All About Refeeds

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By Shannon Clark

While most people are familiar with the concept of a 'cheat day' when they are dieting, whether they plan one in regularly on their diet or they just happen to have one accidentally every so often, fewer people know about the concept of a refeed.

A refeed is quite similar to a cheat day except that is more structurally planned and is specifically set out to coincide with your diet and exercise program.

The thing with lower calorie diets is that after you are on one for a prolonged period of time, you'll start to see your metabolism drop. This drop in the metabolism makes weight loss slow to a halt, sends cravings for food through the roof and can make you feel weak, lethargic and all around not well. Implementing a refeed into the diet often solves some of these concerns.

The first thing to know about a refeed is that it is not just about eating any food you want. That is what a cheat day is and while it can also accomplish some of the goals a refeed can, it also has a higher tendency to promote fat gain than the refeed does. Furthermore, the refeed is set-up so as to aide in exercise results as well. Often you will plan them around your more strenuous workouts in order to make the most use of the nutrients you consume. This is touched briefly upon in the article on depletion workouts.

How Often To Do A Refeed

How often you perform a refeed will largely depend on how hard you are dieting and your current body fat levels. The lower you are in body fat the more frequently you will have to do the refeeds as your body is going to start fighting you harder and harder to lose the additional fat. When you are very lean, your body will be trying its absolute hardest to maintain what little fat it has left so the metabolism will begin slow to a greater extent than say if you were sitting around 25% body fat. This is a big issue that fitness competitors and bodybuilder's have to deal with as they normally get down to the low teen digits for women or single digits for men right before competing.

Likewise, the longer you go on a diet the more likely you will need to refeed as well. If you have been on a lowered calorie intake for a number of weeks, this again will affect your metabolism in a negative way - more so than if you have only been eating lower calories for two to three days.

Most average individuals (not incredibly lean but not overweight either), will want to do a refeed about every two weeks. This should help keep them on track with their diet, help prevent severe food cravings from setting in, help reduce some of the fatigue that is felt and help provide a psychological break from the diet (although to a lesser extent than say a full fledged cheat day would).

Luckily the types of foods you eat on a refeed are really quite similar to those that you eat on a cheat day so for most people, they will get a fairly good amount of psychological relief from this in itself.

What Should You Eat On A Refeed

With regards to what foods you should be eating on a refeed, it will be similar to the types that were described in the postworkout meals after a depletion workout - higher in carbohydrates and moderate in protein. You will want to stay away from additional fat as much as possible on this day however as since you will be in a surplus already, when you add fat to this meal there is a higher chance that the calories you over eat will be stored as fat, rather than going into the muscle cells (since the muscle cells can only hold so much, the spill-over from the additional fat will then go to fat stores). While it is best to keep calories coming from as clean sources as possible such as whole wheat breads, pasta's, rice, whole grain cereals, oats and sweet potatoes, do not be afraid to have some higher carb-lower fat foods that you like (sweetened cereals, perogies, French toast with syrup, bagels and so on). As calories are likely to be quite high on this day, you may need these calorie dense foods to help you reach your calorie goal without becoming overly stuffed and bloated.

How much you want to eat again depends on what your current diet has looked like and where you are sitting in terms of body fat. The longer you have been dieting, the higher number of calories you should likely aim for (although a better solution here would be to diet for a shorter period of time and then introduce more frequent, smaller sized refeeds). Generally most people should aim for about 1.5 times their maintenance amount of calories (notice that was maintenance and not dieting levels). So if you weigh 150 pounds, you have a maintenance of roughly 2250 calories (150 X 15), so you will aim to eat 3375 calories total that day. Set your protein intake to one gram of protein per pound of body weight (150 grams or 600 calories) and then your fat intake will likely be mostly incidental (fats that come from your carbohydrate or protein sources) and the remainder would be carbohydrates. This usually works out to between 4-5 grams of carbohydrates per pound of body weight. If you like, you can do a refeed over the period of two days, however if that is your choice, drop the total carbohydrate intake down (as well as total calorie intake) slightly and then again lower it on the next day. So your might aim for 1.3 X maintenance on day one and 1.2 X maintenance on day two.

One thing to prepare yourself for is the fact that you likely will gain weight the day after the refeed. Relax in knowing however that this gain will almost definitely be temporary as it is just your body holding excess water from the increase in carbohydrate intake. Especially if you have been on a low carbohydrate diet, when you then all of a sudden drastically up your intake, your body will hold a great deal of water with each carbohydrate you take in (four grams of water per gram of carbohydrate approximately). This can add to significant amounts on the scale (2-5 pounds is not uncommon). Within a day or two though, as you move back to your usual diet your body will then eliminate this extra water and you will find your weight returning to where it was before.

The best part is however that after the refeed, some people actually notice that they look considerably leaner than before. This is partially due to their metabolism speeding up again and kick starting the fat loss process. Be sure that you drink lots of water during and after the refeed as contrary to what you may think, this will actually help you retain less water and get you back to your usual weight again.

So if you've been dieting quite hard for a while now, it likely is definitely time you added a refeed to your program. You simply cannot stay on a diet indefinitely and continue to expect to see results. The body does not like this and will fight you a great deal of the time, trying to maintain homeostasis at it's current weight level.

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