Episode 158. A Trained Metabolism – Results of Overeating Experiment

Show Notes

Scott lost weight after 17 days of overeating and only three days back on diet.

Beginning date and weight: Aug 15 207 lbs., 8 oz.

Ending date and weight: Sep 5, 206 lbs., 14 oz.

Food he ate during his vacation: included donuts, cake, brownies, pizza, burritos, nachos, and beer.

NOTE: Scott didn’t record everything he ate, so he actually ate more than he reported.

Metabolism is either compromised or optimized.

What exactly is overeating?

• Anything over and above an individual’s usual consumption is overeating.
• There’s a difference between extreme overeating and extended overeating.
• At one meal, the table waiters made a wager that Scott couldn’t finish one of the meals he ordered.
• Metabolism slows as we age. Excessive overeating isn’t recommended for middle age and older.

Guilt-free eating

• JOMO (Jealous of Missing Out, aka FOMO, Fear of Missing Out) can happen when someone religiously follows a strict diet regimen on vacation and regret not relaxing it a little.
• A trained metabolism allows temporary deviation from diet.
• Diet should be food-inclusive, not food exclusive.

How to train your metabolism

• Exercise using resistance training (not cardio).
• Achieving supercompensation mode (depleting glycogen levels).
• Relative energy deficits (not absolute ones). Use tolerable hunger (not ravenousness) as a guide.
• Diet heavy in carbohydrates*.
• Eat a Whole Food, Plant-Based (WFPB) diet.
• Refeeds must be planned and calorie-dense.

* “Carbs” here doesn’t refer to foods made from highly-processed flours.

An optimized metabolism makes it harder to store fat.

Select questions from the audience:

Q: Would the results have been different if you weren’t following a vegan diet?
A: Scott loosened up on the vegan diet, but the high fiber elements of the vegan diet seem to definitely be having a positive influence.

Q: What about the science behind the experiment?
A: It was based on The Cycle Diet and the science that went into developing it.

Q: What did you do differently this time [vacation/overfeed]?
A: Nothing. Scott didn’t want to tweak anything and [bias the results].

Q: Do you think it would have made more difference [during your experiment] eating more meat and dairy?
A: Yes. Scott thinks he would have gained more weight.