Really stupid experiment I saw on YouTube

thelostbreed02
thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
edited December 20 in Health and Weight Loss
Theres a video on YouTube which got deleted I think but basically this guy takes like 20,000 steps a day and works out I think it was a 4-5 day split but then he wanted to do this thing where he’s active like mentioned above for 6/7 days while eating in a deficit, and then on the 7th day he literally stayed in bed or just barely moved and ate like a pig. Would this result in fat gain or is it just calorie balance? I personally felt like he would’ve gained fat since he wouldn’t have used those calories.
Your Thoughts?
It was either David Laid Or Obesetobeast

Replies

  • thelostbreed02
    thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
    Maxematics wrote: »
    If his weekly caloric intake was less than the calories he burned during the week, he would not gain fat. It doesn't matter if the last day was spent inactive. If he weighed in the next morning, it may seem like he gained weight because of water weight due to the excess food intake but after a couple of days it would come off.

    You see, the thing with weekly calories is the question of why its limited to weekly. Like why not yearly. But then if you think in that way you can really see why this idea of weekly or prolonged intake doesnt work, at least IMO.
    Your hormones and metabolism and all that will do weird things and basically if you take in energy that energy goes somewhere, either fat or use via calorie burn
  • JohnnytotheB
    JohnnytotheB Posts: 361 Member
    Too bad it was deleted! I would love a good laugh at that dude.
  • daniwilford
    daniwilford Posts: 1,030 Member
    edited April 2019
    Maxematics wrote: »
    Maxematics wrote: »
    If his weekly caloric intake was less than the calories he burned during the week, he would not gain fat. It doesn't matter if the last day was spent inactive. If he weighed in the next morning, it may seem like he gained weight because of water weight due to the excess food intake but after a couple of days it would come off.

    You see, the thing with weekly calories is the question of why its limited to weekly. Like why not yearly. But then if you think in that way you can really see why this idea of weekly or prolonged intake doesnt work, at least IMO.
    Your hormones and metabolism and all that will do weird things and basically if you take in energy that energy goes somewhere, either fat or use via calorie burn

    Weekly is just an easier way to keep track of things than daily since people tend to weigh in weekly, consider every week "new", etc. but it truly is just a rolling average from day to day, week to week, and month to month. The whole point is that if you eat more than your TDEE for a prolonged period of time, you will gain weight and if you eat less, you will lose weight.

    How does metabolism factor into this? Because if you're at a deficit for too long your body gets used to it

    The metabolism factor is a myth. And even if it were not it would be by definition included in TDEE or total daily energy expenditure.
  • thelostbreed02
    thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
    Maxematics wrote: »
    If his weekly caloric intake was less than the calories he burned during the week, he would not gain fat. It doesn't matter if the last day was spent inactive. If he weighed in the next morning, it may seem like he gained weight because of water weight due to the excess food intake but after a couple of days it would come off.

    You see, the thing with weekly calories is the question of why its limited to weekly. Like why not yearly. But then if you think in that way you can really see why this idea of weekly or prolonged intake doesnt work, at least IMO.
    Your hormones and metabolism and all that will do weird things and basically if you take in energy that energy goes somewhere, either fat or use via calorie burn

    Working to my weekly goal works perfectly for me.

    In what way is my metabolism affected by eating a bit less Monday to Thursday so I can eat more on Saturday?

    Talking about yearly or over longer periods of time
  • thelostbreed02
    thelostbreed02 Posts: 87 Member
    Too bad it was deleted! I would love a good laugh at that dude.

    It wasnt even that great lol
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,600 Member
    Maxematics wrote: »
    If his weekly caloric intake was less than the calories he burned during the week, he would not gain fat. It doesn't matter if the last day was spent inactive. If he weighed in the next morning, it may seem like he gained weight because of water weight due to the excess food intake but after a couple of days it would come off.

    You see, the thing with weekly calories is the question of why its limited to weekly. Like why not yearly. But then if you think in that way you can really see why this idea of weekly or prolonged intake doesnt work, at least IMO.
    Your hormones and metabolism and all that will do weird things and basically if you take in energy that energy goes somewhere, either fat or use via calorie burn

    Working to my weekly goal works perfectly for me.

    In what way is my metabolism affected by eating a bit less Monday to Thursday so I can eat more on Saturday?

    Talking about yearly or over longer periods of time

    How would you distinguish "balancing over a year" from "yo-yo-ing"? That's not intended as a snotty question. I don't see the difference, except the terminology (and what we might infer about magnitude).

    In one sense, I've managed my calorie balance over approximately 3 decades: At around age 30, I weighed about 135lbs. Today, age 63, I weigh 135. In between, I was obese: 180-190lbs for most of that period, except for a few years of working up to that weight, and a few years recently maintaining healthy weight after about a year to lose back to this range.

    Same idea with 6 months or a year, if I gradually increase my weight by (say) 2 pounds or 5 pounds or even 10 or more, up and down with that multi-month frequency, is that "managing my calories over a longer period"?

    It doesn't really matter if I gain during that 6 months in a couple of big jumps with plateaus, or gradually through the time period.

    (BTW: While many regain gradually, to the extent I've had some gains during 3 years of maintenance, it's tended to be a pound or two jump, gained over a couple/few days, then a plateau).

    The difference between managing by the week or month or year IMO is the extent to which one would be able to rely on particular tools (daily counting or consistent habits on the shorter end; or scale weight and concerted periods of loss to get back to baseline weight in the long-cycle scenario, for example). If one manages by the week, there may be a bit more fat storage/loss than managing by the day, I dunno (so many variables as far as intake timing, timing of activity, digestion time, etc.). It's less likely to be visible on the scale, though, if there are tiny stored-fat fluctuations (ditto for tiny fluctuations over 6 months, but I'm not sure how many people would bother to call it "regain" if they noticed they were up a pound over a year's time).

    So, I think the above is reasonably rational. Now I'm going to get all speculative and talk through my hat, and I know that's what I'm doing. Fair warning.

    Based partly on personal experience, but mostly speculation: I think if one eats 10,000 calories or some such amount all in one day, there's sort of a "party trick" aspect to it. If it's a super unusual to unique thing, I kind of think one's body may tend to pass some of that through the digestive system before it can get fully stored as fat: The digestive system going "wtf?" and not managing all that efficiently.

    If one did it once a week . . . well, I wonder, maybe adaptation would occur and the body would get better at absorbing it? I don't know. Our bodies tend to improve at the things we train them for, and conserving intake as fat is a useful adaptation historically speaking.

    I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a healthy habit to eat 10,000 calories once a week, if one's TDEE were 2000-something, regardless . . . even if in calorie balance by the week.

    Experientially and personally, I have some suspicions that subtle micro-adjustments in the body happen in response to calories above maintenace, so the body burns a little more (I seem more likely to get hot flashes over the next 24 hours or so after significantly eating over maintenance, for example, and sometimes feel more energetic (and/or less hungry)). There seems to be some research (if only lab-based n = 1 testing) supporting this idea, though I don't have a cite at hand.

    I didn't notice that type of response as often, as far as I can recall, when I was obese on occasions when I ate lots more than usual, so perhaps there's some dimension of being in a healthy or obese state hormonally speaking in how the body responds. (Again, I don't know; and for clarity, I was never insulin resistant to my knowledge - no sign in blood tests or symptoms). Or maybe I was simply oblivious to the effects of over-eating, because I did it a fair lot.

    On the flip side, many people observe that they feel more fatigued (sometimes even in the short run) if they don't eat enough (I've observed that when working hard physically, that I get tired and eating is reviving).

    I don't know that I'd call that "metabolism", necessarily, but I'm far from an expert in that terminology or physiology generally.

    Repeating: I'm just speculating and wondering, in the last half of this post, as I said.
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