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Does eating extra calories "boost" your metabolism?
Replies
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No such thing. The bodies first and foremost concern is survival. If one is supplying calories to keep the body catabolic, the body will respond first and foremost by adapting metabolic rate. That's why when one goes on a consistent deficit for a period of time, it automatically starts to lower metabolic rate. And vice versa. People who surplus and gain weight will see an increase in metabolic rate.Geocitiesuser wrote: »
It's THIS. If one has been on a diet for awhile and is not seeing any progress, then adaptive thermogenesis has likely set in.VintageFeline wrote: »It's not said to eat more to boost metabolism. Diet breaks are for hormones to level out again and sort out any adaptive thermogenesis that has taken place. Which is upregulation not boost.
Cheat meals or refeeds, to the general dieter, are not really necessary or effective, they're more of a way for people to remain compliant or justify eating something they have either been depriving themselves of or think is "bad".
Neither of these two things boost metabolism and i have never seen this said by veterans, as stated above.
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Adaptive thermogenesis is starvation mode. That's the part I find highly suspect. I can see if you're at an extreme calorie defecit your body would find a way to shave a hundred cals off of your TDEE, but it would still be simple CICO and any slow down, even in extreme cases, would be mostly negligible. Especially if someone is still overweight.
Same disclaimer as earlier, not trying to be combative. Just healthy debate.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
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For me, it's as simple as "I jack up calories, especially in the form of carbohydrate, and I can't stop *kitten* moving". This is easily verified by a simple glance at my steptracker history over the last few months, as well as my training volume.
Within four days of starting my RFL cutting, I can see my steps drop from 25,000+ per day, to around 15,000. Once I come back to maintence and hit a two day refeed, I'm back over 20k, and I can watch it steadily increase, nearly in lockstep with my caloric intake. It makes bulking a pain in the *kitten*, but c'est la vie. At my high point this previous winter, I was hitting well over 40k per day, plus weight training, so even at 175 lbs., I was having to shove 4200 kcals into myself every day, just to keep 0.6-1.0 lbs./week gained rolling.0 -
@Geocitiesuser:
If you go to the original study (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full)
They have this nice table. The participants TEE (total energy expenditure) was 3,000 calories at the end of the study, and 3,429 calories 6 years later. At the end of the competition they weighed on average 199.3 pounds. At the end of 6 years they weighed on average 289. They gained almost 90 pounds in 6 years despite the fact they have TEE's of 3,000. That means they were eating over 3,000 calories each day to the point were they gained 90 pounds.
What Mr. Cahill is complaining about is the fact the predicted RMR (resting metaoblic rate) is 2,403 calories, yet the measured RMR was 1,903. The study did not compare Mr. Cahill's RMR to someone of his weight who had never lost weight, they simply compared it to the predictive. The National Weight Control Registery, on the other hand, did compare metabolisms of those who had lost weight and those who had never lost weight and this is what they found:
RESULTS:
A stepwise multiple regression found lean mass, fat mass, age, and sex to be the best predictors of RMR in both groups. After adjusting RMR for these variables, we found no significant difference in RMR (5926 +/- 106 and 6015 +/- 104 kJ/d) between the 2 groups (P = 0.35). When we adjusted fasting RQ for percentage body fat and age, the reduced-obese group had a slightly higher (0.807 +/- 0.006) RQ than the control group (0.791 +/- 0.005, P = 0.05). This may have been due to the consumption of a diet lower in fat or to a reduced capacity for fat oxidation in the reduced-obese group.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10357738?dopt=Abstract
In summery, their metabolisms are not damaged. They went on the Biggest Loser after years, if not decades of bad habits, were put in an intensive weight loss camp that was not reflective of their lifestyle off the show and did not learn any effective coping mechanisms. When they went back home, they went back to old habits and the weight came back. The fact Mr. Cahill says this in the article: “All my friends were drinking beer and not gaining massive amounts of weight,” Mr. Cahill said. “The moment I started drinking beer, there goes another 20 pounds. I said, ‘This is not right. Something is wrong with my body.’”
He wants to eat whatever he wants, whenever he wants, as much as he wants, and not have to deal with the consequences. I am not surprised he gained so much weight back. He hasn't addressed the root cause which is that he eating too much.
Contrast what he says with Erinn Egbert, one of the few were able to keep the weight off: “What people don’t understand is that a treat is like a drug,” said Ms. Egbert, who went from 263 pounds to just under 176 on the show, and now weighs between 152 and 157. “Two treats can turn into a binge over a three-day period. That is what I struggle with.”
She gets it, and that is why she has maintained weight loss and continued to lose after the show.
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Gallowmere1984 wrote: »For me, it's as simple as "I jack up calories, especially in the form of carbohydrate, and I can't stop *kitten* moving". This is easily verified by a simple glance at my steptracker history over the last few months, as well as my training volume.
Within four days of starting my RFL cutting, I can see my steps drop from 25,000+ per day, to around 15,000. Once I come back to maintence and hit a two day refeed, I'm back over 20k, and I can watch it steadily increase, nearly in lockstep with my caloric intake. It makes bulking a pain in the *kitten*, but c'est la vie. At my high point this previous winter, I was hitting well over 40k per day, plus weight training, so even at 175 lbs., I was having to shove 4200 kcals into myself every day, just to keep 0.6-1.0 lbs./week gained rolling.
How in the world did you manage almost 25km every single day? This is what I want to know.
I think they mean 20,000 steps not 20 kilometers when they say 20k.0 -
Gallowmere1984 wrote: »For me, it's as simple as "I jack up calories, especially in the form of carbohydrate, and I can't stop *kitten* moving". This is easily verified by a simple glance at my steptracker history over the last few months, as well as my training volume.
Within four days of starting my RFL cutting, I can see my steps drop from 25,000+ per day, to around 15,000. Once I come back to maintence and hit a two day refeed, I'm back over 20k, and I can watch it steadily increase, nearly in lockstep with my caloric intake. It makes bulking a pain in the *kitten*, but c'est la vie. At my high point this previous winter, I was hitting well over 40k per day, plus weight training, so even at 175 lbs., I was having to shove 4200 kcals into myself every day, just to keep 0.6-1.0 lbs./week gained rolling.
How in the world did you manage almost 25km every single day? This is what I want to know.
I have a 2.4' stride length, so my 41,000 step days would be close to 30 km/day. I did it by basically never stopping moving. I wasn't joking when I said that I couldn't sit still on 4200 calories per day. If I wasn't eating, sleeping, showering or otherwise utilizing the bathroom, I was in motion; even during weight training, there were no real rest periods.
I don't work in the winter, so I was free to conduct my days however I desired.0 -
AFAIK the only thing that boosts metabolism is movement.
If eating more boosted metabolism, I'd be eating 4000 calories a day and losing weight.
Gaining muscle mass will also work. It takes more to keep muscle alive than it does to keep fat alive. Which actually may be a reason someone's BMR is lowered after losing and regaining weight, because the regain might be more fat than muscle, particularly if it happens very fast.1 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »AFAIK the only thing that boosts metabolism is movement.
If eating more boosted metabolism, I'd be eating 4000 calories a day and losing weight.
Gaining muscle mass will also work. It takes more to keep muscle alive than it does to keep fat alive. Which actually may be a reason someone's BMR is lowered after losing and regaining weight, because the regain might be more fat than muscle, particularly if it happens very fast.
Gaining muscle doesn't add much unless you gain a lot of muscle. Roughly 4-6 calories per day for every lb of muscle you gain.
Also, while really long, the below vid is really informative when it comes to reverse dieting. Many of the concepts apply to this discussion. Essentially, there are a lot of variables; leanness, length of a deficit, metabolic efficiencies (how your body responds to calorie cuts (talked about several times in the video)), genetics, etc...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrul81qco8 1 -
heiliskrimsli wrote: »AFAIK the only thing that boosts metabolism is movement.
If eating more boosted metabolism, I'd be eating 4000 calories a day and losing weight.
Gaining muscle mass will also work. It takes more to keep muscle alive than it does to keep fat alive. Which actually may be a reason someone's BMR is lowered after losing and regaining weight, because the regain might be more fat than muscle, particularly if it happens very fast.
Gaining muscle doesn't add much unless you gain a lot of muscle. Roughly 4-6 calories per day for every lb of muscle you gain.
Also, while really long, the below vid is really informative when it comes to reverse dieting. Many of the concepts apply to this discussion. Essentially, there are a lot of variables; leanness, length of a deficit, metabolic efficiencies (how your body responds to calorie cuts (talked about several times in the video)), genetics, etc...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrul81qco8
If everything else about two people is the same (like identical twins) and one of them is 175lb at 10% body fat and the other is 175lb at 30% body fat, the leaner one will have a higher RMR. Yes, there are other variables, but "leanness" (body composition) as you stated is one of them.
It doesn't sound like a lot, 4-6 calories per pound. It's 40-60 calories for 10 pounds. If you've got that extra 10 pounds in muscle and are eating a little bit more due to not accurately tracking portions, you might maintain your weight. If the extra 10 pounds is fat, and you're not tracking your potions accurately, you might see the scale going up 5 pounds a year and wondering why that is.
The difference between the person with more muscle mass than fat mass is half an ounce of cheese a day. Something it's easy to have creep into the intake.1 -
NO2
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heiliskrimsli wrote: »heiliskrimsli wrote: »AFAIK the only thing that boosts metabolism is movement.
If eating more boosted metabolism, I'd be eating 4000 calories a day and losing weight.
Gaining muscle mass will also work. It takes more to keep muscle alive than it does to keep fat alive. Which actually may be a reason someone's BMR is lowered after losing and regaining weight, because the regain might be more fat than muscle, particularly if it happens very fast.
Gaining muscle doesn't add much unless you gain a lot of muscle. Roughly 4-6 calories per day for every lb of muscle you gain.
Also, while really long, the below vid is really informative when it comes to reverse dieting. Many of the concepts apply to this discussion. Essentially, there are a lot of variables; leanness, length of a deficit, metabolic efficiencies (how your body responds to calorie cuts (talked about several times in the video)), genetics, etc...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrul81qco8
If everything else about two people is the same (like identical twins) and one of them is 175lb at 10% body fat and the other is 175lb at 30% body fat, the leaner one will have a higher RMR. Yes, there are other variables, but "leanness" (body composition) as you stated is one of them.
It doesn't sound like a lot, 4-6 calories per pound. It's 40-60 calories for 10 pounds. If you've got that extra 10 pounds in muscle and are eating a little bit more due to not accurately tracking portions, you might maintain your weight. If the extra 10 pounds is fat, and you're not tracking your potions accurately, you might see the scale going up 5 pounds a year and wondering why that is.
The difference between the person with more muscle mass than fat mass is half an ounce of cheese a day. Something it's easy to have creep into the intake.
I thought I responded to this but anyways.
If you are comparing body composition, you are doing it against your own baseline; yes, i recognize that if you have two people with very differ compositions, the one with more muscle will generally have a higher expenditure and metabolic rate (thence why males have higher metabolisms than women). But when someone is talking about adding muscle to increase metabolism, your baseline is what is your current composition. This is why gaining some muscle will not have that much of an impact and why it only accounts for a measly 4-6 calories additional per day. It really does take a substantial amount gained to have a large impact on EE. In fact, I have only met one person who had a large impact (~ 300 calories) and he gained 30 lbs over several years.3 -
MissusMoon wrote: »NO
If only it was that cut and dry.0 -
its kind of interesting but since I started working with my RD, they have increased my calories and every few weeks after I get a bump (normal carbs/fat) - I go through an OMG I'm sooo hungry stage which would seem counter to the fact that I'm increasing not decreasing my macros
I wonder if its because I am working out more etc, that is causing it0 -
Geocitiesuser wrote: »I say no, but it sure does seem to be a common belief, both in the forums, and various articles.
Some say one cheat meal a week. Some say a day. Some say eating at maintenance or above for a whole WEEK helps metabolism.
But as far as my understanding goes, your metabolism is largely just how much you move/expend during a day, and that any difference in a basal metabolic rate is going to be negligible, 100 calories per day in the most extreme and rare cases.
Anytime I go off my "diet" I like to pretend I'm just refeeding. But in reality, it's all BS, no?
I have no clue, when I was cutting, my goal was to hit 155 lbs...I was at 157 lbs, it took me 3 long weeks to lose that 2 lbs despite eating at 1800 calories and doing 4 days of cardio. Once I hit my goal of 155 lbs, I ditched the cardio and increased my calories by 200 and suddenly I was losing weight with ease....I then increased my calories by 200 and I was still losing weight...I have no idea why it did that or how to explain it, but somehow my body had some sort of reset or something.
Lyle explains some of the physiological (i.e. hormonal) and psychological reasoning behind it here: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/the-full-diet-break.html/4 -
It definitely does, but not in a way that is helpful. If your goal is weight loss, one "cheat day" won't have enough of an impact to offset the calorie increase (there may be exceptions for refeeds at/near single digit body fat, but that doesn't apply to most people here).
For n=1, I maintain at about 2600 calories. Gaining a pound a week for an extended period requires 3600-3800 calories (the metabolic increase takes about a month to reach that point and levels off there), and to lose a pound a week it's 1600-1800 (in this case it tends to take more like 6-8 weeks for my metabolism to slow down that much). In both cases, the net change to TDEE is roughly 20%, so substantial but not earthshattering. I suspect most healthy people would see similar results, as I am very average genetically when it comes to weight/muscle.1 -
So interesting acronym I came across the other day is NEAT
http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/286/5/E675
some people claim that NEAT speeds up or slows down depending on how long you've been on a cut, or if you eat a big meal, etc. For example feeling hot and sweating after eating a large meal, they claim, is your NEAT being raised and the heat of burning more calories at rest.0 -
Adaptive Thermogenesis is a fascinating subject. Check any of the 10,000 calorie challenges on YouTube and you'll find these results. BMR nearly doubles in the first 24 hours as the body struggles with processing the incoming calories. People report elevated temperatures and weakness. Many of these included before/after DEXA scans and show ~1 lb of bodyfat in the after scan as the body is naturally adding the excess calories to reserve stores.1
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Adaptive Thermogenesis is a fascinating subject. Check any of the 10,000 calorie challenges on YouTube and you'll find these results. BMR nearly doubles in the first 24 hours as the body struggles with processing the incoming calories. People report elevated temperatures and weakness. Many of these included before/after DEXA scans and show ~1 lb of bodyfat in the after scan as the body is naturally adding the excess calories to reserve stores.
I also find it very fascinating. Menno was talking about it in the link I posted. Apparently, he has to do a huge cut in calories just to lose 1 lb per week.. something like eat 1800 calories even though his average maintenance is 3k.2 -
MissusMoon wrote: »NO
I think it's a bit more complicated than that...0 -
A severe calorie deficit for a prolonged time does cause your NEAT to decline as your body responds to the imposed famine condition.
At some interval, depending on the severity of the daily calorie deficit, a deliberate period of time eating at maintenance can signal your body that the famine has ended and the adaptations to it will end.
Clearly, some dieters want to have cheat weekends and lose weight. I don't endorse that and I don't try that and I don't really believe you will be successful at losing weight that way.
However, anyone who stays in a calorie deficit for several weeks should consider just how they will perform the work of maintaining their well-being by means of a temporary, controlled, pause in their deficit eating plan.0
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