Refeed days may provide a boost for people trying to maintain a caloric deficit for the purpose of weight loss, particularly when you’re working out consistently and trying to maintain muscle mass while losing fat.
Keep reading and we’ll explain to you what a refeed day is, the purported benefits of refeed days, and whether there really is any science to support these benefits.
What Is a Refeed Day?
A refeed day is a pre-planned day where you increase your calorie intake, while restricting calories on other days.
Let’s say you limit yourself to 2100 calories per day. With a refeed day, one day per week, you’d increase this to something like 2500-2700 calories, before returning to your regular diet the next day.
Some believe that refeed days can reduce some of the negative effects of long-term caloric restriction, and prevent weight loss plateaus that usually occur a little while into a diet.
Refeed Day vs Cheat Day
A refeed day sounds a lot like a cheat day, doesn’t it? So what’s the difference?
The difference between a refeed day and a cheat day is that you’re more deliberate about what you eat and how much you eat on a refeed day.
With a cheat day, you typically give yourself amnesty to break from your diet and eat whatever you want.
It’s like the purge – for 24 hours, there are no rules. The next day, it’s back to business as usual.
With a refeed day, you stay within the structure of your diet. It’s not “anything goes” – you’re still maintaining a reasonable calorie intake, and you’re not gorging yourself on junk food and whatever else you’ve been craving during the week.
Refeed days also typically prioritize a higher carb intake to make up a large share of the calorie increase.
In general, refeed days are much healthier than cheat days, and provide more potential benefits, though they take more planning and discipline to do right.
Potential Benefits of Refeed Days
Now let’s dive deeper into the possible benefits of having a refeed day.
Maintaining Metabolic Rate
The primary reason for refeed days is the idea that your body adapts to continued calorie restriction by slowing metabolism and thus decreasing the rate at which you burn calories.
This is known as “adaptive thermogenesis”, or sometimes called “starvation mode”.
The crux is that your body detects that it’s not getting as much energy coming in (i.e. calorie intake), so it adapts by slowing some biological processes to use less energy.
This is a valuable feature to have when you’re lost in the wilderness with little to eat, but not so much if you’re deliberately restricting your energy intake in order to lose weight.
A regular refeed day may prevent your body from going into starvation mode, maintaining a normal level of thermogenesis and preventing your metabolism from slowing down.
Faster or More Sustained Weight Loss
By preventing metabolism from slowing, refeed days may aid in weight loss.
When you’re in a sustained calorie deficit, your body produces less of a hormone called leptin.
Leptin is responsible for regulating energy intake and expenditure. It basically signals to the body whether or not you have adequate fat stores; low leptin levels makes your metabolism slow (reducing calorie expenditure) and increases appetite.
Periodic refeed days – particularly eating carb-rich foods – may help increase leptin, and thus regulate appetite and prevent your metabolism from slowing, which will increase (or maintain) the rate at which you burn fat.
Improved Performance
Refeed days may also help you maintain a higher level of performance in the gym.
There are trade offs to reducing your calorie intake, most notably that you’ll have less energy available from your diet.
A carb-heavy refeed day may partially offset this, by providing your body with more energy which it can store and access throughout the week, until your next refeed day.
Psychological Benefits
Like cheat days, refeed days may make it easier to maintain your diet by reducing the psychological impact of cutting out treats and comfort food.
Though you may maintain a strict diet most of the time, and you’re not going to let loose the same as you might with a cheat day, a refeed day gives you something to look forward to and means you don’t have to completely give up all the foods you love.
Do Refeed Days Really Work?
Research done into refeed days shows some evidence to support their benefits.
In one study, two groups were compared, one going through continuous caloric restriction, another doing five days of restriction followed by two refeed days, with higher carb intake in particular on these days.
There was little difference in body mass and fat mass between the two groups, but the refeed group did do better at maintaining fat-free mass and resting metabolic rate.
Yet other research into leptin changes and fasting showed that increased calorie intake provided only a short-term boost in leptin, indicating that one refeed day per week might not have a sustained difference on the production of this hormone.
Should You Incorporate Refeed Days Into Your Diet?
Ultimately, the research doesn’t conclusively show that refeed days will make a huge difference, but there are some signs to support their use.
Whether or not the science lines up, refeed days may still be helpful in terms of providing a healthier alternative to cheat days, satisfying cravings and helping you stick to a low-calorie diet for longer.
If you’re on a restrictive diet and you feel like a refeed day would help, then go for it. Otherwise, if you have no issues maintaining your existing diet, and you feel like it works, then there’s no reason to change.
How Often to Refeed
Refeed days can happen anywhere from twice a week, to once every two weeks.
It’s up to you to decide. Less frequent refeed days will mean a lower total calorie intake, which will likely mean a higher rate of weight loss but lower performance and higher difficulty to stick to your diet.
Doing your refeed days more often may result in slower progress in terms of weight loss. But it may work out better long-term, by making your diet more sustainable and allowing you to push harder in the gym.
How to Eat On Your Refeed Day
You want to eat more on your refeed day, but without going overboard like a full cheat day.
You typically increase calorie intake by 20-30% compared to your daily calories. That will likely mean an extra 400-600 above your baseline target.
Your diet on a refeed day should prioritize carbs, preferably complex carbohydrates from whole foods. Fill the rest of your meals with protein and fats as usual, and feel free to add a treat or two, as long as you keep within your extended calorie limit.
Also Read:
Is Body Recomposition Better Than Bulking?
