One of my personal training clients seeking to lose weight recently queried me about a theory regarding a “refeed day”. I was not particularly familiar with the concept, so I embarked upon some research to find out about this refeeding concept.
Let’s begin with a run-down of how a typical weight loss programme with a refeed day is structured. As is well supported by scientific evidence, weight loss occurs when your body is placed within a caloric deficit (consuming less calories than what you expend). The concept of the refeed programme is to place your body in a calorie deficit for approximately three days straight, then into a calorie overload (eating more than what you expend) for one day, then repeat.
The rationale behind this approach is straight forward on the surface. In essence, the “refeed day” acts as a tool to buffer against your body becoming “used to” the caloric deficit. So in a similar manner to your exercise programme needing to be updated regularly to avoid a plateau, so should your diet. Further, the refeed day is full of carbohydrate and fat. The carbs will assist in replenishing lost glycogen stores (from the “diet” days), while the additional fats will also promote a healthy hormonal balance to enhance muscle development and fat oxidation.
I obtained this information from a number of sources. One was a PDF that was written by a fitness professional (forwarded to me by my client who was querying this approach). The other sources were all located in a Google search.
Having a background in science, I am quite sceptical of a new approach by nature. That’s just how scientists are trained, for the scientific method requires deep analysis and scrutinising of experiments and results. So I decided to delve deeper and research the only reliable sources of information that could shed some light on this topic – respected scientific literature. So onto Google Scholar I ventured and then through some scientific databases to unveil the research behind this refeeding approach to dieting.
Something interesting occurred within this research. After some comprehensive searching, I found that there was absolutely no research on the topic that I came across. There was not one study which compared the effectiveness of a “refeed dietary programme” versus a consistent calorie deficit, with respect to fat loss and/or muscle gain.
There is always the possibility that I did miss something, so I contacted a very highly respected leader in the industry – Dr Len Kravitz, a leading researcher at the University of New Mexico, of whom I have seen present a number of times in Sydney. After querying him on the topic to see if he could point me in the right direction, he confirmed that there is no research on this area of weight loss.
So based on the lack of any research, it is safe to assume that all of these refeeding days for weight loss diets are completely unsubstantiated. While they may sound great in theory, they have never been tested and compared in an objective and controlled manner to the well accepted “calorie deficit” approach.
There may be some compelling arguments for the refeed day, though these seem to be purely based on assumptions by linking together bits and pieces of otherwise completely unrelated scientific facts. In a sense, this is just like saying that while beef, ice cream, salmon and pea’s may all taste good in isolation, the combination of the individual products do not necessarily produce the expected result. (Oh and no, I haven’t tried these ingredients together!)
Now that’s not to say that a refeeding approach will not work. The point I am making here is that a refeeding diet is not backed by any scientific research. Therefore we cannot draw any accurate conclusions as to the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of such an approach to weight loss. If you come across a website purporting that a refeeding diet is necessarily the most effective way to lose weight, please request the source of this information, for there are likely to be two possibilities:
- Some research has been overlooked within this article (in which case I would love to review this)
- The directions on the website have been written blindly based on inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims
Always be careful when you conduct your research.
Even if a refeed approach was shown to be effective, from my professional experience, I do feel that typically a refeeding approach to weight loss would be quite ineffective in the long-term. Most people struggle with consistency with nutrition, so by varying up the nutrition every few days, this would make it much more difficult to develop a healthier eating routine. This of course is a very general statement and individuals would vary greatly.
On a final note, while I am certainly not convinced of any physiological benefits of a refeeding day, this is not to say that there are no psychological benefits associated with such an approach. Dr Kravitz identified this as an important point within his reply which I do strongly believe is a valuable take-home point. If you are at the point where you have been “stuck” with your weight loss endeavours, why not try something new? The mind is a powerful tool, and just the very nature of changing something up could act as a catalyst for change. Weight loss is all about consistency and staying motivated toward your goals. Something as simple as this may just do the job in turning you optimistic once again with your weight loss endeavours.
My thanks to Dr Kravitz for his assistance on this topic.
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