I spent several weeks in the hospital this winter and had major surgery twice. When I got out, I had dropped 10 kg and weighed 49 kg while being 167 cm tall. Since my condition involved my stomach I also had trouble eating, so I ate whatever I felt like, which quite often came down to potato crisps and the like. I rather quickly shot up to 56 kg… and then it stopped. I eat a lot of burgers, fries, pizza, candy, crisps, kebabs and anything else I get my hands on, but my weight has been stable for two weeks now. Stable as in not having gained so much as a tenth of a kilogram, which is the tolerance of my bathroom scales.
I don’t mind much; I think I look pretty damn good for a guy with an ileostomy bag and a 40 cm surgical scar, but I am curious. Why would my weight first shoot up quickly and then stop, with unaltered diet and the same rough amount of exercise, and why would it stop at such a low weight?
If you find out, let me know. I have the same problem. My doctor is always bitching at me and threatening me dire consequences if I don’t gain some more weight.
My diet consists mainly of fat and salt. (I eat mainly foods from the red area of the food chart). I still don’t gain weight.
I chalk it up to that ephemeral concept of “metabolism.” My body must burn more calories than it should, given my sedentary lifestyle. Perhaps yours is the same-- you’ve hit some kind of plateau when it comes to your weight, and your body is regulating itself to stay there.
2 weeks is far too soon to tell. Very likely, it could be something like this:
Priceguy eats a lot of food to regain lost weight
Said foods contain a lot of starches and salt, and the sudden intake of both causes the body to retain a lot of water
When Priceguy first hits 56 kg, he has a lot of water bloat
Priceguy continues to eat immense amounts, and his body adjusts & begins shedding excess water weight, but the excess weight is replaced by fat from his binges.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for a miraculous change in metabolism.
Further murking the waters (new verb) is a third variable: nutrient uptake from the gastrointestinal tract. Sometimes the body “decides” it doesn’t need the calories and lets 'em pass. Unfortunately, this process is not controllable and, so, not useful for those trying to lose or gain weight.
Everybody knows about the weight loss plateau, but there’s a weight gain plateau too. You moved too high above your set point, and your body compensated. Increased metabolism, lowered appetite. You may think you’re eating as much as you were, but you’re probably not. The body monitors fat stores in the body and for most people keeps your weight roughly +/- 10% around a set point. It’s controlled by the hypothalamus and fat stores are signalled by circulating leptin. Although control of appetite is quite complex and there are a number of hormones involved. Obviously there’s a lot that isn’t understood here, particularly why some people’s set point creeps up and others doesn’t. However even with the very fat these controls exist, preventing people from eating themselves to death, at least in the short term.
If you eat the same amount and types of food every day, then your weight will stabilize for that caloric intake. In other words, the larger you get, the more energy you use just staying alive, so once you hit that calories in vs. calories out equilibrium, you’re done gaining weight.
All you have to do is plug different body weights into any BMR calculator to see what I mean.
For example, if I weighed 300 lbs, my daily caloric maintenance level would be 3217 kcals. At the 175 lbs I actually weigh, my maintenance level is nearly 1000 kcals less. This is one reason for plateaus. The more you lose, the less you have to eat to keep losing.
There is also the thermogenic effect of eating. The more often you eat, the more energy you expend digesting your food. You still can’t violate your calorice needs, it just means that when I spread my 2000 kcals over six meals, I stay leaner than I would if I ate them all in just one meal.
This is actually not entirely true. Fat is not metabolically active and does not require significantly more calories to maintain when gained. BMR calculators should calculate by lean mass only, and if not then they simply are not useful for people significantly greater or less than ideal weight. There is some increase in lean tissue mass with weight gain, and some increase in energy expenditure of physical activity, but these are not strong enough to prevent uncontrolled weight gain in the context of food surplus. In the past decade it’s become well understood that the primary driver of weight stability is neuroendocrine, not any kind of thermodynamic equilibrium.
