Why do so many health influencers and coaches promote refeeds or ‘diet breaks’ in an effort to combat the inevitable metabolic slowdown and willpower depletion that arises with prolonged dieting, even though there is scant to zero evidence to suggest they work?
Any metabolic boost from the refeed, however small, is negated by net weight gain. Think about it: It were possible ‘eat your way out of obesity,’ how do people get fat in the first place?
Metabolism falls off a cliff when the refeed is stopped, and the client is fatter and has to lose the extra weight with the same sluggish metabolism as before. There is almost no evidence–studies or even anecdotal–to suggest refeeds make dieting easier or accelerates weight loss when the refeed ends. At best, the evidence is mixed.
Of course, in the top comments of such videos and blogs, you will find testimonials of people who claim to have had success with diet breaks, but this is classic survivorship bias. Had the video argued against diet breaks, the top comments would be the opposite. Out of the thousands of people who watch a video, it’s statistically certain at least some will be successful, regardless of the method or program used. And what does success mean? That you lost the weight you regained? Good job, I guess.
When the client regains weight from the refeed, he or she needs to book even more months of coaching to lose the added weight, in addition to wasted time and money for the refeed itself. So this can mean 3 months of coaching for the refeed and 5-6 months to lose the weight. How convenient for the coach and a big waste for the client.
Overall, refeeds are a way for unethical coaches milk their desperate clients for more money. The client, not knowing any better and short of options, trusts the coach’s authority, but is only setting back his or her progress and wasting money. Diet breaks may be a personal preference that can work for some, but there is no reason to pay for it.