Refeed. i.e If Baby Jesus was a Day of Eating

Linear dieting, which is the type of dieting illustrated in my previous post, had been the typical method used on myself and my clients. Gradually manipulating calories and expenditure in one direction until the desired weight or body composition is achieved.  Sounds simple enough…but that can be a lot of dieting and your body just doesn’t like it.

The Boy and founder of stackingplates.com was the one to first convince me of the benefits of a refeed. I’d seen it implemented in other crazy people’s diet plans but to earn one required excessive restriction (like eating nothing but pounds of vegetables and low fat protein) for days before being allowed a ‘refeed’ of carbohydrates like oat bran and kabocha squash. Joy.

Have you ever even heard of kabocha squash? Exactly. Because you wouldn't go out of your way to eat it. So yeah…like I want to eat a bunch of that…

Refeeds just seemed like a load of complicated mumbo-jumbo to me and I never bothered with it. I figured if I wanted to over eat I would just do it and then get back to work. Seemed easier than all of the jumping hoops that seemed to be involved around getting this ‘refeed’ thing to work for me.

It turns out that the plans I was looking at were written by crazy people who kind of grasped the concept but not really. There is in fact a way to structure your dieting to make room for higher calorie days on a regular that would not hinder but in fact help assist your fat loss.

I would watch The Boy skeptically from a distance as he would ‘toggle’ his calories with lower and higher days throughout the week. It seemed a little odd to me but as his body composition continued to improve I started to ask more and more questions. I still wasn’t convinced that it would work for me. It seemed more likely that The Boy was some kind of robot from the future who only consumes calories just to blend in so it didn’t matter what he ate anyways…

That seemed a lot more likely than me being able to incorporate the foods I like into my daily eating AS WELL AS being able to have high calorie days on a diet.

But you can’t argue with evidence.

So The Boy explained it all to me and I figured why not. Worst case I try it for a few weeks and switch back!

Oh, how to explain the feeling of waking up after 5 lower calorie days to realize it’s a refeed day?

I made this illustration in the past but even that doesn’t cover it…

But to be honest my first refeed day ever didn’t begin that triumphant.

You see, I know that the good food bad food mentality is utter bullpoop. It wasn’t a matter of not being convinced that I could eat the foods that I wanted on the refeed day…but that I could really eat that much!

It was really hard for my little brain to wrap itself around the fact that eating a surplus of calories could help keep my body burning fat. I understood the psychological benefits but…fat loss?

Speaking of psychological, I have to admit that when dieting it is mentally easier for me to do the lower calorie days because it just feels ‘right’ on a diet. I don’t know what it is about chicks but it’s almost like deep down we don’t want to not be at a deficit because we may lose that demented satisfaction that comes from knowing you are able to tough out lower calorie days. 

You know…like how being on a diet can sometimes give you that feeling of being an incredibly brave warrior enduring famine and self denial all in the name of awesomeness.

This refeed was going to take that badge of honour away from me!

And if I’m reeeeaaaally honest, eating less just makes me feel skinnier! Try and flex your abs when you are full. Ok then.

But of course...that’s all crazy talk and at the end of the 5 days whether or not I want to admit it…I’m hungry and I’m ready to throw down.

So, ok Refeed. Let’s do this.

And so I did.

Due to the fact that I had so many calories to play with (my first refeed was just about 3000 calories) I could fit in ‘normal’ portions of high calorie foods like pizza and ice cream. Even with my reservations it was hard to not be enthusiastic about that!

It was like winning the lottery and my so called ‘badge of honour’ started to look more and more like the consolation prize I got for coming last in the potato sack race.

Two days of sweet surplus. Forget the linear deficit. This is where it is at.

The only thing left to do was weigh myself the next morning…

That’s another thing about us girls. Give us all the logic you want. You can give us the whole spiel of scale weight = muscle, fat, organs, bone, food, water etc.

It doesn’t matter.

To a lot of us the scale weighs how bad our mood is about to become. So the higher the number the more you should just GTFO of the way.

I don’t know what it is. Even when you are at peace with the scale…there’s always a thrill when seeing a lower number. Don’t judge me.

Miraculously I lost weight after the first day!

But admittedly the scale went back up the day after.

The bounce in scale weight threw me for a loop but I couldn’t ignore the fact that I definitely appeared leaner. I also had a whole bunch of energy to push even harder in the gym.

The next week around, the same thing happened. The scale went down, the scale went up and my body looked and felt a whole lot better. Not to mention the whole feel of the diet changed! I didn’t have that worn down solider feeling to my daily grind. I just…felt pretty good!

And average weight began to drop at a healthy rate. About a pound to half a pound a week at average which is ideal...

So…what can I say…The Boy was right. Again.

If you hadn't figured it out, you don’t have to do a calorie shifting protocol when dieting but it definitely has it’s benefits (psychological, hormonal, plateau busting) and isn’t a bunch of mumbo-jumbo like I once suspected. I can’t say I have experienced any negatives other than having to get around the post-refeed bump in weight (which is also a positive when you think about it!)

Aaaand it makes the weekend THAT MUCH FREAKING BETTER.