Reverse Diet Calorie Calculator

Enter your current calories, weekly increase, and duration to plan your reverse diet.

Result

2,400 kcal/day
600 kcal
33.33%

How it is calculated

The plan is a straight line: you raise the daily calorie target by the same amount each week. total increase = weekly increase × weeks, final calories = current calories + total increase and percent increase = total increase ÷ current calories × 100. Current calories is what you eat per day now, weekly increase is the kcal added each week, and weeks is the number of weekly steps. Current calories must be above zero, and the increase and weeks cannot be negative. Results are rounded to whole kcal. The tool does not know your maintenance level, so it cannot tell you when to stop; compare the final figure with your own estimate of maintenance. It is a planning tool, not medical or nutritional advice.

Worked example

You eat 1,800 kcal a day now and plan to add 75 kcal each week for 8 weeks. Total increase: 75 × 8 = 600 kcal. Final intake: 1,800 + 600 = 2,400 kcal/day. As a percentage: 600 ÷ 1,800 × 100 = 33.33%. The weekly targets would then be 1,875, 1,950, 2,025 and so on, up to 2,400 in week 8.

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Common mistakes

  • Entering the target calories as the weekly increase. The field is the amount added each week, such as 75, not the number you want to reach.
  • Entering calories per week instead of per day. Both the current intake and the increase are daily values.
  • Using an increase larger than your plan really allows. A weekly step of 300 in 8 weeks adds 2,400 kcal, which is far more than the same tool shows for 75.
  • Treating the final number as your maintenance calories. The tool just adds up the steps; it does not estimate maintenance from your body or activity.
  • Counting weeks wrongly. 8 weeks means 8 increases, so the final week's intake is the full total.

About this calculator

Reverse dieting is a structured approach to gradually raising calorie intake after a period of dieting, increasing calories by a small fixed amount (commonly 50-100 calories) on a set schedule (often weekly) rather than jumping straight back to maintenance calories all at once, calculated simply as target calories = current calories + (weekly increase × number of weeks).

The approach is widely used by physique and strength athletes coming off a prolonged calorie deficit — such as after competition prep — as a way to restore metabolic rate and hormone levels (including leptin and thyroid hormones, which tend to downregulate during extended dieting) while minimizing the rapid fat regain that often follows an abrupt return to higher calories. Coaches also use gradual reverse dieting to help clients build a more sustainable maintenance level rather than swinging between aggressive cuts and unstructured 'off-season' eating.

Start from today's daily calories, add the weekly increase you plan, set the number of weeks, and you see where intake ends up, a simple map for climbing back to maintenance step by step.

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