Do You Need a “Re-Feed” Day?
Will it help your weight loss goals?
Ben Greenfield
One sports and fitness nutrition term that gets thrown around a bit these days is “re-feed day.”
When you are on a diet or you are restricting calories, you may find that by the end of a week of “perfect” eating, you feel drained, experience less energetic workouts, or begin to crave every food in sight. Often, that is because your body is depleted of storage energy, especially carbohydrates. In addition, you may have reached your mental breaking point of being able to eat perfectly.
The solution is the concept of a re-feed day. What that means is that you choose one day of the week to actually eat more calories than you’re burning, thus giving your muscles a chance to re-fuel with storage carbohydrate, your mind a chance to experience extra food or cheat meals, and your body a chance to adequately prepare for the next week’s workouts.
So if you’re trying to burn fat and build muscle at the same time, and you’re restricting calories every day, try to include a re-feed day at least once a week and you’ll have better workouts and better results.
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About the Author
Ben Greenfield received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from University of Idaho in sports science and exercise physiology; personal training and strength and conditioning certifications from the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA); a sports nutrition certification from the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), an advanced bicycle fitting certification from Serotta. He has over 11 years’ experience in coaching professional, collegiate, and recreational athletes from all sports, and as helped hundreds of clients achieve weight loss and fitness success.