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Me either. And yet, if dieting slows down your metabolism and makes you more likely to gain weight in the future, what does stuffing your gullet for a month do?
As an interesting sidenote, and this is not something I am proud of, I have a high tolerance for eating rich foods and can indulge quite happily w/o getting sick--moreso than anyone else I know. Not sure what that says about me except maybe that it's a miracle that I'm not fatter. And that it's quite possible that I could have thrived on this 5000 cal/day diet w/o upchucking the whole thing, but lord I'd hate to think how much weight I would pack on. Most fat people do not eat the amount of food that they were packing into those thin people.
I don't know that I believe that dieting slows your metabolism down. In fact, if you look at the calorie counters, losing enough weight can actually raise the number of calories that you require to maintain your weight.
Crash dieting for long stretches, very poor nutrition, going below what is a normal weight for your body and holding it there for a while - will decrease your muscle mass and that will decrease your metabolism. But so will gorging yourself and laying around the couch all day (muscles atrophy)...
As far as rich food goes, I like it on occasion, too. But 5000 calories, every day, would just be gross.
I just had a memory about something related to this. When I was about 21 yo I was still in college and was dating a young man who still lived with his folks. His mother just loved me and showed it by baking homemade chocolate chip cookies with real butter almost every day! Oh Lord how I loved those cookies and could never turn one down, though I did limit myself to no more than 2 every day. In 3 months I gained 20 lbs! With no other change to my diet and I never managed to get it off, even when we moved in together and didn't go to his folks so much. I was not fat before I dated him, though at 5'3" and 130 lbs I was not happy with my weight--now I was severely distressed. I can't imagine what would have happened to my weight if I had done the experiment that the young people in the movie did, and I was about the same age as those kids. Just 2 extra cookies a day did that much damage to my weight! And I still salivate when I think of them.
I just had a memory about something related to this. When I was about 21 yo I was still in college and was dating a young man who still lived with his folks. His mother just loved me and showed it by baking homemade chocolate chip cookies with real butter almost every day! Oh Lord how I loved those cookies and could never turn one down, though I did limit myself to no more than 2 every day. In 3 months I gained 20 lbs! With no other change to my diet and I never managed to get it off, even when we moved in together and didn't go to his folks so much. I was not fat before I dated him, though at 5'3" and 130 lbs I was not happy with my weight--now I was severely distressed. I can't imagine what would have happened to my weight if I had done the experiment that the young people in the movie did, and I was about the same age as those kids. Just 2 extra cookies a day did that much damage to my weight! And I still salivate when I think of them.
I had a similar experience with my first full time job. Someone in the office used to go to a restaurant and pick up breakfast for whoever wanted it. So I started getting a container of home fries on many mornings. Not many months went by before I had gained right around 20 pounds. So no more home fries for me!
Luckily, with exercise, it didn't take me long to take it right back off.
If I tried that stuff in the video, I could probably be ready for the summa wrestling ring within 6 months. No thanks!
I had a similar experience with my first full time job. Someone in the office used to go to a restaurant and pick up breakfast for whoever wanted it. So I started getting a container of home fries on many mornings. Not many months went by before I had gained right around 20 pounds. So no more home fries for me!
Luckily, with exercise, it didn't take me long to take it right back off.
If I tried that stuff in the video, I could probably be ready for the summa wrestling ring within 6 months. No thanks!
So I have an idea--you can eat your home fries and I can eat my cookies as long as we both fidget more. We'll start a fidgeting exercise program for highly distracted people. Anyone want to join?
I tried doing a personal version of this experiment but with 4000kcals a day not 5000. I am always a person who never seems to be able to gain weight and is by default "underweight" when I pay no attention to my eating. I gained 16lbs in 6 weeks on my personal experiment, proving that I can't "eat all I want and not gain weight" like some people imagine. My set point metabolism is just higher than most peoples for my size. If I over eat I'll still gain weight though. The other point is that my metabolism just seems to regulate itself naturally. It takes no self discipline to not overeat.
I tried doing a personal version of this experiment but with 4000kcals a day not 5000. I am always a person who never seems to be able to gain weight and is by default "underweight" when I pay no attention to my eating. I gained 16lbs in 6 weeks on my personal experiment, proving that I can't "eat all I want and not gain weight" like some people imagine. My set point metabolism is just higher than most peoples for my size. If I over eat I'll still gain weight though. The other point is that my metabolism just seems to regulate itself naturally. It takes no self discipline to not overeat.
Actually I would imagine that you can eat all you want as I would guess that you don't often want to eat 4000 cals a day. Gosh, I don't even want to eat that much. I'll be interested though to know if you're going to have more problems keeping your weight down after you gained that much. I figure you lost it already but let us know if it starts to creep up as that's part of my question about this whole thing. I also wonder how your body would have responded if you did what I did at 23 and ate 2 extra cookies a day--would you gain weight on that, would your body absorb the extra cals somehow, or would you make adjustments elsewhere in your diet w/o even realizing it? This vid raised more questions than it answered.
I'll be interested though to know if you're going to have more problems keeping your weight down after you gained that much. I figure you lost it already but let us know if it starts to creep up as that's part of my question about this whole thing. I also wonder how your body would have responded if you did what I did at 23 and ate 2 extra cookies a day--would you gain weight on that, would your body absorb the extra cals somehow, or would you make adjustments elsewhere in your diet w/o even realizing it? This vid raised more questions than it answered.
To the first point yes "as much as I want" is relative. I generally don't "want" to overeat. Point was though that nobody can really eat as much as possible and not gain anything.
I stopped doing that experiment about 3.5 weeks ago and lost about 8-9lbs of it already just eating normally. I don't think that if I ate 2 extra cookies a day I would gain any weight. My metabolism is good at adjusting to a small extra amount like that.
No, no one needs to eat 5,000 calories a day just to prove a point. However, if you can't eat upwards of 2,000 calories a day and maintain a slim waistline/physique, you definitely don't know what you're doing.
To the first point yes "as much as I want" is relative. I generally don't "want" to overeat. Point was though that nobody can really eat as much as possible and not gain anything.
I stopped doing that experiment about 3.5 weeks ago and lost about 8-9lbs of it already just eating normally. I don't think that if I ate 2 extra cookies a day I would gain any weight. My metabolism is good at adjusting to a small extra amount like that.
No I don't think it's possible to stuff yourself every day and not gain weight, but as you can see from the movie, some people's body will really resist gaining that weight. I cringe to think how fast I would gain weight if I were to try that at home. My personal theory though is that if you were to keep on with this experiment, the weight gain would continue and speed up and your body would adjust to the gain and to the calories and if you decided then at some point to stop, you'd have a much harder time taking off the weight. As I've said many times, I'm convinced that this is due to hormonal factors taking over, such as insulin and ghrelin levels and you can really throw those out of whack as so many people have proven but all this depends on how long you manage to keep it up.
I sort of think of it as trying to switch the direction of a huge freight train--it can be done, but it's not easy and most people when they lose weight (or try to gain it) are fighting against the opposite momentum which is why their body fights so hard to return--after all, all your body's systems are set for that former weight. If you were to gain or lose weight and hold it for awhile, your body will reset but most people can't do that because it requires so much conscious effort. I know all this sounds very contradictory and it is but though our body is made for health, our economy and all our social systems are fighting against us. Anyway, your little experiment was probably fun, kind of, but don't do that again! Poor food choices can be addictive.
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We'll start a fidgeting exercise program for highly distracted people. Anyone want to join?
