Here's how to do a refeed day, and my thoughts on cheat days while cutting.
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To lose weight we need to be a caloric deficit over time, this doesn't mean one single day but over the course of weeks and months.

So one way to go is a simple linear calorie deficit.

This is a standard approach to dieting, and it definitely works for most people.

Some days you might fall off track but for the most of the diet you're in that deficit until you hit the goal.

However, there are 2 scenarios where this linear dieting approach might not be the best option:

Scenario 1 - Some people just have a harder time with the calorie deficit. This can be due to genetics, lifestyle, and environment.

For example. Some will get more hungry, more stressed and feel very low energy on a diet.

This is often accompanied with less unconscious movement through NEAT, a bigger reduction in your metabolic rate and hormones such as leptin and testosterone.

Scenario 2 - Lean (~10% bodyfat for men), very active people that want to get even leaner.

Calories often go quite low which negatively influences training, general mood as well as a whole series of hormonal adaptations.

Learn more about those negative effects of going to 6% bodyfat at

So in both of these cases, refeeds can be useful.

What is a Refeed?

A refeed is a planned period of deliberately increasing calories.

Note: This is different than a planned diet break. Diet break is a full week or 2 going to maintenance calories that will help recover hormone levels and get you ready for another period of calorie deficit. And I highly recommend doing diet breaks every 8 - 10 weeks.

Refeeds don't have as much of an impact on reversing negative hormone adaptations as diet breaks but they can help slow down some of those.

But they can be very useful for regaining motivation, physical recovery, general mood and energy levels.

How To Do a Refeed Day?

1 - Increase the total calorie intake for that day 10% above maintenance.

If your maintenance is 2400 kcal/day you go to 2600 - 2700 kcal for this day.

2- Adjust the macro-nutrient composition.

- Very high carbohydrates
- Very low on fats (Under 30g that day)
- Keep the protein around 1g per lbs of ideal weight.

Refeed Day vs. Cheat Day:

Cheat days are often done without any calorie control or planning.

Stuffing your face with burgers, pizzas, and ice-cream with thousands of extra calories leads to re-gaining a lot of unnecessary bodyfat.

Also, it reinforces a poor relationship with food, labeling foods as bad and others as good/clean.

Why do we overfeed with Carbohydrates?

Carbs boost leptin levels far more than protein or fats.

Carbohydrate increase muscle glycogen and you can overfeed on carbs for short periods of time and gain less bodyfat.

Which type of carbs?

Starchy foods such as pasta, bread, potatoes or rice do a slightly better job boosting leptin.

I recommend that the majority of carbs (80-90%) be from minimally processed sources, and then 10-20% from processed foods.

Don't forget to eat your 4-5 servings of veggies.

How long to re-feed?

I recommend 1 day refeeds because it's a lot easier to do them properly than changing your whole diet for multiple days.

With 3 days in a row being the longest I would advise.

How often to re-feed?

At around 10% bodyfat you can re-feed every 3-5 days.

13 - 20% bodyfat, can't see your abs you can re-feed once a week or in 2 weeks depending on which stage of the diet you're in.

20%+ bodyfat refeed every 3 - 4 weeks when you feel like you need it.

I recommend refeeding on a training day so you can use that extra energy for heavy lifting and some of that extra can be used to build muscle.

My favorite is Pancakes + Apricot or Plum jam.

Pasta and Bread + cottage cheese are great as well.

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