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

[Blossom]

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

Sure. After 2.5 years of eating as close to 2,500 calories per day as possible and being as sedentary as possible I had to go back to work full time. For those 2.5 years I worked part time at a very easy job where I set my own hours, could take a break anytime I needed and there was nothing physical beyond walking a little.
Due to a family crisis I had to become the main breadwinner so I took a full time 12 hour night shift position which was a lot more demanding and physical. We also moved to the country and started doing work on a fixer upper house we bought so I was a lot more active by necessity. I kept eating whenever I felt hungry but no longer had the time or energy to track things. I ate more convenience foods during that time because we didn’t have an actual kitchen for about nine months. I still had regular meals but it was things easy to prepare like frozen lasagna in the toaster oven for example.
I think it was just getting on with life out of necessity and having a purpose to work toward. I gradually tapered back to where I started before HDRM/MM over the next 2-3 years by just following my bodies cues. I suppose it could be called intuitive eating and movement. The only rule I stuck with during the last 6 years consistently has been lower pufa. That’s it.

 

[mbachiu]

Sure. After 2.5 years of eating as close to 2,500 calories per day as possible and being as sedentary as possible I had to go back to work full time. For those 2.5 years I worked part time at a very easy job where I set my own hours, could take a break anytime I needed and there was nothing physical beyond walking a little.
Due to a family crisis I had to become the main breadwinner so I took a full time 12 hour night shift position which was a lot more demanding and physical. We also moved to the country and started doing work on a fixer upper house we bought so I was a lot more active by necessity. I kept eating whenever I felt hungry but no longer had the time or energy to track things. I ate more convenience foods during that time because we didn’t have an actual kitchen for about nine months. I still had regular meals but it was things easy to prepare like frozen lasagna in the toaster oven for example.
I think it was just getting on with life out of necessity and having a purpose to work toward. I gradually tapered back to where I started before HDRM/MM over the next 2-3 years by just following my bodies cues. I suppose it could be called intuitive eating and movement. The only rule I stuck with during the last 6 years consistently has been lower pufa. That’s it.

Reall, @Blossom, this sounds very similar to my experiences. I’m not tracking any food. My guess is that I’m eating around 3500 a day, & the only reason I’d have an idea of ballpark would be because I religiously tracked macros for years. I am a teacher & off during the summer months. Being back at school I’m moving more & my appetite is finally normalizing a bit. I’m hoping this means that my body is storing some glycogen again, & perhaps on the path to healing.

Thanks for sharing. When I start tracking everything, that’s when things kind of go south. So, good to know that healing can occur just by listening to the body’s signals & cues. I really appreciate your response. Thank you

 

[Blossom]

Reall, @Blossom, this sounds very similar to my experiences. I’m not tracking any food. My guess is that I’m eating around 3500 a day, & the only reason I’d have an idea of ballpark would be because I religiously tracked macros for years. I am a teacher & off during the summer months. Being back at school I’m moving more & my appetite is finally normalizing a bit. I’m hoping this means that my body is storing some glycogen again, & perhaps on the path to healing.

Thanks for sharing. When I start tracking everything, that’s when things kind of go south. So, good to know that healing can occur just by listening to the body’s signals & cues. I really appreciate your response. Thank you

You’re welcome. I track periodically just to make sure I’m still eating enough. I guess once you have lived through something like this it’s hard to trust yourself completely. I never want to go through that hell again. Best wishes to you.

 

[mbachiu]

You’re welcome. I track periodically just to make sure I’m still eating enough. I guess once you have lived through something like this it’s hard to trust yourself completely. I never want to go through that hell again. Best wishes to you.

I feel like I’m still in the midst of the mental hell & continuously second guessing myself. Hopefully as more time passes, I feel more confident in my choices & it does result in better overall health. Thanks again for sharing. Much appreciated.

 

[Blossom]

I feel like I’m still in the midst of the mental hell & continuously second guessing myself. Hopefully as more time passes, I feel more confident in my choices & it does result in better overall health. Thanks again for sharing. Much appreciated.

You’re welcome. Once you get to the other side of this things should be so much better. It was very gradual for me and that seems to be the case for most of the people I know who did HDRM/MM too. Even after transitioning to more intuitive eating and movement people report gradual changes over 18 months to 2 years. This isn’t scientific of course just people sharing their experience. I think it was a little longer for me because of my age.

 

[ecstatichamster]

lol people are living longer because of antibiotics and medicine and despite the fact that they overeat to the point that everyone is fat and sick

Better nutrition increased stature in the 20th century, but average height has peaked and is now declining, for Americans, probably because of changing demographics favoring genetically shorter populations (amerindians).

In the last 18 months, I have seen three men—fathers—die prematurely, in their 40s and 50s, who were morbidly obese, ate nonstop and did no exercise. Heart attack, diabetes/weird pulmonary infection, and pancreatic cancer (worst way to go).

Everyone I know who is overweight is miserable and addicted to food.

Fasting clean is one fairly simply way to avoid overeating. Fasting clean + good nutrition + strength training is a fairly simply way to look good naked.

With all due respect this is dangerous nonsense. Dr. Peat has explained very clearly why fasting is a really bad idea. We have hundreds of studies showing it elevates inflammation and increases insulin resistance by high levels of free fatty acids in the blood which, when they are PUFA (which they will be) damage the thymus, beta cells, Leydig cells, brain, etc. etc. etc..

I have posted many of these studies. So has Haidut. Instead of spouting platitudes why don’t you look at these studies. I believe I posted them in a thread you participated in or started.

If anything, obesity is caused mostly by very low metabolisms brought on be massive PUFA consumption. PUFAs depress metabolism in many ways, increase inflammation in the body and increase harmful estrogen.

In a person with these problems, fasting is the WORST thing they can do because the PUFA, rather than being burned off gradually or metabolized at the rate the liver can handle through glucuronidation, are dumped into the bloodstream to cause huge metabolic damage.

Why not listen to this exceptional interview to see how this works from Dr. Peat:

 

[ecstatichamster]

You’re welcome. Once you get to the other side of this things should be so much better. It was very gradual for me and that seems to be the case for most of the people I know who did HDRM/MM too. Even after transitioning to more intuitive eating and movement people report gradual changes over 18 months to 2 years. This isn’t scientific of course just people sharing their experience. I think it was a little longer for me because of my age.

Would you mind going through the timeline one more time? Are you saying

1. You under ate

2. Then you over ate

3. Then you recovered — if so how?

thanks!

 

[Blossom]

Would you mind going through the timeline one more time? Are you saying

1. You under ate

2. Then you over ate

3. Then you recovered — if so how?

thanks!

Yes, I under ate primarily from undiagnosed celiac disease. I avoided a lot of foods for decades due to IBS. I normally weighed 95-105 during these years (ages of about 15-45)
I found Peat in 2012-2013 and started to heal. My weight increased to about 115-120 eating about 1800-2000 calories per day.
In the summer of 2014 I started eating to the MM recovery guidelines of 2500 calories and my weight increased to 173 pounds in about 6 months then stabilized. I felt ok until my BMI went above 30. I’m 5 foot 1.5 inches tall.
I started intuitive eating and movement in early 2017 and gradually normalized my weight back to 121 as of this time.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Thank you. Super helpful.

 

[Blossom]

Thank you. Super helpful.

You’re welcome.

 

[Hildy]

Same. Green smoothies/greens in general are a must for me. The only Peat-influenced changes I've made to them are more citrus, using Greek yogurt and never regular yogurt, leaving out any nuts/seeds and alternating between kale and spinach. I always included a raw carrot in them.

Yeah, I really think (strongly) that if someone focuses on food QUALITY i.e.it's nutrition value - meaning the nutrients in the food that have vitamins, minerals and antioxidants etc. one will be healthier, more satisfied and probably eat LESS because they are not craving nutrients they need, as they are getting it from the foods they eat and from some supplementation. Endless McDonald's Big Macs are not going to do anything for you nutritiously except to make you gain weight. That's it. The fast food industry knows this very well. They provide cheap, palatable, readily available food and that's why we have an epidemic of overweight nutritionally starved fatties in western countries and now, other parts of the world. I gain weight when I eat junk food......candy, cake, cookies etc. I stabilize and/or lose weight when I eat predominantly nutritious foods, so that's where the focus should be in my opinion. For me anyway. You naturally eat less when you focus on nutrition. Connecting this to Peat, I'm getting more nutrition by drinking milk and eating more calcium foods than I used to. Doesn't mean I'm drinking gallons of milk though. But back to my main point, to have free reign to eat endless supplies of any kind of food, like the eating program the op was endorsing, is bad advice. To eat for the sake of just eating is wrong IMO. To eat for health by making better food choices is an entirely different matter. One has to retrain their thinking to focus on eating more nutritiously though. Often, it takes more time to prepare better quality meals than it does to just grab some fast food. But that should be the focus.
EDIT: and yeah, I try to get my green smoothie in because they just make me feel good - knowing I ate something nutritious. And they are filling as well.

 

[ecstatichamster]

The problem with fast food burgers are that the bun has PUFAs.

The general problems I see with diets is:

1. Far too much phosphorus and not nearly enough calcium. Causes parathyroid hormone and many inflammatory processes that eventually lead to fibrosis.

2. Far too much PUFA, depressing metabolism, accumulating and destroying metabolism, beta cells, thymus, Leydig cells, etc.

3. Far too much iron including evil reduced iron, accumulating and causing huge problems with runaway free radicals, lipofuscin accumulation and quicker aging.

I see this with EVERYONE who “eats a healthy diet.”

4. Not enough calories — I’m seeing this as very common now, and this thread is helping me see it in a new light. But Dr. Peat cares about calories, and I think that you can’t go overboard IF YOU ARE ALREADY SICK. It is easy to go from not enough to too much. Most people who start “Peating’ here end up that way. I did. I went from 185 to 217. I got back to 195 and now I’m at 203 for some unknown reason.

I don’t count calories and I eat when I’m hungry. I find that I start out hungry, then over the rest of the day end up by night not being very hungry, eating a light dinner and that’s about it.

This feels right to me at this time.

5. Liver becomes fatty. I think that PUFAs make this very bad. This leads to constant hypoglycemic episodes, because the glycogen storage is so poor. And to very slow metabolism because T4 and rT3 are high but T3 is low due to poor liver conversion of T4 to T3 and also I think a protective measure.

6. Each hypoglycemic episode releases very bad PUFA-laden free fatty acids, which kill the delicate cells, increase estrogen and correlate with chronically high cortisol.

7. Lean mass begins disappearing and all sorts of bad chronic diseases set in.

The fad for fasting and IFing makes this much faster and much worse.

 

[Hildy]

The problem with fast food burgers are that the bun has PUFAs.

The general problems I see with diets is:

1. Far too much phosphorus and not nearly enough calcium. Causes parathyroid hormone and many inflammatory processes that eventually lead to fibrosis.

2. Far too much PUFA, depressing metabolism, accumulating and destroying metabolism, beta cells, thymus, Leydig cells, etc.

3. Far too much iron including evil reduced iron, accumulating and causing huge problems with runaway free radicals, lipofuscin accumulation and quicker aging.

I see this with EVERYONE who “eats a healthy diet.”

4. Not enough calories — I’m seeing this as very common now, and this thread is helping me see it in a new light. But Dr. Peat cares about calories, and I think that you can’t go overboard IF YOU ARE ALREADY SICK. It is easy to go from not enough to too much. Most people who start “Peating’ here end up that way. I did. I went from 185 to 217. I got back to 195 and now I’m at 203 for some unknown reason.

I don’t count calories and I eat when I’m hungry. I find that I start out hungry, then over the rest of the day end up by night not being very hungry, eating a light dinner and that’s about it.

This feels right to me at this time.

5. Liver becomes fatty. I think that PUFAs make this very bad. This leads to constant hypoglycemic episodes, because the glycogen storage is so poor. And to very slow metabolism because T4 and rT3 are high but T3 is low due to poor liver conversion of T4 to T3 and also I think a protective measure.

6. Each hypoglycemic episode releases very bad PUFA-laden free fatty acids, which kill the delicate cells, increase estrogen and correlate with chronically high cortisol.

7. Lean mass begins disappearing and all sorts of bad chronic diseases set in.

The fad for fasting and IFing makes this much faster and much worse.

I agree PUFAS are a big part of the problem. And talking about nutrition again, The PUFAS are not nutritious - the corn oils, the canola oils, the soy bean oils etc. And yeah, neither is that fast food bun. Empty calories.

The only PUFAS I find are somewhat nutritious are nuts but in moderation.

Sounds like you are doing an intuitive type of eating and listening to your body. To me that's a healthy approach. I'm trying to do that too but with an emphasis on quality food choices, as opposed to choosing junk, PUFAS, empty calories. You can never go wrong eating real food. Even if it is a PUFA banana sometimes.

 

[Hildy]

The problem with fast food burgers are that the bun has PUFAs.

The general problems I see with diets is:

1. Far too much phosphorus and not nearly enough calcium. Causes parathyroid hormone and many inflammatory processes that eventually lead to fibrosis.

2. Far too much PUFA, depressing metabolism, accumulating and destroying metabolism, beta cells, thymus, Leydig cells, etc.

3. Far too much iron including evil reduced iron, accumulating and causing huge problems with runaway free radicals, lipofuscin accumulation and quicker aging.

I see this with EVERYONE who “eats a healthy diet.”

4. Not enough calories — I’m seeing this as very common now, and this thread is helping me see it in a new light. But Dr. Peat cares about calories, and I think that you can’t go overboard IF YOU ARE ALREADY SICK. It is easy to go from not enough to too much. Most people who start “Peating’ here end up that way. I did. I went from 185 to 217. I got back to 195 and now I’m at 203 for some unknown reason.

I don’t count calories and I eat when I’m hungry. I find that I start out hungry, then over the rest of the day end up by night not being very hungry, eating a light dinner and that’s about it.

This feels right to me at this time.

5. Liver becomes fatty. I think that PUFAs make this very bad. This leads to constant hypoglycemic episodes, because the glycogen storage is so poor. And to very slow metabolism because T4 and rT3 are high but T3 is low due to poor liver conversion of T4 to T3 and also I think a protective measure.

6. Each hypoglycemic episode releases very bad PUFA-laden free fatty acids, which kill the delicate cells, increase estrogen and correlate with chronically high cortisol.

7. Lean mass begins disappearing and all sorts of bad chronic diseases set in.

The fad for fasting and IFing makes this much faster and much worse.

Yeah, hypoglycemia is a big driver of making bad food choices.

 

[mbachiu]

The problem with fast food burgers are that the bun has PUFAs.

The general problems I see with diets is:

1. Far too much phosphorus and not nearly enough calcium. Causes parathyroid hormone and many inflammatory processes that eventually lead to fibrosis.

2. Far too much PUFA, depressing metabolism, accumulating and destroying metabolism, beta cells, thymus, Leydig cells, etc.

3. Far too much iron including evil reduced iron, accumulating and causing huge problems with runaway free radicals, lipofuscin accumulation and quicker aging.

I see this with EVERYONE who “eats a healthy diet.”

4. Not enough calories — I’m seeing this as very common now, and this thread is helping me see it in a new light. But Dr. Peat cares about calories, and I think that you can’t go overboard IF YOU ARE ALREADY SICK. It is easy to go from not enough to too much. Most people who start “Peating’ here end up that way. I did. I went from 185 to 217. I got back to 195 and now I’m at 203 for some unknown reason.

I don’t count calories and I eat when I’m hungry. I find that I start out hungry, then over the rest of the day end up by night not being very hungry, eating a light dinner and that’s about it.

This feels right to me at this time.

5. Liver becomes fatty. I think that PUFAs make this very bad. This leads to constant hypoglycemic episodes, because the glycogen storage is so poor. And to very slow metabolism because T4 and rT3 are high but T3 is low due to poor liver conversion of T4 to T3 and also I think a protective measure.

6. Each hypoglycemic episode releases very bad PUFA-laden free fatty acids, which kill the delicate cells, increase estrogen and correlate with chronically high cortisol.

7. Lean mass begins disappearing and all sorts of bad chronic diseases set in.

The fad for fasting and IFing makes this much faster and much worse.

I’m interested to know your thoughts about how to increase calories when sick & not eating enough. It’s too late for me, but interested to know. The results of eating too much too soon...are you able to reverse some of that damage in time?

 

[Vinny]

The problem with fast food burgers are that the bun has PUFAs.

The general problems I see with diets is:

1. Far too much phosphorus and not nearly enough calcium. Causes parathyroid hormone and many inflammatory processes that eventually lead to fibrosis.

2. Far too much PUFA, depressing metabolism, accumulating and destroying metabolism, beta cells, thymus, Leydig cells, etc.

3. Far too much iron including evil reduced iron, accumulating and causing huge problems with runaway free radicals, lipofuscin accumulation and quicker aging.

I see this with EVERYONE who “eats a healthy diet.”

4. Not enough calories — I’m seeing this as very common now, and this thread is helping me see it in a new light. But Dr. Peat cares about calories, and I think that you can’t go overboard IF YOU ARE ALREADY SICK. It is easy to go from not enough to too much. Most people who start “Peating’ here end up that way. I did. I went from 185 to 217. I got back to 195 and now I’m at 203 for some unknown reason.

I don’t count calories and I eat when I’m hungry. I find that I start out hungry, then over the rest of the day end up by night not being very hungry, eating a light dinner and that’s about it.

This feels right to me at this time.

5. Liver becomes fatty. I think that PUFAs make this very bad. This leads to constant hypoglycemic episodes, because the glycogen storage is so poor. And to very slow metabolism because T4 and rT3 are high but T3 is low due to poor liver conversion of T4 to T3 and also I think a protective measure.

6. Each hypoglycemic episode releases very bad PUFA-laden free fatty acids, which kill the delicate cells, increase estrogen and correlate with chronically high cortisol.

7. Lean mass begins disappearing and all sorts of bad chronic diseases set in.

The fad for fasting and IFing makes this much faster and much worse.

Thanks, well done and very helpful, hamster

 

[somuch4food]

Sounds like you are doing an intuitive type of eating and listening to your body. To me that's a healthy approach. I'm trying to do that too but with an emphasis on quality food choices, as opposed to choosing junk, PUFAS, empty calories. You can never go wrong eating real food. Even if it is a PUFA banana sometimes.

Don't focus only on nutrient density. I did last year and ended up undereating and losing too much weight. We have learned to process our food in order to maximize energy availability to feed our expensive brain. It's a matter of balancing macros and micros. Processed foods can still be useful to provide fuel, they just shouldn't be the only part of your diet.

 

[YamnayaMommy]

With all due respect this is dangerous nonsense. Dr. Peat has explained very clearly why fasting is a really bad idea. We have hundreds of studies showing it elevates inflammation and increases insulin resistance by high levels of free fatty acids in the blood which, when they are PUFA (which they will be) damage the thymus, beta cells, Leydig cells, brain, etc. etc. etc..

I have posted many of these studies. So has Haidut. Instead of spouting platitudes why don’t you look at these studies. I believe I posted them in a thread you participated in or started.

If anything, obesity is caused mostly by very low metabolisms brought on be massive PUFA consumption. PUFAs depress metabolism in many ways, increase inflammation in the body and increase harmful estrogen.

In a person with these problems, fasting is the WORST thing they can do because the PUFA, rather than being burned off gradually or metabolized at the rate the liver can handle through glucuronidation, are dumped into the bloodstream to cause huge metabolic damage.

Why not listen to this exceptional interview to see how this works from Dr. Peat:

Thanks, I’ll check out that clip later ... I typically read this forum when I’m rocking baby to sleep and can’t watch it now.

Um, I mean unless we are doing the research ourselves we are all to some extent spouting platitudes—other people’s explanations.

None of the studies you linked to before showed that eating well within an 8 hour window and fasting for 16 hours a day is damaging to metabolically healthy adults.

I don’t really understand the research showing that burning FFA is bad. And frankly i assume that most of the people here don’t have a real deep understanding of it either. A lot of the claims made about IF’s dangers—like that it causes muscle loss—are contradicted by studies I’ve read about and by my own experience. I first discovered IF through the leangains guy, who advocated an 16:8 pattern as a way of saying lean while gaining muscle. And I’ve not lost muscle while practicing an admittedly relaxed IF regime.

And I am extremely skeptical of the claim that obesity crisis today is caused by PUFA and bad metabolism. I am inclined to believe the energy balance explanation that the mainline obesity researchers hew to. And this is mainly because the energy balance explanation best fits my experience and my observations of how other people eat and look.

I have never known personally anybody who had weirdly low metabolism. Just fat people who obviously overate and lean people who ate moderate amounts of whole foods and exercised.

Maybe PUFA damaging metabolism can explain some obesity, but increased calorie intake seems more dominant. People eat more calories now than ever, they’re fatter than ever, etc.

 

[ecstatichamster]

Thanks, well done and very helpful, hamster

thank you Vinny

 

[tara]

Is this refeeding thing a joke? Aside from anorexics, virtually all adults and probably most children need to eat fewer calories.

I don't think it's a joke.
Whether from anorexia or other causes, chronic undereating is a stress that the body does it's best to deal with. It can reduce NEAT, defer repair and maintenance, reduce metabolism (body temps/heartrate/thyroid function/reproductive hormones) and/or reduce lean mass. I don't think this applies to everyone, but it seems as though it may apply to some people here.
There seem to be a number of members here who have low metabolism and long term habits of eating significantly less than needed to maintain a healthy metabolism. It's at least plausible that in some cases the later has contributed to the former. The latter has been shown to be a potential causal factor for the former.
Amongst sources, I'm informed, as I think kelj and some others here may be, by thoughtful, referenced writing by Gwyneth Olwyn (edinstitute), reports from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, and at least a little compatible experience.

Some of my thoughts on the subject are in this thread:
Recovery From Undereating - Youreatopia

Much of the material that was on youreatopia then is now on a renamed site: edinstitute.org.
Part V Fat: No More Fear, No More Contempt — The Eating Disorder Institute

Americans eat like 300-600 calories more on average than they did 50 years ago. The relationship—probably causal—between increased calorie intake and increased BMI has been established in the medical literature for a long time.

They also, on average, live longer than they used to.

I have never known personally anybody who had weirdly low metabolism. Just fat people who obviously overate and lean people who ate moderate amounts of whole foods and exercised.

Maybe PUFA damaging metabolism can explain some obesity, but increased calorie intake seems more dominant. People eat more calories now than ever, they’re fatter than ever, etc.

[Edit to add: kelj - I got carried away and responded with this before readinghte rest of the thread and seeing you'd already posted it. :) ]

"Overweight Means Eating Too Much
Nope.

Statistics from the Healthy Eating Index [Table 10, 1998] show that adults with a body mass index of 20 or less and those with a BMI greater than 30 have similar calorie intakes, as do the two categories between.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 60% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 36% are BMI 20-25, 43% are BMI 25-30 and 17% are over BMI 30.

Men (ages 18-74) who eat 120% of the recommended daily calories: 3% are BMI 15-20, 46% are BMI 20-25, 41% are BMI 25-30, and 10% are over BMI 30.

Take a close look at that for a moment.

17% of those eating only 60% of the recommended calorie intake are obese. Only 10% of those eating 120% of the recommended calorie intake are obese.

The correlation coefficient is r=0.02594 (p<0.38), and that means that body mass index is not linked to calorie intake."​

Part VI Fat: No More Fear, No More Contempt — The Eating Disorder Institute