Rapid fat gain after fat loss, how does that work?

I read that after a period of losing a lot of body fat, the body is more susceptible to regaining it quickly. I'm not talking about yo yo dieting or binge eating, this is more of a scientific question. Can anyone shed any light on how this mechanism works and how to prevent it?

I'm approaching the end of a long weight loss process, I took diet breaks along the way and lost the weight slowly but after reaching my body fat goal, I would like to switch to a bulking phase to build some strength and muscle hypertrophy.

I'm assuming the proper way to avoid this is to ease out of a calorie deficit slowly and eat at maintenance for a couple weeks before attempting to gain?
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Replies

  • MaddMaestro
    MaddMaestro Posts: 405 Member
    edited January 2018
    I think it's because people lose a lot of weight on those commercial diets which make you drink nothing but shakes and eat very little in between. Therefore, when you get off that diet and go back to eat normal food at your normal quantity, you gain the weight back. In terms of bulking though, I wish I could shead more light on that...
  • tinkerbellang83
    tinkerbellang83 Posts: 9,122 Member
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I read that after a period of losing a lot of body fat, the body is more susceptible to regaining it quickly. I'm not talking about yo yo dieting or binge eating, this is more of a scientific question. Can anyone shed any light on how this mechanism works and how to prevent it?

    I'm approaching the end of a long weight loss process, I took diet breaks along the way and lost the weight slowly but after reaching my body fat goal, I would like to switch to a bulking phase to build some strength and muscle hypertrophy.

    I'm assuming the proper way to avoid this is to ease out of a calorie deficit slowly and eat at maintenance for a couple weeks before attempting to gain?

    You might be better asking this on the Maintenance or Gaining boards.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I read that after a period of losing a lot of body fat, the body is more susceptible to regaining it quickly. I'm not talking about yo yo dieting or binge eating, this is more of a scientific question. Can anyone shed any light on how this mechanism works and how to prevent it?

    I'm approaching the end of a long weight loss process, I took diet breaks along the way and lost the weight slowly but after reaching my body fat goal, I would like to switch to a bulking phase to build some strength and muscle hypertrophy.

    I'm assuming the proper way to avoid this is to ease out of a calorie deficit slowly and eat at maintenance for a couple weeks before attempting to gain?

    Ideally you want to be around 15% bodyfat in order to bulk, the amount of leanness you have prior to starting your bulk to gain weight will be an important factor.

    You can go right into surplus (250 cals for clean bulk) or reverse diet to maintenance, how long you stay in maintenance is a personal preference.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    edited January 2018
    If you take yo-yo diets and binge eating out of the conversation, I suspect 3 factors could be at play -
    1. People tend to care more when they are unhappy with their weight. As the weight comes off, they become less unhappy, until they reach a point where it doesn't matter as much, they slack on their logging/tracking, and the slippery slope gets more and more slippery.
    2. People don't learn as they diet/lose. They don't learn what proper portions/intake look like, they don't learn what balanced eating is/means. Then, when they are no longer trying to lose, they revert to old habits/patterns of eating, and the weight comes back.
    3. People lose too much too fast, the body tries to balance itself out, then the person burns out and weight pours back on.
  • the_prez3
    the_prez3 Posts: 58 Member
    edited January 2018
    I’m not talking about behaviours, I’m asking about physiological reactions of the body. Very similar to the stress induced by a caloric deficit, hormone changes, appetite changes, slowed NEAT, etc.
  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I’m not talking about behaviours, I’m asking about physiological reactions of the body.

    Then, at least based on my limited knowledge, point #3 is the only one that applies. The first 2 are pretty standard behaviors = weight scenarios.
  • AnvilHead
    AnvilHead Posts: 18,344 Member
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I’m not talking about behaviours, I’m asking about physiological reactions of the body. Very similar to the stress induced by a caloric deficit, hormone changes, appetite changes, slowed NEAT, etc.

    Good read about it here: https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/calorie-partitioning-part-1.html/
  • amyjeaninga
    amyjeaninga Posts: 36 Member
    This article, Fat Trap, may answer your question. According to the article, losing weight causes metabolic changes in your body as far as hormones, etc, that make it difficult not to regain the weight/fat lost. It's not just that you don't learn to eat healthy or you stop exercising. according to this article, studies have been done that show that even when people kept up their good habits in their maintenance phase, they still regain weight because metabolically, they are different than a person who weighs the same as they now do, and it was the weight loss that caused the metabolic changes. In other words, a person who normally weighs 150 pounds can eat more and not gain weight than a person who has recently lost weight in order to get to 150 pounds. It was interesting reading. They don't know *why* it happens, though. I suspect it's partly evolutionary. When we were hunter/gatherers, we would go through lean times (like winter or droughts) when game and food were scarce. We lost weight. When food was available again, we would eat our fill. Over time we probably became metabolically programmed to regain anything we had lost during the lean times so that we could survive the next famine. (which is where your yo-yo-dieting comes into play, but it sounds like there's more to it than that)

    The one thing I noticed was that the article didn't mention strength training. It talked about a couple who had lost a lot of weight, regained some, and had to continue to strictly control their diet and exercise excessively just to maintain a weight that most people would still consider to be overweight. The only exercise it mentioned them doing was aerobic/cardio - it didn't say whether or not they had actually done any strength training to try and put on additional muscle. The woman even claimed to have done the math and figured that she burns fewer calories per minute or hour than would an average person doing things like walking or biking...which makes me wonder if part of her problem is that she hasn't done any strength training so she doesn't have enough muscle to burn those calories.
  • CSARdiver
    CSARdiver Posts: 6,257 Member
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I read that after a period of losing a lot of body fat, the body is more susceptible to regaining it quickly. I'm not talking about yo yo dieting or binge eating, this is more of a scientific question. Can anyone shed any light on how this mechanism works and how to prevent it?

    I'm approaching the end of a long weight loss process, I took diet breaks along the way and lost the weight slowly but after reaching my body fat goal, I would like to switch to a bulking phase to build some strength and muscle hypertrophy.

    I'm assuming the proper way to avoid this is to ease out of a calorie deficit slowly and eat at maintenance for a couple weeks before attempting to gain?

    Biological systems don't like drastic changes, so the simple answer: Don't make drastic changes.

    Largely speaking there is no such mechanism that impacts the rate of fat storage or metabolism in the long term. In the short term there is the phenomenon referred to as adaptive thermogenesis, but this is fast and fleeting as trends towards norm after 48-72 hours. What most people refer to in this is behavior. Once off a diet they revert to old habit as they never addressed or modified the underlying behavior that led to weight gain.

    How to prevent it? Keep logging just as if you were managing your finances and balancing your checkbook. There is no such thing as "normal eating" and no intuitive means of knowing how much food to eat without monitoring this. You would call me insane if I got out of debt and went back to my old spending habits, but this doesn't carry over to eating and weight management.
  • greenlizard72
    greenlizard72 Posts: 76 Member
    edited January 2018
    This article, Fat Trap, may answer your question...

    I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I have read on these boards and other research, the very low calorie diet of 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks might have been the trigger for those metabolic and hormonal changes, not the weight loss.
  • lucerorojo
    lucerorojo Posts: 790 Member
    ^^ I agree. I read the article and the participants were drinking shakes too and their daily caloric intake for 8 weeks was only 500-550. That is crazy when their starting weight was 233 for the men, and 200 lbs. for the women. The men would probably have a TDEE of at least 2500 calories (if not more) and the women at least 2000 calories. This is a deficit of 1500 calories for the women and probably over 2000 for the men, and way below their BMIs. They were literally starving for two months. The diet completely messed them up hormonally and since they were drinking shakes and very little food there is no way they would have learned how to maintain. I don't think that is any evidence for what they are trying to prove.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,048 Member
    edited January 2018
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I’m not talking about behaviours, I’m asking about physiological reactions of the body. Very similar to the stress induced by a caloric deficit, hormone changes, appetite changes, slowed NEAT, etc.
    Yep, I too have read *about* a couple studies (vs reading actual peer reviewed study material) that show TDEE for a person who lost lots of weight is often less than the same sized person with the same activity who has had no significant weight loss. About a year ago there was a thread with a couple links to source material. One was a ppt presented at a scientific conference, but it had detailed study results.

    For your case, if you maintain long enough to establish your TDEE at goal with high confidence, then you really don't have to worry about the studies or what happens on average. You just push on using your own numbers. This is where accurate calorie counting is a huge help. Congrats on being close to goal!
  • Dvdgzz
    Dvdgzz Posts: 437 Member
    If you fall into the previous habits you will gain weight quickly since your daily burn is lower at your reduced weight. There is more to it like metabolic adaptations that can occur but since you lost it slowly, they shouldn't be too severe.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    This article, Fat Trap, may answer your question...

    I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I have read on these boards and other research, the very low calorie diet of 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks might have been the trigger for those metabolic and hormonal changes, not the weight loss.

    The “trigger” is more the amount of weight lost than the way it was lost (although VLCDs have their own issues).

    The threshold is not high —like 15-20 pounds IIRC. It’s one of the reasons why people who successfully maintain are those who continue to follow higher-volume exercise routines.
  • animatorswearbras
    animatorswearbras Posts: 1,001 Member
    I remember reading an article about a study regarding fat cells and when you gain fat especially in adolescence your body creates more fat cells as the existing ones fill to capacity however when you lose the fat the cells only shrink but do not disappear. So someone who was previously obese will have more dormant fat cells than someone of the same weight, height and bodyfat percentage who has always been lean, meaning the previously obese person will find it much easier to gain fat as the storage already exists.

    I couldn't find the article I read but here's a link to another article on the subject with some sources https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/are-fat-cells-forever/

    Apologies if my explanation is inaccurate though, it's only my layman understanding and I'll happily be corrected.
  • the_prez3
    the_prez3 Posts: 58 Member
    ahoy_m8 wrote: »
    the_prez3 wrote: »
    I’m not talking about behaviours, I’m asking about physiological reactions of the body. Very similar to the stress induced by a caloric deficit, hormone changes, appetite changes, slowed NEAT, etc.
    Yep, I too have read *about* a couple studies (vs reading actual peer reviewed study material) that show TDEE for a person who lost lots of weight is often less than the same sized person with the same activity who has had no significant weight loss. About a year ago there was a thread with a couple links to source material. One was a ppt presented at a scientific conference, but it had detailed study results.

    For your case, if you maintain long enough to establish your TDEE at goal with high confidence, then you really don't have to worry about the studies or what happens on average. You just push on using your own numbers. This is where accurate calorie counting is a huge help. Congrats on being close to goal!

    You have accomplished much. Well done on being so vigilant! Inspiring!
  • the_prez3
    the_prez3 Posts: 58 Member
    Some good replies on here. A very interesting discussion.
  • tess5036
    tess5036 Posts: 942 Member
    There is some evidence that those who have lost weight may have a lower metabolic rate compared to people the same weight who had not previously been obese. However, the difference is not that great.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1038/oby.2007.354/full

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10357728/


  • jjpptt2
    jjpptt2 Posts: 5,650 Member
    Azdak wrote: »
    This article, Fat Trap, may answer your question...

    I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I have read on these boards and other research, the very low calorie diet of 500 to 550 calories a day for eight weeks might have been the trigger for those metabolic and hormonal changes, not the weight loss.

    The “trigger” is more the amount of weight lost than the way it was lost (although VLCDs have their own issues).

    The threshold is not high —like 15-20 pounds IIRC. It’s one of the reasons why people who successfully maintain are those who continue to follow higher-volume exercise routines.

    Interesting. I had not heard/read that before, but definitely good to know. Thanks.