a bodybuilder and improve your likelihood of making this a genuinely satisfying, sustainable sport.

How To Implement a Keto Reverse Diet  📝

With reverse dieting, you either have a plan or plan to fail. Unfortunately, there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach for how to reverse diet on keto. It depends on your personal preferences and lifestyle factors.

My goal is to show you what I believe to be the optimal reverse diet strategy, especially as it relates to a ketogenic protocol. Join my Savage System Premium Course, and you'll learn:

• How to calculate your keto macros for reverse dieting
• The pros/cons of sticking to daily calorie intake vs. weekly average goals
• The rate at which you should increase your calories, protein intake, and dietary fat (and what you may experience when doing so)
• When to leverage ketogenic caloric refeeds and when to taper them off
• How to remain disciplined yet become more flexible to actually enjoy your time in the reverse diet (without going off the rails)
• How to prevent muscle loss during a keto reverse diet by adjusting your training and cardio

I'll walk you through the keto bodybuilding macro ratios I use for myself and my clients to help you find your sweet spot and achieve so much more post-competition.

Dominate Your Keto Reverse Diet Phase; Don't Ignore It  💪

You finally reached your shred goals, crushed the competition, and brought home the trophy (or at least some serious bragging rights). You're an inspiration to everyone around you. Now's not the time to let all that progress slip through your fingers.

Keto reverse dieting is your ticket to maintaining that hard-earned physique, resetting your hormones, boosting your metabolism, and setting yourself up for long-term success.

My comprehensive Savage System Premium Course contains proven reverse dieting strategies specifically designed for keto champions like you.

You'll score access to 150+ videos, our custom training app, our private membership group for support during this crucial phase, the best keto recipes, special product discounts and affiliate deals, and more to conquer this sport!

Let's build the best version of you, together. Join the Savage Tribe and turn that post-competition crash into a launchpad for even greater triumphs! 🏆