Refeeds: Why It Is Recommended to Eat Pasta When Dieting

If you ever had been on a serious diet for an extended period of time you had, at some point, hit a plateau, where it seemed like there was an invisible wall separating you from your target goal. The common sense then would be to cut some carbs or fats to reduce the calorie intake even more, right? WRONG!

See, the longer you are on a calorie deficient diet, the more likely your metabolism and hormonal balance will suffer. The body recognizes such a prolonged state of dieting as starvation and will do whatever it takes to hold on to the reserve energy that is as we know stored as fat. It will also excrete more stress hormone, cortisol, into the system. The hormone leptin, is responsible for regulation of energy expenditure and preservation, as well as controlling metabolic rate drops, slows down your metabolism and you burn less calories. If you cut the calories even more at this point, you will only dig a metabolic grave for yourself. So what's the solution? Refeeds! Pasta, pretzels, bread and many other high carb and low fat foods! Are you thinking I am crazy yet? Isn't it a taboo to eat all these foods? Not at all and here is why:

In order to boost your leptin levels back to normal you need to show your body that you are NOT in a starvation mode. Leptin drops when the muscle glycogen is running low. This means that in order to boost it back to the healthy level, you will need to replenish your glycogen stores. And the way to do it is to eat carbs!

You will need mostly high glycemic carbs that act fast and that can cause high insulin spikes. Insulin is a storage hormone and is very anabolic, which is great, as dieting hard will promote catabolism in the body (basically, the body will start eating at itself). Insulin will pull you out of the catabolic hole and you will continue burning fat afterwards.

One of the purposes of refeeds is to replenish your muscle glycogen stores. But how do you know when they are replenished? The easiest way to know this is to spill over. Carbohydrates stored in muscles as glycogen will attract water (1g carbs = 3g water). When muscle has no room to fit additional water, it will spill over into the fat cells. You will look a little bit bloated but it's OK, because when you will get back to your regular diet you will flush the water out in 2-3 days and meanwhile, burn more fat. 2-3 days later you will be leaner!

Refeeds are not the same as cheat days and there is a certain protocol you should follow to fully benefit from it.

1. Try your best to eliminate ALL the fat during the refeed. Leptin responds well to carbs and not fat and therefore fats are not a good idea during a refeed. Eliminating fats will also ensure that you are not eating too many calories that will set you back in your progress.
2. Generally, a refeed consists of at least triple the amount of carbs you eat on a regular basis.
3. If you are on a carb rotating diet, you do not need refeeds, as your refeed on your higher carb days.
4. Try to limit the ingestion of fructose. Fruits, corn syrup, table sugar, fruit juices, dried fruit should be brought down to the minimum. Fructose will replenish the glycogen only in the liver and not in the muscle, making it a poor choice for a refeed.
5. Limit dairy intake to the minimum as well.
6. Bring the protein intake down to 1g per pound of your body weight.
7. Better food choices for a refeed are: pasta, white rice, cereal (Kashi), low fat bagels and muffins and breads.
8. If you are new to refeeds, I would suggest starting with clean carbs, such as brown rice, sweet potato and oatmeal to see how it works for you. Keep in mind that these are slower acting carbs and it will take you longer to fill out, but it's still a good start.
9. In order to boost leptin one or two carb meals are not enough. You will have to refeed for 8-16 hours, depending on how depleted your glycogen stores are.
10. The lower the body fat percentage of the individual is, the faster they burn through carbs. Therefore, leaner individuals need to refeed more often. Personally, when on a diet I refeed every 2-3 days when my bodyfat drops below 8% mark. I schedule them every Sunday and Thursday.

If you are a hard dieter and you wish to keep burning fat, then you need the refeeds. They will break through the plateaus, boost your metabolism and will keep you healthy and sane. Using this technique and following the steps described above, you will be able to stay on a diet for a longer period of time and will burn way more fat, compared to the "no refeed diets". Try it out and get shredded!