Article on gaining weight back

Russellb97

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html


" A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. "


Here's where they haven't connected the dots. Many of these articles on leptin and starvation mode tell us that leptin drops when body fat percentage is low. It is true that leptin is in our fat cells so this seems logical, yet really fit people with low bf% like myself aren't in Starvation Mode. My leptin is just fine, while these participants who even after losing weight had very high bf% numbers have low leptin levels and are indeed in Starvation Mode.
What makes this happen is NOT a low or a drop in BF%
It's the constant days of living with a caloric deficit!

If these participants were to start overeating their leptin levels would increase. I found one study today that showed leptin increases around 50% with a 12 hour overfeeding after a short fasting period. The science is there, I connected these dots several years ago because I lived it. The answer to this problem is Spiking.

*When you are at low BF% our body does play mean tricks to try and get us to gain weight, but I personally only struggle when I'm around 8% BF. The above is different, these participants don't have low BF%, and I didn't when I lost 100lbs either.

Russellb97

Another article on Leptin, with sources to studies.

http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/research/leptinmem.htm

The important cliff notes here are:
Leptin helps regulate hunger and metabolism. It was first dubbed as the "anti-obesity" hormone, but it's more like the "anti-starvation" hormone

Having a calorie deficit (diet and exercise) decreases Leptin!

In the trial below, In a caloric deficit Leptin dropped by up to 50% after just 7 days!
Even though they lost weight, this could have a negative impact later on when we try to maintain weight loss.
Leptin drops and hunger goes up, metabolism goes down.

When overfed, Leptin increase is far greater than any fat gained. If these people had been in a caloric deficit prior to the overfeeding, then the odds are that their glycogen was depleted and the excess calories from overfeeding are first stored there.

"During the 5th to 10th hour of overfeeding, there was a 40% increase in Leptin that persisted through the morning and continued beyond. Unfortunately, the researchers only measured out Leptin levels until the morning. We don’t know how long the Leptin remained elevated."


"A day or two of controlled overfeeding will raise leptin levels and can help you avoid some of the metabolic adaptations inherent with any type of restricted-calorie diet."

"When you overfeed for a few days, leptin levels will rise a lot more quickly than any lost fat is regained "

In one trial, 12 overweight but otherwise healthy women followed a low-calorie diet for three months [6]. After just seven days, leptin levels dropped by around 50%. That's despite the fact that body fat dropped by only 0.5%.

In other words, leptin concentrations don't always decrease at the same rate as body fat.

The researchers also found that the desire to eat doubled in response to the diet. And the volunteers reporting the greatest increase in hunger were those with the largest drop in leptin.

Leptin is just one of the hormones responsible for this increase in hunger. It also interacts with other hormones, such as ghrelin and CCK, which have an effect on your appetite [16].

Leptin appears to respond to any form of calorie deficit, independent of whether the deficit is created by diet or exercise [3, 20]. However, the drop in leptin depends on the size of the deficit.

Comparing the effects of two different exercise sessions, researchers from Wake Forest University found that a bout of exercise burning approximately 900 calories led to a greater drop in leptin than a workout that burned only 200 calories [19].

"A day or two of controlled overfeeding will raise leptin levels and can help you avoid some of the metabolic adaptations inherent with any type of restricted-calorie diet."

When you overfeed for a few days, leptin levels will rise a lot more quickly than any lost fat is regained [7].

Essig, D.A., Alderson, N.L., Ferguson, M.A., Bartoli, W.P., & Durstine, J.L. (2000). Delayed effects of exercise on the plasma leptin concentration. Metabolism, 49, 395-399

Kolaczynski, J.W., Ohannesian, J.P., Considine, R.V., Marco, C.C., & Caro, J.F. (1996). Response of leptin to short-term and prolonged overfeeding in humans. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 81, 4162-4165

Olive, J.L., & Miller, G.D. (2001). Differential effects of maximal- and moderate-intensity runs on plasma leptin in healthy trained subjects. Nutrition, 17, 365-369

Thong, F.S.L., Hudson, R., Ross, R., Janssen, I., & Graham, T.E. (2000). Plasma leptin in moderately obese men: independent effects of weight loss and aerobic exercise. American Journal of Physiology, 279, E307-E313

Russellb97

My point is everyone should be Spiking, regardless of what plan you follow. The benefits long-term are extraordinary.