Our Transformation Programmes are between 8 and weeks long. If you are considering using one of our programmes to look great for a summer vacation, allow us to use this first paragraph to pre-emptively answer a question: No, we do not typically encourage our clients to use a refeed meal formerly and inappropriately termed cheat meal during their initial Transformation Programme. As you will learn after reading this blog, this tool is rarely a smart move across a short time period.
If you have ever tried to achieve a seriously lean physique, you will understand how impactful food craving can become. Refeeds are to the client, at least all about managing cravings and hitting pause , but not in the way you might expect.
Typically, the more ambitious your diet period of focus on losing body fat and the lower body fat you achieve, the more food cravings are a realistic challenge. Craving energy dense food is not the result of a plan you are following being unhealthy or unsustainable at least, not if the plan is well designed. When you are not receiving enough energy to sustain your current size, various feedback loops are in place to disrupt your new lifestyle pattern.
When experiencing genuine, strong hunger and daydreaming of your favourite energy dense food, your brain is compelling you to refill the fuel reserves fat cells that you are quickly depleting.
Leptin is a hormone produced by fat cells to help your body control and monitor both new and stored energy. As you deliberately consume less energy through your food, leptin signals your body to consume more. Leptin signalling increase hunger. Within our nutrition team, one of the most immediate tasks with clients who are pushing for impressive levels of body fat reduction is to control hunger. There are many ways and we have many tricks up our sleeve to manage your hunger day-to-day.
On our Transformation Programme, and in the shorter-term, refeeds are very rarely employeed. That being said, in the longer-term, occasionally planning to include some of the foods you crave can help increase fullness by encouraging fat cells to release more leptin.
This is the purpose of refeed days; to reduce leptin levels so that you no longer feel hungry. You consume significantly more energy kcals than is normal, causing your leptin levels to decrease and suppress your appetite.
This reduces the images of cookies and slices of red velvet cake dancing around your head whilst trying to concentrate at work. For those aspiring to incredible long-term results, a refeed day may be just the thing you need to get your body back on track for success. To achieve the most from your time in the gym and adherence to your nutrition plan in the longer-term, you must think of this tool as a refeed and not a cheat day. Cheat Meal: This is a day of very relaxed eating designed to help you deal with the psychological challenge of deprivation that can arise when dieting for longer time periods.
A smaller person than me would need far less. And a professional bodybuilder would need way, way more! It is a very individual thing and the best way to really learn is to experiment on yourself and track how your body responds. In terms of determining refeed levels, keep reminding yourself that the lower the leptin levels the more calories above daily maintenance will be required to spike them back up and shift the body into an optimal fat burning mode.
I was very flat, so a refeed day was in order for me. It may be that you need a refeed window that is much shorter. Either way, ensure you damn well deserve that refeed before you stuff your fat face — it is not an excuse for gross piggery! My own preferred option is to do a lot of early morning cardio on a Sunday and then refeed. That way I finally get to chill a bit, as dieting tends to wire me out a lot, especially as my body fat drops into single digits, plus the carbs can make you very sleepy, especially when you have gone without them for a while.
So a Sunday afternoon nap is often the order of the day, thus enhancing the restorative and recuperative qualities of a properly planned refeed.
Anyone who has ever been on a real diet and dropped their body fat down to the level that a refeed is necessary will tell you just how exhausting and draining a process it can be. I currently have the patience of a schizophrenic on PCP and the sex drive of a neutered flea.
What a refeed and the consequent spiking of my depleted leptin levels does for me is make me feel more like a fully functioning human being again. At least for 48 hours anyway! Increasing leptin raises my liver glycogen levels, boosts testosterone, Growth Hormone and thyroid levels, whilst simultaneously reducing cortisol output.
All in all this turns one into a fat burning, muscle building machine! I truly believe that the correct use of the refeed principle has been a key component to me leaning up so aggressively whilst not really dropping any actual bodyweight.
Basically I have achieved the Holy Grail of simultaneously adding muscle and losing fat. And for the females amongst you, hard dieting and lower body fat levels play havoc with menstruation and fertility levels. On top of this there is the additional issue of osteoporosis for very lean women, so regular refeeds can be of massive benefit here.
Where do I begin with the pitfalls of incorporating a refeed into your fat loss programme! And while all diets should have some room for indulgence, it's sometimes necessary to keep your eyes on the prize if you want to see results. That might be why dieters and clean eaters alike have latched on to the concept of regular "refeeding" days. Never heard of 'em? Here's what you need to know. Basically, that means you up your calories temporarily to compensate for eating less or exercising more.
Most often, this strategy is used by people who are counting macros or following a lower-carb eating style, such as the keto diet or paleo eating style. Usually, a "refeed" is done once a week by increasing carbohydrate intake to bring total calories for the day up to weight maintenance level, as opposed to eating at a caloric deficit for weight loss.
Why do this? Well, in theory, upping your carb intake occasionally helps reduce the likelihood of hitting a plateau with weight loss. While it might sound like a "cheat day," it's really not. And though refeed days have been used by athletes for a long time, they seem to be gaining traction at the moment. While some people are able to stick to keto long-term, many crave carbs after a while, and having a refeed day occasionally can help people stick with it, Upton says.
The same goes for other eating styles that may reduce carbs or overall caloric intake.
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