The best way to make the transition is gradually, over four to six weeks. By the end of your diet, you'll have a very accurate idea of your daily calorie shortfall, calculated from the trend line. Eventually, you want to increase your food intake to bring the shortfall to zero, but not all at once. If you suddenly added back the entire shortfall, you'd gain weight because your fat cells continued to pump calories into the bloodstream and your metabolism remained adjusted for a lower calorie intake.
Instead, divide the calorie shortfall over a number of weeks, and each week add that number of calories to your meal plan. For example, suppose the trend chart for the last full month of your diet indicated a shortfall of 560 calories a day. For a four week transition you'd divide that number by 4, obtaining 140 calories. Add that number of calories to your meal plan each week of the transition period. If you'd planned meals for 1720 calories a day in the last month of the diet, you'd plan the four weeks of transition as follows.
| Week | Calories |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1860 |
| 2 | 2000 |
| 3 | 2140 |
| 4 | 2280 |
You'll arrive, at the end of the four weeks, at a food intake equal to the calories you were burning during the last month of your diet.
By John Walker