Reversing out of a diet Part 2: More evidence on short term overfeeding

Last weeks article was on reversing out of a diet correctly (click here to read) and the take home point was that high carbohydrate with low fat was the way to go and that short term overfeeding would not get you fat again provided you trained hard and were actually lean before engaging in overfeeding.

Today I made aware of this article which covers several studies on overfeeding and also covers what happens when you overfeed with an emphasis on each particular macronutrient. I highly recommend reading through the entire article but to sum it up:

• How much weight you gain from overfeeding depends on your genetics & lifestyle factors (upbringing, activity levels and body fat set points)
• High carb and high fat diets increase weight by the same amount when overfeeding- although high carb causes a more rapid initial increase and the water weight takes longer to come back off again
• There was also no increase in de novo lipogenesis (fat gain), at all, when the when obese subjects were overfed with a high carbohydrate diet for one day (and by extension no difference between lean and obese people)
• High carb diet caused less relative fat gain than the high fat diet- presumably because 4g/kg of these carbohydrates would have been stored as glycogen. This will increase in periods of hard dieting
• Absolute fat gain was higher in the high carb group however. The fatter you are the less dietary shenanigans you can get away with is the key point here. The leaner you are- the more carbs you should eat on your refeeds or when coming out of a diet
• As an aside- the fatter you are the less you should be eating full stop! Going back to my original blog post and the points made earlier- fatter people should refeed for 1-3 days on a high carb diet.
• High carb gave more lean mass gains than high fat- although this is likely attributed to glycogen storage. As a personal addition- the more glycogen you have the more brutal your caloric deficit can be so this is again ideal for refeeds. The biggest caloric deficit should be the day after this refeed
• High carb increased thyroid output- yet high fat did not
• High carb also increased leptin but not high fat. So prepare to feel hungry after a high carb refeed, especially if you're fatter. If you feel that you just need an influx of calories a high fat refeed such as ribs or wings may be in order if you're not lean or have enough glycogen retention that you can't really warrant a carb meal. Combining high fat with high carb increases leptin the most and should be avoided. I'm not a fan of spiking my insulin and then eat fat but if you want to have a cheat meal of fast food and the rest of your diet is on track then just be prepared for the hunger crash afterwards
• It takes 500g of carbohydrate before even a single gram is converted to fat. Refeeds of up to 96h showed no difference in lipogenesis when this was exceeded, so keep it under 4 days (preferably 2). I still think a 3-4h cheat window is better though because you'll simply be unable to eat enough to have a catastrophic effect on your diet and I personally find less bloat / water weight is added compared to spreading the same amount out over a single day
• With the exception of ketogenic diets, where corresponding data is still missing (no hypercaloric ketogenic diet studies), the rule of thumb is: The more fat in the diet, the more rapid the body fat, but not necessarily the body weight gain

The main take away point here? In the short term- high protein and carb is the way to go. In the long run however it is ultimately caloric balance that matters. Eat like a hippo and you'll turn into one no matter what it is you're eating.

Note, that many of these recommendations are in the short term. In the long term is showed that high carb or high fat didn't matter for overall weight gain- it was the caloric surplus. I was asked how a former obese person should then eat to gain muscle after dieting down? Given that their insulin sensitivity will not be too great and they will have a psychological aversion to eating huge amounts of carbohydrate (a valid concern). Let's give an example of a 90kg guy that wants to eat 3,000kcal a day to gain muscle who wants a good long term diet and doesn't care about the short term refeeding benefits (they want to keep it simple).

Protein: 200g per day
Carbohydrate: 200g per day
Fat: 155g per day

Protein is at roughly 1g/lb, carbohydrate matches that as there is really no need for any more. Eaten mainly post training with the rest in the small pre-training meal this is enough for glycogen replenishment.
Fats make up the rest of the calories. Cook in canola, use olive oil as a dressing, minimize animal fats unless grass fed. Nuts are a great source of fats. There are a number of moderate carb & high fat foods that are ideal like granola for instance, where 100g will give you 64g of carbohydrate, 20g of fats and 10g of protein for 470 Calories. Ideal to eat 30 minutes before you train. It also has a great amount of potassium, sodium and magnesium replacing electrolytes as you sweat during training.

A sample day may look like this, macros listed as carbs/proteins/fats:

Breakfast: 6 eggs cooked in 15g canola (0/36/45)
Lunch: 350g chicken breast "stuffed" with 50g ricotta cheese and wrapped in two slices of bacon (105/61)
Pre-workout: 100g of granola (64/10/20)

Dinner: 300g of ground turkey with just under a cup of rice (175g) (135/50/30)