Refeed

REFEED DAYS AND DIET BREAKS

When you are dieting down for extended periods of time, weight loss will eventually start to slow down and plateau. It could be that you just need to reduce calories more and increase activity more, but that eventually hits a ceiling where you cannot cut deeper or push harder. When you hit that wall, you progressively feel worse and worse the harder you push with activity and calorie reduction.

This is when refeed days and diet breaks can come in handy. I generally recommend refeed days as the go to solution, but sometimes diet breaks are good too.

Refeed Days

To do a proper refeed day, you need to plan out your calories and macros:

• One day a week eat at around maintenance calories
• Eat as low fat as you possibly can (perhaps 20-50g of fat)
• Eat your normal protein amount (around 0.6-1.0g protein/lb body weight)
• The rest of the remaining calories come from carbs

If you don’t know your maintenance calories, use my TDEE calculator to find out.

I have a refeed calculator to make the calculation easier.

EXAMPLE:

• Note: 1g carbs = 4 cals, 1g protein = 4 cals, 1g fat = 9 cals
• WEIGHT = 200lbs
• TDEE = 3000 calories
• Fat = 40g = 360 calories
• Protein = 160g = 640 calories
• Then reverse calculate the carbs with your remaining calories:
• Carbs = 3000 cals – 360 cals – 640 cals = 2000 calories = 500g carbs

Refeed days are not cheat days, however they are glorious days. You will feel amazing after doing a refeed day. You will also probably gain 1-5lbs of food and water weight. Don’t stress because it should come right back off after 2-3 days. The weight gained is not fat.

Plan out your refeed days in advance. Think about all the delicious carbs you would like to eat. Use MFP to find low fat carbs. My favorites carb sources are:

• Bagels and jam
• Pancakes and syrup
• Oatmeal with eggs and syrup
• Fruit and fruit juice
• Cottage cheese and jam
• Pasta (red sauce dishes)
• Rice based dishes

You don’t need to refeed very often if you still have a lot of weight to lose, you are not very active, and you barely weight lift. If that sounds like you, then you can just refeed once or twice a month.

If you’re fairly active, been dieting down for many months, using a very steep calorie deficit (35% TDEE deficit or more), starting to get lean, lifting a lot of weights, etc., then you should refeed more often such as 4-8 times per month. 8 refeeds a month is really reserved for people who are going the extreme route with very deep deficits + very active + getting great ab definition already. If that doesn’t sound quite like you, then stick to 4 times per month (once per week).

You could also just go by feel for when you feel like your body is hitting walls of exhaustion and your workouts are going downhill fast. Then just reactively do a refeed day within the next few days.

Refeeds help reset your hormones (mainly leptin). When you’re dieting down for a long period of time, your leptin levels slowly drop. It signals your body that you are losing too much weight and it’s time to start conserving energy. Your body will react by being more sluggish, being more lethargic, getting hungrier, etc. Carbs are one of the best ways to raise leptin back up. Also, carbs will help replenish depleted glycogen stores in your muscles and give you better quality workouts after a refeed day.

Diet Breaks

Diet breaks are similar to refeed days in that it’ll reset your body’s hormones and replenish glycogen stores. Diet breaks are extended periods of time where you eat at maintenance calories. Just eat at maintenance calories for about 2 weeks. Understand that you’ll likely gain 5-10lbs back during this time. It’s not going to be much fat. It’ll mostly be food and water weight. Do not stress about it. Once you start dieting back down again, you should be able to resume weight loss fairly easily. Diet breaks are a good alternative to refeeds if refeeds are not helping you very much.

“Great I’m ready to do my cheat day!” Pump the brakes! Refeed days are NOT cheat days. Diet breaks are NOT cheat weeks. Refeed days and diet breaks are CONTROLLED overfeeding days. Cheat days are uncontrolled calorie fests. Cheat days are good for a mental break because of social events (E.g., birthday parties, family gatherings, etc.). However, a cheat day every other day is a failure to adhere to your diet. Refeed days are controlled events to reset hormones.

The other main difference is refeed days need to be very low fat and very high carb. Cheat days tend to be moderate carb and high fat. During a caloric overfeeding, most fat calories will be stored as fat, whereas the carbs will be used to replenish energy stores and reset hormones. That is why carbs need to be high and fat needs to be low. There’s a big difference!

Ideally, if you know you’re going to need a cheat day once a week because you have a weekly social event, then try to plan for that cheat day to at least look more like a refeed day with higher carbs, less fat, and aiming for around maintenance calories.

Should I do a refeed day or a diet break?

It depends on your preference and life goals. My rules of thumb are:

Do a refeed day if you:

• still want to maintain your current diet and gym momentum
• don’t like taking long breaks
• enjoy the feeling of a large feast
• love carbs
• don’t mind the extra mental work for planning a refeed day

Do a diet break if you:

• have an inevitable disruption from your normal life (e.g., a vacation)
• have holidays coming up
• need a mental break from tracking everything for a few weeks
• feel ok with winging it when it comes to watching what you eat

Both refeed days and diet breaks have their place in someone’s life. I will refeed 1x a week when I feel like I have momentum with my diet and gym progress. I will diet break during the Christmas/New Year’s holidays and just wing it. I’ll refeed when I have a once a week family dinner event and just prioritize high carb food. I’ll diet break when I get sick and can’t hit the gym for a week or two. See what works best for your life! Feed your brain and feed your body!

Watch this refeed video where I go over an example refeed scenario.