In contrast, a refeed day involves thoughtful planning and controlled food intake. Unlike cheat days, only a moderate increase in calories is permitted, and the type of food matters, as most refeed days emphasize calories from carbs over fats and protein 2 , 3.
While refeed days can vary from person to person, the main goal is to eat in a calorie surplus in a controlled manner. A refeed day is a temporary break from calorie restriction that involves a controlled day of overeating with a focus on carbs. It aims to counteract the negative effects of calorie restriction and aid weight loss. You may wonder why a temporary calorie surplus would lead to weight loss, but the reasoning behind it addresses one of the main problems most people have when losing weight — a weight loss plateau or slowdown.
At this time, your body will begin to look for ways to reduce it as much as possible to limit weight loss 2 , 3. In particular, a hormone known as leptin begins to decline.
Leptin is produced by fat cells and tells your body that it has adequate fat stores, helping regulate appetite and encouraging calorie burning 2 , 3 , 5 , 6. As a result, your body receives signals to eat more food and burn fewer calories. This process is known as adaptive thermogenesis 2 , 3 , 5.
During this process, your body releases various hormones and increases food cravings to push you to consume more calories 2 , 3 , 7. Additionally, the rate at which you burn calories can change. EAT involves deliberate physical activity while NEAT includes any energy used for daily tasks, such as walking, fidgeting, and general movement.
Other components of your energy expenditure include your basal metabolic rate BMR and the thermic effect of food TEF 2 , 3. Due to the changes that occur as you lose weight, you may feel less energetic about exercise, opt for the elevator instead of taking the stairs, and move less in general.
Combined, the reduction in the number of calories you burn and increase in calorie intake lowers the likelihood of continued weight loss 2 , 3 , 7. Carbs are the main focus of refeed days due to their superior ability to increase leptin levels, compared with fats or proteins. Refeed days may elevate hormone levels, such as leptin, reducing the effects of adaptive thermogenesis, a survival process that has been shown to slow weight loss.
When people are trying to lose weight , they may see immediate results initially, but this is usually followed by a period during which no weight loss occurs. This is partially due to a survival process called adaptive thermogenesis 9. By feeding your body excess calories mostly in the form of carbs, your leptin levels temporarily increase, which may prevent adaptive thermogenesis from interfering with your weight loss However, more research is needed to better understand the effects of temporary refeeding and leptin levels 3.
Most research has found that food restriction ultimately leads to overeating or binging , which is why cheat days have become popular in the fitness community 4. 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! Refeeds are predominantly very heavy in carbohydrates. So when refeeds are heavier in carbohydrates leptin levels will increase more than if you had eaten an excess of calories from proteins, fats or fructose.
For the individual who is of a higher body fat level, who is simply adding in 50 to g of carbohydrates in their final few meals of the day, they may wish to use slower-digesting, higher fibre carbohydrates such as rice, potatoes, pasta or even bread if they can digest it well.
However, for those who are holding extremely low body fat levels and trying to hit a high carbohydrate target, they may wish to use carbohydrates that are very fast-digesting and very carbohydrate-dense in nature. Using myself as an example, I was ordered by my coach to have a refeed of g of carbohydrates in a 6 hour window when I was 4 weeks out.
To sum up refeeds are a great way to boost your metabolism and keep fat burning going after extended periods of calorie restriction. The leaner you get the more you will benefit from longer heavier refeeds in order to keep fat burning up. Both groups did gain weight, and they were returned to their maintenance level diet. During the maintenance level diet, the levels of T3 within the high-carb group were higher than that of the low-carb diet group.
Then, when they put the low-carb folks on a high-carb maintenance diet, their levels of T3 rose 1. When they compared the diets directly with the amounts of T3 they produced on any given day, each succeeding level of carbohydrate intake seemed to progressively improve T3 production directly. This showed that increasing carbs, regardless of the calorie and macronutrient totals, seemed to show greater T3 production 2. Yet another study showed that after 4 days of fasting in obese subjects, T3 levels declined significantly.
After the fast, some were given diets of mostly protein or mostly fat, but neither of those restored their T3 levels. When they were given a mixed diet of protein, carbs, and fat, however, T3 levels rose significantly.
Leptin is a hormone discovered in by Jeffrey M. Friedman, Ph. Its role is to regulate weight through means of controlling appetite. The short version of all the science mumbo-jumbo is that the more fat you have in your fat cells, the higher your leptin levels; the leaner you are, the less leptin you secrete. Leptin levels have a huge impact on the dieting process because as a result of dieting and losing body fat, leptin decreases as a result.
Lowered leptin levels tell the brain the body needs food, making you hungry and more likely to overeat and sabotage your dieting efforts.
One of the main advantages of a refeed is the ability to give you a bump in a hormone called leptin. And when you eat more, you will probably gain some body fat, thusly restoring some leptin in the process. However, high-carb meals have been shown in the research to improve leptin levels more so than a high fat meal. On a diet, your body is pulling energy from 3 potential sources: fat body and ingested , carbohydrates stored as glycogen and muscle tissue or ingested protein.
Ideally, you want your body burning body fat and carbohydrates, never protein. So if you train hard, which requires glycogen carbs , and you restrict carbohydrates too much, your body will have to turn protein either what you ate, or your muscle tissue into glucose for fuel.
And turning protein into glucose sugar is a costly process. In short, carb refeeds are for anyone who is dieting and wants to have a more methodical approach to losing fat. This will depend on the individual, how much fat you have to lose, starting body weight, and how steep your dietary deficit is.
To start with the best foods, you want to focus most of your eating on carbohydrates, particularly what we call lean carbs. Lean carbs are those sources with very little to no fat and are primarily starchy with a small amount of fruit. The next thing you want to think about is how full these foods will make you feel. Any foods that tend to make you bloated or upset your stomach should be avoided at all costs.
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