Why It Might Be Better To Temporarily Gain Weight After Diet Improvement

[Nicole W.]

Healthy women around the world, who are not fat, eat 3000 calories every day. That is proven in studies.

Homeodynamic Recovery Method, Doubly-Labeled Water Method Trials and Temperament-Based Treatment — The Eating Disorder Institute

"when we actually measure the intake in laboratory settings rather than relying on self-generated food journals or survey responses, then we eat about one quarter to one third more than the surveys would suggest we are eating. And just in case the following quote is obscure— we are eating more than we say we do because our energy expenditures are actually higher. In other words, we are not overshooting our energy needs when we are eating a third more than we say we are eating.

However, none of the above data on actual required energy for various age- and sex-matched subgroups will apply to you if you have an eating disorder. These data apply only to energy-balanced individuals and those with eating disorders are energy deficient.

non-dieters stated they consumed 3066 kcal/day. 16 As there are no distinctions between rates of underreporting for males and females in this age range, 16 to 17 year old non-dieting males actually eat an average 3833 kcal/day to support development to age 25.

non-dieting teenage girls actually eat an average 3047 kcal/day to support all their metabolic and developmental needs to arrive at biological adulthood at age 25."

Plus, body fat is essential for life. Excessive body fat is a reaction to restriction. The body grows the fat organ which is a hormone producing endocrine organ to keep you alive on insufficient daily calorie intake. Your message to your female friends to undereat, is detrimental to them. They will be beautiful and healthy if they eat 3000 calories or more.

To add to the idea, people in Switzerland, on average, eat over 20 pounds of chocolate ( some estimates are as high as 24 lbs) and about 20 pounds of cheese per annum. They are also big milk consumers. Apparently, they also have the lowest BMI ( on average) of all European countries. It’s definitely more complex that CICO.

 

[Nicole W.]

To add to the idea, people in Switzerland, on average, eat over 20 pounds of chocolate ( some estimates are as high as 24 lbs) and about 20 pounds of cheese per annum. They are also big milk consumers. Apparently, they also have the lowest BMI ( on average) of all European countries. It’s definitely more complex that CICO.

Sorry, that’s over 20 KILO of cheese a year for the Swiss. It’s almost 30 KILO for Denmark according to World Atlas.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

https://www.amazon.com/Recover-Eati...show_all_top?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

Some interesting reviews of this method on Amazon:

This pretty much agrees with my experience that Gwyneth Olwyns method worked well for some but was a total life-ruining disaster for others. In a way its interesting that it even is physiologically possible to forcefully overfeed yourself to that extent for that long to cause your body such tremendous harm.

Maybe understanding how this can happen in this context would also help us understand how extreme obesity can develop more generally in people who don't have a genetic disease. There must be a similar breakdown of the normal appetite regulation to allow a person to continuously overconsume food when their system is already on the brink of overflowing. And maybe this dysregulation exists on a continuum such that the more fine-tuned a persons appetite regulation is the more likely they can maintain a healthy weight and optimal metabolism throughout their life. Whereas having an eating disorder or binge-eating behavior would throw the system out of whack and increase risk of later weight issues.

There's really still a lot we don't know about what truly represents healthy eating behavior. Is skipping breakfast unhealthy? Well there are entire populations of healthy Europeans around the Mediterranean who are in the habit of doing just that, its just their culture. Is it unhealthy to have a bunch of strict rules about what and how you should eat? Well pretty much every traditional culture have hundreds of dietary rules, doesn't make them orthorexic. Can you truly rely entirely on intuition to guide when, what and how we should eat? Then why would we have all of these cultural rules about diet in the first place?

Mainstream eating disorder experts also don't have all the answers, otherwise there wouldn't be space for someone with a philosophy like Gwyneth Olwyn to appear. I think the truth about what constitutes healthy eating is likely somewhere in between Olwyn and traditional ED experts.

Holy ***t. yes,dont get fat,the website is also so,so,so phony.i have first hand knowledge with overeating,
sport diet 3000kcal/day,then sedentary,same amount of healthy food,lean meat,butterfat,fruits,eggs,and i got fat from
around lean 85kgBW to 110kgBW,no healing crisis or crazy benefit available,maybe the website author is still eating-disordered,get a little penguin isolation,+5kg bodyweight,not more,it isnt helpful at all,body obviously doesnt use it,
there is no fatness refeeding supercharger moment coming in.it will be just low grade inflammation,because of rancid,
dying lipocytes.

 

[Collden]

To add to the idea, people in Switzerland, on average, eat over 20 pounds of chocolate ( some estimates are as high as 24 lbs) and about 20 pounds of cheese per annum. They are also big milk consumers. Apparently, they also have the lowest BMI ( on average) of all European countries. It’s definitely more complex that CICO.

That they eat a lot of cheese and chocolate does not contradict CICO.

Its true though that there is huge myth that only countries with obesity problems like the US eat superpalatable "junk food" diets. Fact is almost all developed countries eat large amounts of fat, starch, meat and sugar in highly processed forms and most do not have a big obesity problem. It has got to have more to do with food culture, or possibly more subtle differences in food quality.

 

[Blossom]

https://www.amazon.com/Recover-Eati...show_all_top?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

Some interesting reviews of this method on Amazon:

This pretty much agrees with my experience that Gwyneth Olwyns method worked well for some but was a total life-ruining disaster for others. In a way its interesting that it even is physiologically possible to forcefully overfeed yourself to that extent for that long to cause your body such tremendous harm.

Maybe understanding how this can happen in this context would also help us understand how extreme obesity can develop more generally in people who don't have a genetic disease. There must be a similar breakdown of the normal appetite regulation to allow a person to continuously overconsume food when their system is already on the brink of overflowing. And maybe this dysregulation exists on a continuum such that the more fine-tuned a persons appetite regulation is the more likely they can maintain a healthy weight and optimal metabolism throughout their life. Whereas having an eating disorder or binge-eating behavior would throw the system out of whack and increase risk of later weight issues.

There's really still a lot we don't know about what truly represents healthy eating behavior. Is skipping breakfast unhealthy? Well there are entire populations of healthy Europeans around the Mediterranean who are in the habit of doing just that, its just their culture. Is it unhealthy to have a bunch of strict rules about what and how you should eat? Well pretty much every traditional culture have hundreds of dietary rules, doesn't make them orthorexic. Can you truly rely entirely on intuition to guide when, what and how we should eat? Then why would we have all of these cultural rules about diet in the first place?

Mainstream eating disorder experts also don't have all the answers, otherwise there wouldn't be space for someone with a philosophy like Gwyneth Olwyn to appear. I think the truth about what constitutes healthy eating is likely somewhere in between Olwyn and traditional ED experts.

100% agree. I know several people who experienced all of the above. Proceed with caution.

 

[Tristan Loscha]

HOLY ******* ***t! CICO DIET IS REAL!i know what it is.its sadism from SDO-psychopaths
who are controlling weak-willed RWA.thats what it is.proceed with caution.
you will get fat by overeating,if its junkfood you will get severe disorders.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

Lmao I’m embarrassed I assumed she was posting in good faith. Is cirion a troll too?

 

[Blossom]

HOLY ******* ***t! CICO DIET IS REAL!i know what it is.its sadism from SDO-psychopaths
who are controlling weak-willed RWA.thats what it is.proceed with caution.
you will get fat by overeating,if its junkfood you will get severe disorders.

I’m old school so could you please tell me what these abbreviations mean?

 

[Tristan Loscha]

SDO is social dominance orientation,the thumb-twirling villains,RWAs are followers
for which obeying,lets say flat-urth, is more important than the things itself.gotta obey.
CICO diet is all you can eat diet,for wishful thinking gulls.

 

[Blossom]

Thank you @Tristan Loscha.

I read this in the Amazon reviews and I find it to be very important information.

“If you have an eating disorder, find a specialized, licensed treatment team. Get a sleep study done. Put in the time, money, effort up front and spare your body further self-harm. Do NOT trust internet quacks.

I want to be as clear as possible: the information contained within this book is NOT supported by any eating disorder specialist anywhere. The author has cherry-picked and manipulated existing research in order to create an overly simplistic protocol and make a name for herself online, at the expense of the severely ill and vulnerable. HDRM is dangerous and will further entrench your eating disorder in a way that can seriously harm you.

The entire premise of HDRM rests on a single, very small, doubly-labeled water trial from 1990 that showed that unrestricting female adults ate on average 2000 - 2600 calories per day. From this study and another study showing that people underreport their calorie intake by about 25%, Olwyn extrapolated that if women report they eat 2000 calories per day, then they must really be eating 2500 calories per day. From this, Olwyn insists that all adult women eat at least 2500 calories per day, and she extrapolated further that women with higher BMIs eat above 3000 calories/day. That's it. HDRM is just one random unlicensed, uneducated person's extrapolations from existing bits and pieces of research. There is no meta-analysis or Cochrane review on "minimums," and they are not accepted by eating disorder specialists as making such broad claims are not based in science.”

 

[Tristan Loscha]

lets be crystal clear:jacking on insulation a little bit to actually know you are in the zone of caloric sufficiency
is fine by me,but no more than 5-to-max-10kgBW for a 85kg male.
in powerlifting parlance it is called bulking.
i want to make clear that my stance is geared toward little amount of fatgain
to evaluate the caloric-need setpoint.just dont overdo it folks.

 

[corvetteseeker]

@Collden - boom goes the dynamite

 

[Kelj]

This is an especially jaundiced view. The thing about my story is, I figured out the recovery path from reading studies on pubmed before I ever heard of edinstitute and Gwyneth Olwyn. When I did read her articles, I was amazed how closely aligned her experiences helping others were with my own recovery. I find her writing and explanations excellent. I believe she explains thoroughly what to expect from recovery. She does not say it is easy. Restriction is very damaging to the body. The damage is ongoing when restriction is ongoing. So, everyone has a choice to make about chronic, debilitating conditions or acute phases that pass, but can be very difficult. Yes, it can be harder if you are your sole means of support and you are very tired. All this is explained in the website. How anyone is doing anything without their consent, I'm not sure.
I know that I am happy to be in a place where every health change is an improvement. Weight is a secondary factor, but I am happy to be able to eat without worry nor any obsession. I do not have an eating disorder in any way that impacts my daily life, only in a possible potential for returning to the bad old days. But, that seems like the last thing I would ever do. The best thing to do is never start restricting food at all. It is certainly hard to recover. There are still forums for those who follow the Homeodynamic Recovery Method. It is true that Olwyn has no affiliation with them now, but you can still find out how people are doing. I understand all these possible outcomes of eating disorder recovery and personally experienced many of them. Now, I am completely well. It must be said that not everyone will be willing to take the wait it out approach I did. It is entirely up to them what they do, in consultation with their doctors, of course. Let's be real. People try out a lot of things without thoroughly investigating them. I knew what I was getting into. If you don't know, it's because you haven't bothered to find out. And no one is going to have all the outcomes listed in the above article. Some claims there are ignoring the science which I had come to understand before reading any edinstitute articles. Some things I had come to understand from Ray Peat. Anyone can make anything sound bad. Just investigate for yourself. Ask yourself, who is healing any of the chronic diseases? No pills, surgeries, just a straight forward progression to wellness with the edema and pain which is the healing process. (Have you ever healed a broken bone, cut or burn without swelling and pain?) I have been on that journey. It took 2 years maximum. I'm glad I went through it. But, if anyone else is curing diabetes, arthritis, gastro-intestinal illness, rosacea, the falling hair issues and other issues caused by low thyroid function (not diabetes as claimed above in a special show of ignorance), TMJ, dental caries, anemia, female issues, allergies and other things by some other method, then that is certainly an alternative to what I am proposing. I accomplished those things by eating over 2500 calories every day and letting the body go through its healing process. We need to own our choices. Is traditional cancer therapy or heart surgery or drug therapy without side effects or possible complications? Maybe we're writing articles about every doctor or dietitian who ever recommended a protocol that caused side-effects or complications? Considering that the third leading cause of death is iatrogenic (caused by doctors), it would seem fair in those cases. But, medical/health choices are ours to make.

 

[Blossom]

I’m truly happy for you @Kelj and for everyone who achieves remission. I followed Gwyneth’s recommendations for 2.5 years to the best of my ability and I knew of Peat’s views during that time. I only stopped because of tragedy in my personal life that made it possible to continue and that is when I really started healing. I was forced to be more active due to my job and could no longer make eating my primary focus although I still ate plenty. I did not have the same negative experience that many reported but there were some very bad effects nonetheless. I’m an adult and I accept responsibility for my actions and don’t blame her because I chose to try her method. I just think it’s important for people to be prepared and know what to look for if complications arise. I personally know of about 40 people who experienced pretty severe complications beyond what people normally experience with mainstream recovery methods.

 

[Collden]

Much of what Gwyneth writes actually makes a lot of sense and is solidly argued which is how she managed to convince so many people that she is trustworthy and to follow a protocol that anyone in the mainstream would call insane. Like she is right that there is plenty of science showing that official guidelines underestimate average energy requirements. Take this recent study where the energy expenditure for almost normal weight men and women was 3500 and 2600 kcal a day.
Reported Energy Intake Accuracy Compared to Doubly Labeled Water and Usability of the Mobile Food Record among Community Dwelling Adults

Still this is average energy expenditure and does not imply that this is the minimum you need to be eating every single day, just how much you need to eat over time to maintain weight, most people probably eat less than this most of the times and occasionally overeat to make up for it.

She's also right that processed and refined foods are not necessarily unhealthy, but rather food processing has been an integral part of human history and plenty of evidence that our GI tracts are adapted to consume a mix of highly processed and less processed foods.

Where Gwyneth really went out of her depth was in continuing to push people to go forward and actually encourage them to intensify their efforts when it was clear that they were already careening in the wrong direction. Claiming that its perfectly fine to eat as much as you possibly can and your metabolism will magically adapt to deal with any overload is just wrong, the main way our systems adapt to temporary energy excess is to kill your appetite so you will be naturally inclined to take in less and give your body a chance to deal with the overload.

As the review states there is really very little empirical data about what will happen when following a protocol like Olwyns, so she had no evidence to back up her reassurances that everything would work out fine in the end for people who had gained 200 lbs and become bedridden, and her community were essentially just guinea pigs for this new and untested method.

 

[ExCarniv]

I don't think is natural to force you to overeat if you don't have hungry. Seems like another eating disorder.

Eat when hungry, till being satisfied.

Good sleep, good temperatures, energy, and a body that can move efficiently should be the main focus for a person looking for health.

 

[Randle Cyclist]

As the review states there is really very little empirical data about what will happen when following a protocol like Olwyns, so she had no evidence to back up her reassurances that everything would work out fine in the end for people who had gained 200 lbs and become bedridden, and her community were essentially just guinea pigs for this new and untested method.

I'm highly interested in reading the accounts of Gwyneth's followers. Gaining 200 pounds or so in a short span of time seems unreal. I can't find any reports anywhere other than on Amazon. Gwyneth's forum was members only, right? Can it be viewed through the Waybackmachine?

I don't really want to get involved in the debate but I found there are a few others who promote concepts similar to those of the Edinstitute, namely Matt Stone and Billy Craig. I also found that this guy has a few ideas comparable to Gwyneth's: Optimized Metabolism: How to lose weight after 17 days of massive overeating
I'm also intrigued by the existence of the hypermetabolic state in those recovering from eating disorders, where they fail to gain weight despite eating well over the recovery guidelines for calories. Seems to run contrary to the CICO principles...

I don't think is natural to force you to overeat if you don't have hungry. Seems like another eating disorder.

Eat when hungry, till being satisfied.

Good sleep, good temperatures, energy, and a body that can move efficiently should be the main focus for a person looking for health.

I would agree with this except for one caveat being that it applies only to those in decent health and without an eating disorder to begin with. People with eating disorders, Gwyneth's target audience, often have nonexistent appetites which is why she recommends force feeding. The biggest problem I see, like you mentioned, is that this can lead to another type of eating disorder. Recovering from a severe eating disorder is a path fraught with so many pitfalls and dangers that it should not be attempted without clinical supervision. Eating disorders are mental illnesses and it's unrealistic to expect someone with a mental illness to cure themselves.

 

[Blossom]

I would agree with this except for one caveat being that it applies only to those in decent health and without an eating disorder to begin with. People with eating disorders, Gwyneth's target audience, often have nonexistent appetites which is why she recommends force feeding. The biggest problem I see, like you mentioned, is that this can lead to another type of eating disorder. Recovering from a severe eating disorder is a path fraught with so many pitfalls and dangers that it should not be attempted without clinical supervision. Eating disorders are mental illnesses and it's unrealistic to expect someone with a mental illness to cure themselves.

Many people were convinced by her writing that they had an eating disorder when they actually didn’t. Most of her followers were also self diagnosed. She also made it clear that she felt most dieticians and physicians who worked with eating disordered patients were disordered themselves and couldn’t be trusted. Further she warned someone against reading Ray Peat on her original archived forums. I think you should be able to find the original public Youreatopia forum before she put it behind a paywall on wayback.

 

[mbachiu]

I’m truly happy for you @Kelj and for everyone who achieves remission. I followed Gwyneth’s recommendations for 2.5 years to the best of my ability and I knew of Peat’s views during that time. I only stopped because of tragedy in my personal life that made it possible to continue and that is when I really started healing. I was forced to be more active due to my job and could no longer make eating my primary focus although I still ate plenty. I did not have the same negative experience that many reported but there were some very bad effects nonetheless. I’m an adult and I accept responsibility for my actions and don’t blame her because I chose to try her method. I just think it’s important for people to be prepared and know what to look for if complications arise. I personally know of about 40 people who experienced pretty severe complications beyond what people normally experience with mainstream recovery methods.

@Blossom can you share with us what worked for you, in regards to getting healthier & maintaining a weight you feel comfortable with?

 

[Randle Cyclist]

Many people were convinced by her writing that they had an eating disorder when they actually didn’t. Most of her followers were also self diagnosed. She also made it clear that she felt most dieticians and physicians who worked with eating disordered patients were disordered themselves and couldn’t be trusted. Further she warned someone against reading Ray Peat on her original archived forums. I think you should be able to find the original public Youreatopia forum before she put it behind a paywall on wayback.

That all sounds very strange like she was trying to establish a cult saying that no one was to be trusted except for her... Preying on the desperate and mentally unstable. I wonder what her goal was? I've never heard anyone speak against her so I'm going to have to see what I can find on that forum using the Waybackmachine when I have the time.