Gained 10 lbs.. on purpose

Siege_Tank

I tore off 40 pounds quickly, since starting to lose fat in September. By December I was in the 170's, and by January I almost had a 1-6-something in front. I had been seeing diminishing returns on my weight loss. My efforts to eat less and exercise more were not showing off the results, and it was getting to me. How can you maintain a sustained effort towards a goal when you see slower and slower progress? I'd try and cycle my cuts, keep my body off balance, eat 1300 one day, then 1500 the next, then 900 one day, then 1600... but it was always a calorie cut from my Total daily energy expenditure.

I work at a computer desk during the day and raise my son by myself, I hardly have time to increase the workouts I already work in. I can't afford to "biggest loser style" work out for 8 hours a day. Increasing my daily calories out wasn't a real option for me, so I decided to tinker with the only other variable I could. But for me, eating less begot eating less, and I was slowly turning into the person with some kind of eating disorder, I was seeing not food, but calories. I was ditching the cheese everywhere I went, It didn't really add flavor and it was just churned milkfat. I reasoned with myself that I could eat it when I was at my goal weight. I did that with all kinds of things.

Doesn't taste good? Doesn't bring anything to the flavor party? Lose it.

I still don't understand quite how hormones work, but from what little I can glean between the highly technical writings on leptin and the interconnected network of all of our hormones, and how insulin and cortisol work to regulate and affect every other hormone and yada yada yada...

I figured I'd go "off the wagon" as it were, and eat ad libitum until I felt ready to start a calorie cut again. Eating less for so long had put me into a routine, where I was okay not eating. I didn't really feel hunger, and I knew that my body had, in some way, adapted to the cut. Damn borg-like cellular processees.. Assimilate *ALL* the nutrients!!!


The last time I weighed in was January 30th, at 170 pounds, and this morning I woke up and after enjoying a nice spring break filled with snack crackers, sushi, huge sandwiches, and tacos, I'm tired of eating, and ready to get back to my cut. after 40 days of not caring about the calorie content of my intake, I'm ten pounds heavier at 180, although.. I usually weigh in dehydrated first thing in the morning, and I weighed this morning hydrated.

Can someone tell me why hormones work the way they do with calorie cuts, and why it seems like the way to see the most consistent fat loss is to intersperse your calorie cuts with refeed periods of calorie surpluses? I mean, how does it all work, and how long does it take to be on a refeed for your body to get the hormone balances back to what they are when you are not in a cut?

quirkytizzy

I'm totally not able to answer your question, but I wanted to say I'm so glad you're my friend. I didn't know you are raising your son by yourself! That's so strong!

This is a hell of a realization for you to come to - that what you're doing was not working and that you needed a break and to reconfigure your plan.

I'm really glad you're back. You were my first friend here and always in my heart. I hope you get the good answers you need.

sarah_jones3

Hi There

I am not sure I can answer this for you however I have started reading Jillian Michaels' "Master Your Metabolism" I do recommend you read it or it time is short audio book it, It answers a lot of this stuff in there within the first few chapters. Sadly I am worries If I try and share this stuff I would get things wrong and hinder you more, I do recommend this book through.

^_^ hope this helps

EmilyOfTheSun

Damn borg-like cellular processes.. Assimilate *ALL* the nutrients!!!

Sorry I'm no help. Just wanted to say the above statement was frickin awesome.
I will be watching some Star Trek tonight for sure \m/

dangerxbadger

I am so glad to see you back, Siege! I can't answer your question, but it happens for me too. I wish I could find some solid evidence that supports refeeds, because I KNOW they work, because it's happened for me, AND my fiancee.

Siege_Tank

I know they work too, and it just.. I'm the guy who has to know everything, my curiosity knows no bounds. If I can know something, understand the process, I can make it better, in the way that humans always do.

We created fire from trees, then learned about combustion, created cars, and made rockets to the moon. Hopefully I can learn how hormone regulation with calorie deficits work, and tailor my plan to address the diminishing returns on calorie cuts, and when to refeed, and for how long.

Searching on the internet for this information leads you to innumerable articles filled with deduction and supposition, painfully lacking in facts. =(

I'm glad to be back though, I've missed you all!

mamasmaltz3

http://eatmore2weighless.com/

They also have a group on here but the website has tons of resources that will help you with your questions. They also have a forum that you can ask a specific question. I have learned so much from them.

dangerxbadger

http://eatmore2weighless.com/

They also have a group on here but the website has tons of resources that will help you with your questions. They also have a forum that you can ask a specific question. I have learned so much from them.

I think he's looking more along the lines of the science behind it, not testimonials. I mean, he sees enough of those on his feed and in his own life, I'm sure. I'm really curious about this too, because I've been having a hard time finding any solid scientific/medical reasoning behind it, and EM2WL has no science. Just testimonials. Which is fine, and we KNOW it works, but I'm a nerd, and I wanna know WHY. lol

Siege_Tank

I think he's looking more along the lines of the science behind it, not testimonials. I mean, he sees enough of those on his feed and in his own life, I'm sure. I'm really curious about this too, because I've been having a hard time finding any solid scientific/medical reasoning behind it, and EM2WL has no science. Just testimonials. Which is fine, and we KNOW it works, but I'm a nerd, and I wanna know WHY. lol

QFT. Like word for word.

mamasmaltz3

I gave you the website because on the home page it has a menu for resources. On that page there are links to articles, books, websites, videos etc...that I thought would be helpful in answering your question.

SnazzyPeg

No answers here. Just wanted to say welcome back and kudos to you for trying to figure this our. Please share when you do.

swingsintherain

My guess would be something along the lines of the body trying to conserve energy when food is scarce, which was probably pretty useful for the cavemen but not so much for people these days.

That said, I have no references to support this claim.

beets_yum

Maybe you have read this already but it goes a bit into the science: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/carb-refeeding-and-weight-loss/#axzz2NwTNti84 Though the take here is not to go on an all-you-can-eat binge but specifically go for a carb refeed, while roughly maintaining your calorie intake. (Carbs increase leptin, not fat.)

I haven't done it myself on purpose but last time I was close to my target weight I did it inadvertently. I ate "off plan" for about a week plus the week it took me to get back on track. I was really worried about gaining while eating junk at my MIL's (mostly eating bread, sugar etc after eating very little for awhile) but afterwards I busted into a weight range I hadn't been down to in several years.

Siege_Tank

This is from wikipedia, I was going to put the citations in directly, but it just clutters up the writing.

Human leptin is a protein of 167 amino acids. It is manufactured primarily in the adipocytes of white adipose tissue, and the level of circulating leptin is proportional to the total amount of fat in the body.

In addition to white adipose tissue—the major source of leptin—it can also be produced by brown adipose tissue, placenta (syncytiotrophoblasts), ovaries, skeletal muscle, stomach (the lower part of the fundic glands), mammary epithelial cells, bone marrow, pituitary, and liver.

Leptin acts on receptors in the hypothalamus of the brain, where it inhibits appetite. This appetite inhibition is long-term, in contrast to the rapid inhibition of eating by cholecystokinin (CCK) and the slower suppression of hunger between meals mediated by PYY3-36.

The absence of leptin (or its receptor) leads to uncontrolled food intake and resulting obesity. Several studies have shown fasting or following a very-low-calorie diet (VLCD) lowers leptin levels. In the short-term, leptin might be an indicator of energy balance. This system is more sensitive to starvation than to overfeeding; leptin levels change more when food intake decreases than when it increases. The dynamics of leptin due to an acute change in energy balance may be related to appetite and eventually to food intake. Although this is a new hypothesis, some data already support it.

Leptin has traditionally been regarded as a link between fat mass, food intake, and energy expenditure. This link originally arose from animal research findings, but its application to describing human systems has since been challenged.[41] In humans, many instances are seen where leptin dissociates from the strict role of communicating nutritional status between body and brain and no longer correlates with body fat levels:

Leptin level is decreased after short-term fasting (24–72 hours), even when changes in fat mass are not observed. In obese patients with obstructive sleep apnea, leptin level is increased, but decreased after the administration of continuous positive airway pressure.[43][44] In non-obese individuals, however, restful sleep (i.e., 8–12 hours of unbroken sleep) can increase leptin to normal levels.
Serum level of leptin is reduced by sleep deprivation. However, a recent study showed that sleep deprivation was linked with higher levels of leptin. (wtf, who wrote this article?)

Leptin level is increased by perceived emotional stress (in a study of japanese men - and he doesn't quantify how much the hormone was increased...)

Leptin level is decreased or increased by increases in testosterone or estrogen level, respectively. (again, by how much. +/- 5% is statistical noise)

Leptin level is chronically reduced by physical exercise training. (in a study titled "Effects of resistance training on cytokines" - and can they please define chronically?)

And then there's one paragraph dealing with weight loss:

Dieters who lose weight experience a drop in levels of circulating leptin. This drop causes reversible decreases in thyroid activity, sympathetic tone, and energy expenditure in skeletal muscle, and increases in muscle efficiency and parasympathetic tone. The result is that a person who has lost weight has a lower basal metabolic rate than an individual at the same weight who has never lost weight; these changes are leptin-mediated, homeostatic responses meant to reduce energy expenditure and promote weight regain. Many of these changes are reversed by peripheral administration of recombinant leptin to restore pre-diet levels.

A decline in levels of circulating leptin also changes brain activity in areas involved in the regulatory, emotional, and cognitive control of food intake that are reversed by administration of leptin.

So my question is, what is "peripheral administration" of "recombinant" leptin, and where can I get some?

Siege_Tank

Furthermore, WebMD clarifies it in another way:

Says Robert H. Lustig, MD:

Leptin is not our obesity hormone. Leptin is our starvation hormone. Leptin is a protein that's made in the fat cells, circulates in the bloodstream, and goes to the brain. Leptin is the way your fat cells tell your brain that your energy thermostat is set right.

Leptin tells your brain that you have enough energy stored in your fat cells to engage in normal, relatively expensive metabolic processes. In other words, when leptin levels are at a certain threshold -- for each person, it's probably genetically set -- when your leptin level is above that threshold, your brain senses that you have energy sufficiency, which means you can burn energy at a normal rate, eat food at a normal amount, engage in exercise at a normal rate, and you can engage in expensive processes, like puberty and pregnancy.

But when people diet, they eat less and their fat cells lose some fat, which then decreases the amount of leptin produced.

Many scientists explored leptin as a possible treatment for obesity; they believed that if people were leptin-deficient, giving them leptin would raise levels, which would signal them to stop overeating. "But when you started giving it to people, it didn't work so well," Robert Atkinson, MD, an endocrinologist at Virginia Commonwealth University says.

"This stuff is made by fat tissue, and as you get fatter, you make more of it. That was quite a shock because everybody thought that obese people were going to be deficient in leptin," he says.

With the more recent understanding of leptin resistance, it makes no sense to give people leptin if they have an impaired response, Lustig says. "The resistance is still there. No amount of leptin is going to overcome that resistance."

Giving leptin only helps in a few extremely rare cases in the world in which people make no leptin at all, which causes them to overeat and become obese. When those people received leptin by injection, they stopped overeating and lost weight. But for the vast majority of people, the treatment won't work, nor is leptin approved as a medical treatment for weight loss.

- Ok so, we cut calories, our leptin levels decrease due to our lower fat mass, and it signals our brain to eat more, and triggers other responses to our metabolic rates to slow down during the "famine".

My head hurts. Why is this all so subjective? There isn't a clear, simple answer when someone asks this question. How exactly does BMR drop when in a calorie cut, and what is the mechanism that works when you do a refeed and then restart a cut? It seems like it's a fairly re-creatable occurence...

Like poking a beehive with a stick, every time you see the bees come out in a swarm. When you see a sustained calorie cut, weight loss slows over time.

Can't they do a study? It seems like you take blood tests and caloriometers and you hook a thousand people up and measure everything, and look at the results and go "HA! That's it right there. That's what changes to cause an adaptation to famine, and here's how we can counter that."

I think I'm just going to go do some cocaine or something. The one thing that worked to keep BMR elevated is now banned because a baseball player juiced himself to death with ephedra + steroids + lots and lots of recreational drugs (I'm just guessing on that last one).

*headdesk*