I don’t know how valid it is, but I have heard that a person starving themselves can cause them to gain more weight than they would have otherwise had they not starved themselves.
So what about the opposite? Is it possible that force feeding could signal to the body that it has ‘too many’ calories and shift biochemistry to cause weight loss?
The idea isn’t that radical. Among some bodybuilding circles the idea of refeeding (eating at or above maintenance calories every few days) to increase leptin levels and cause more weight loss is a popular idea.
So some bodybuilders who want to lose weight will diet for a few days, then they will eat at or slightly above maintenance calories (maybe eat 4400 if they need 4000 a day) to put their levels of leptin back to normal in the hopes that it’ll be easier to diet after that.
A friend of mine says he is having good success with a diet like that, where he alternates between dieting one day and then eating at maintenance the next.
I’ve heard (from 1 source that I can’t remember at the moment) Sumo wrestlers, when they want to gain weight, will starve themselves for a short period first and then they will eat as much as possible because it causes more (and I’m assuming more permanent) weight gain than if they hadn’t done the starvation at first. So starve yourself so your body starts to panic and worry about starving to death, then force feed yourself when your body is still more or less primed for starvation mode.
So I wonder if the opposite is true, if force feeding yourself for 2 weeks or so (eating 120%+ of maintenance calories a day as an example) in the hopes that the bodies chemistry changes to make your body think it has too many calories, then going on a diet would be more effective than just going on a diet.
I think that would work excellently, but not have the effect you’re thinking of. When the body gets more calories than it needs, doesn’t it store them off to the side (and middle, and legs, and …) in case it needs them later?
The problem is that almost every person who has ever gone on a diet was probably already doing this. Not intentionally of course, but the fact that they want to lose weight would imply that they were already eating more calories than they need.
You have to remember bodybuilders are NOT regular people. “Tricks” like this, for lack of a better word, do work but not in big enough amounts to count for regular type Joes.
Remember the difference between a 200 pound bodybuilder and a 201 pound bodybuilder can make the difference between a first and second place showing. First place wins $10,000, second place gets squat.
On a regular person no one can tell the difference between a 150 pound and a 149 pound person.
You don’t really gain weight faster, it’s just that you slow your metabolism down. And again, this doesn’t slow down enough to matter to anyone but those measuring at precise levels. Again yo-yo dieting will slow down your metabolism to the tune of about 100 calories a week. That’s nothing, it’s not even half a candy bar. Even discounting the lack of accumulation you’re talking about 1.485 pounds per year more.
As you see those 1.485 pounds matter to a bodybuilder but aren’t noticable on anyone else