Left is from April 11th, 2017 and right is May 13th, 2017 4 weeks apart with a 4 lb and 450 calorie difference…what’s the best part? That I increased my calories AND went down in weight 👏💪👍 Left 131 lbs eating 1350 calories and right 127 lbs eating 1800 calories
Building lean muscle with my reverse diet has been my main goal, but ummm also me wanting to be able to eat a lot more without gaining weight has been an amazing goal I’ve been tackling!! The pictures may not look too different but the way I feel and my strength in the gym has been amazing! Being able to eat more has been awwesomeeeee because 1) I’m SUCH a foodie just give me all the foods!!!! 😛😛 and 2) more food with more carbs has given me so much more energy to put into my workouts to build more lean muscle! I’ve cut back on HIIT cardio to once every 1-2 weeks depending on my body’s reaction to more calories, but I know that putting in the work to build more muscle is what’s going to get me leaner than cardio ever will 💪👌🙌
The 3rd reason that adding in calories has been great is that I am feeling less stressed about going out to eat wth friends and family m. Having more calories to play with definitely allows for more flexibility and this keeps me soooo happy ❤️
Knowing that I can have fun foods 🍟🍔🍩🍰🍺🍷, incorporated with my healthy and nutrient dense foods 🍊🍌🍓🥝🥑🥒🥔🍳🍞, and I WILL NOT gain weight as long as I stay within my macronutrient goals has been mind blowing!! This balance with my nutrition has been such an amazing breath of fresh air compared with all of the other fad diets that just aren’t sustainable.
If you count macros and haven’t changed them in a while I encourage you to play with them! I was SO nervous about gaining weight so I started off slow by adding in an extra 5-10g of carbs every 2 weeks, at first I went up a pound because my body was holding on to more water from the extra carbs. But after a week or so the scale started to go down so then I got more aggressive with adding in more calories and carbs 🙌🙌🙌 Because like really who doesn’t want to eat more food?!