I don’t know if studies have been done on this subject or not but with the weight loss thread in GD it got me thinking. With dieting you are restricting calories which for alot of people makes them fatter than they were to begin with in the long run. And Sumo wrestlers, when they want to gain weight, cut calories for a bit before they start gaining weight because the period of deprivation makes it easier to gain weight later, probably because the genes and proteins that cause obesity are activated during times of famine. Logically it makes sense that as your body perceives a famine it activates machinery to deal with famine and you get fatter. So is the opposite true that force feeding results in shutting down the biochemical machinery, or does the biochemical machinery just work one way?
So has anyone looked into doing the opposite, force feeding people in the hopes that this will lead to weight loss? Ie, you would have someone eat more calories than they needed and wanted for a period, then go on a regular diet or so and see if they lose weight.
I know on the weight loss threads which I used to post on some people would say that when they hit a weight loss plateau eating forbidden foods or going off of a diet for a week or two got their metabolism working again and restarted the weight loss.
I have heard of dieters refeeding when dieting (which is when you eat maintenance calories after a period of dieting before you start dieting again), but when they do this it is usually just for a single day and it is most likely maintenance calories, not eating until you are full then eating some more. I’m talking about forcing down an extra 1000 calories a day beyond what a person wants to eat for a period of time type of thing.