Cheating On Your Diet To Increase Fat Loss.

Howdy folks.... no I have not lost my mind. I have come only bearing gifts! The gift of knowledge. Okay, that sounds totally corny, but this might have you smiling all the way back to the fridge.

So many people hit plateaus. The fat will not go anywhere, and your measurements and scale weight at the same.  My longest plateau was 7 weeks long. Depressing yes, but in my quest for the truth about fat loss, I discovered something..... Cheating once or twice a week, actually helped with moving beyond that plateau.

A fluke? Wishful thinking?  Nope... it is actually based in medical science. It has to do with Neuroendocrinology. Seriously!

We talk about insulin, we talk about testosterone, we talk about estrogen, but have we every talked about LEPTIN?

Leptin? What the, who the huh?

Yup Leptin, a hormone. There not just for sex anymore.

Named after leptos, the Greek term for "thin," leptin is a hormone released by your fat cells. Although it has a number of functions, one of leptin's main roles is to let your brain know how fat you are.  It actually controls your metabolism. Yes I am serious. Leptin is produced by fat tissue and is secreted into the bloodstream where it travels to the brain and other tissues. Leptin causes fat loss and decreased appetite. It also plays a very important role in calorie intake and calorie burning. Hmmm, that sounds pretty important to all this hubbub we are all going through doesn't it?

The bottomline is that by mastering Leptin hormone in your body you will be mastering your body weight. Why?

Leptin causes you to burn stored fat; most fad diets, or unrealistic dieting robs the body of both fat and muscle. When you diet, your body compensates for reduced calorie and fat intake by lowering your energy and metabolism. Leptin can actually enhance your energy and metabolism. What does this mean, well what it means is best diet and exercise plan in the world will not work unless the Leptin levels are correct. Something Nutrisystem does not share with it's customers I assure you.

Leptin levels are related to a number of things, including insulin, your caloric intake, and your current level of bodyfat. Think of it as one of the big ?fat-loss decision makers.? Generally speaking, the leaner you are, the lower your baseline levels of leptin are. Under normal conditions, though, leptin is plentiful. However, while your calorie intake is at sub-maintenance levels, and particularly if you're on a low-carb diet, which lowers your levels of circulating insulin, leptin levels drop.

Decreased leptin levels cause a number of other regulatory changes ? namely, decreased thyroid output and metabolic rate and increased catabolic hormone activity and appetite. In an attempt to become more efficient, your body will try to slow down to make that lowered caloric intake its new maintenance intake. That is, it'll try to do the same amount of work with less energy. And unfortunately, this usually means having to continuously lower calories to maintain your progress, which inevitably makes it very hard to hold on to all your hard-earned muscle. None of this sounds too good to me. However, periodic days of high calorie and carbohydrate intake may help with this.


Remember our bodies want to adapt. That is a good thing and a not-so-good thing when trying to lose body fat. So how do we increase levels of leptin enough to kick start the fat loss again. (exercise is still required here people)

Researchers have identified a system that 'senses' nutrient flux (flux = what's going in versus what's going out) through both fat and muscle cells.  This affects a lot of process. When dieting, more calories are leaving the fat cell than are going in (negative flux). This nutrient sensing system  'senses' this and affects many processes, one of which is leptin production (decreasing leptin production).  So leptin drops.  When overfeeding, more calories are entering the fat cells than are leaving (positive flux). The system 'senses' this and  affects many processes, one of which is leptin production (increasing leptin production).  So leptin increases.  Hence the need for cyclical dieting: when dieting, leptin drops and your body fights back. 

What is cyclical dieting... well to make a long story short. A cheat day. Now I do not mean go nuts with the KFC, I mean, eat more carbs, protein and fat, don't worry. Meaning try 4 days of dieting per week.  Meaning consume 500 -800 Calories less than your Maintainance Level, and then have 2 days at the maintainance level, and one day with maybe an extra 500 calories above your maintainance level.  Keep working out, drink plenty of water... try this for a couple of weeks, and see if this works, remember change it up each day.  mix it up.

Your plateau will start to vanish.  It did for me.

Eat people.... it is what gives us the energy to live.

I am on the diet, The Cheat to Lose Diet by Joel Marion.  I saw this thread but it is so long I am not sure if someone wrote this already.  This diet works with Leptin as the original writer stated is a hormone.  It changes your metabolism while upping your carbs and calories.  In this diet you start with a 3 wk "priming" phase.  one week LC, one week lower GL/GI foods and the last week of higher GL/GI foods but lower fat.  Then a cheat day.  After the priming phase you move to core phase of Sun, Mon. LC, Tues, Wed, Lower GL/GI foods, Thurs, Fri higher GL/GI foods but lower fat, and Saturday is cheat day.  Eat what you want, do not deprive yourself but eat to satisfaction and not too much food.  I eat until l am almost full.  Cheat day is not just  for psychological reasons but more importantly it is for physiological reasons as it ups the calories and carbs and then really ups them on the cheat days.  You change your metabolism and lose fat not just the LC water weight we have all experienced.  I am relatively new to this but I am loving eating fruit and legumes on Lower GL/GI days and love that there is a day when I can eat oatmeal and a day when I can cheat and there is a day for just about anything.  My workouts are better for me.  I work out with a trainer and he can tell my energy is much different from the days of counting the calories and fat and days of Low carbing it.  I have the best of all the worlds now and couldn't be happier.

If anyone is on this diet, please let me know.  Would love to discuss but have not found anyone who knows anything about this diet or what Leptin is until today.  I do know people that do some cycle type diets but those have to do with bodybuilding and this doesn't.  He says you should exercise as every diet book will say but I only work out 3 days a week.

I just signed up for this forum today but am excited to hear from anyone that is having successes. 

 

Lisa

So much of a calorie increase is considered a 'cheat' to boost your metabolism?

I didn't believe it.  I just thought I should keep doing what I was doing.  Same calories, different day and same weight.  While I was waiting for that toothfairy I started to read some studies on Leptin.  It is a hormone.  The original writer of this thread explains a lot about it.  The Cheat to Lose Diet just takes it a step further and instead of just cheating when you want to, it is a controlled diet that tells you what types of foods to eat and when (which is really important).  The 2 days before your cheat day you are eating very low fat.  The two days after the cheat day you are eating low carb, then 2 days of regular calories but adding carbs and only eating lower GL/GI foods like oatmeal and fruit and legumes.  It is a carb cycling diet and works with your leptin, changing your metabolism.  Lots of info and studies all over the net.  The book is like 12 bucks by Joel Marion.  Very interesting.  Isn't just a big eat fest.

 

Lisa

I've read tons about this, mostly from posters of this forum.  I still have yet to try it, mainly because in the back of my mind, I'm not completely convinced.....the idea of the old traditional weight loss is hard to leave behind (it's almost like a bad habit).  Anyway, I'm very tempted but should I wait until I hit a plateau or just incorporate it into my diet (I mean my new healthier life style :-) ?   

Hi Michelle,

That's a personal decision really but if you are losing and you feel you are eating healthy I would stick to it.  I was doing really Low Carb and just felt like I had to eat more fat and less carbs to lose and was losing water weight.  It finally just stopped but I liked it for a long time.  I lost a good amount of weight on it but then it stopped.  I got really frustrated and tried a couple of things like counting calories and fats and had a food journal and was so diligent about it.

But if you feel that brown rice and sweet potatos and beans and fruit might be something you would want to eat and think is healthy, I would suggest reading a book on it instead of just eating a certain amount of calories everyday and a couple times a week eat a bunch.  I only eat foods that are on my list and they are all healthy and they make it pretty easy.  The book is short and cheap paperback so if you think it's dumb, don't do it.  But there are a bunch of different books on Leptin and your metabolism.  Just look at a few and see what might work for you if you are interested.  I was scared to change my eating big time.  But so far so good.  No easy answer here.

Thanks for answering my post.  i have been on other forums that are ONLY into what they are doing and that is it, even if they haven't lost weight in a year.  It's just going to happen in their minds.  I say if we have new studies, we should read them and learn what we can.

Have a good night.

 

Lisa

Just started the last week of the "priming phase" on The Cheat to Lose diet by Joel Marion.  This is the week you eat higher GL foods but only the ones listed and you eat very low fat.  Since this is the priming phase it lasts for a week but next week in the core phase each of the 3 phases only last 2 days each so your diet changes so much your body won't know what you are doing like it does when you just give it the same calories each day.  After this low fat, high GL week is over you receive a cheat day after 3 weeks.  On that day you will eat the foods you want but not stuff yourself.  You won't be depriving yourself so it is easier not to cheat, it is also good for your physiological because you are upping the Leptin in you, causing your body to lose fat.  It is a carb cycle diet.  If anyone is interested, there are quite a few of them but most of the ones that I saw added in a weightlifting element that this one doesn't.  But this one also expects you to exerecise like all diets do.

 

So for the first time in my Low Carb year I am having a bowl of Special K with fat free milk (skim milk) and very excited about it.

 

Good luck to all.

 

Lisa

Well I have almost made it through the priming phase.  3 weeks over on Saturday.  I went through the week of low carb, then a week of lower GI/GL foods, (just adding fruit and legumes) and then to the higher GI/GL foods with low fat.  I am finshing up the low fat week and funny I thought I would be hungry or it would be too hard to calculate the fat and keep it low but I found eating low fat was only hard to eat enough calories since fat has so many.  I am happy to say that I am keeping it around 20% of my calorie intake of my RMR of 1299-1689 calories.  I think working out 3 days per week has helped too in the last few months.

They say you should lose the first week because of course you lose the water weight with low carb.  But then you will gain some back when you gain the water weight eating the carbs but I lost 5 lbs the first week and 1/2 lb the second week and stayed the same the third week so 5 1/2 lbs for 3 weeks is okay with me.  Now on to the "cheat" day on Saturday.  It is supposed to be normal portions which I have kept the entire time on the diet but you can eat foods that aren't on the list.  I have only really missed out on popcorn and raisinettes at the movies so I am going to a movie on Saturday.  What else I eat, who knows.  I don't have the thought of "I only have one day and have to eat everything" because I am able to eat almost everything I want.

Now after the priming stage is over it is low carb for Sun, Mon and lower GI/GL foods Wed, Thurs, and Higher GI/GL foods with Low fat on Thursday and Friday and of course your cheat day on Saturday.  It will only work if you are able to eat a serving and put the rest away.  Since I can just have the rest later it is really easy to do that.

The cheat day is psychological of course because you look forward to it and you work hard during the week for it but it is most importantly important physiologically because your body needs to have the metabolism shifted up a bit so it doesn't know the same old, same old is coming in like 1500 calories everyday.  Your body knows it's coming.  If you have a stall with that or with low carb or any other diet that doesn't change it up, try reading a copy of The Cheat to Lose book by Joel Marion.  He really explains the ins and outs of the hormone Leptin that works with the diet.  I bought an E Book online for a few bucks, cheap, and was able to read get it to read in about 1 minute and finished it the same day.  Easy to understand and just plain fun.  Even if you just read it for information and like your diet right now, it's not bad to have on the back burner, in case.

Good luck to everyone on every diet.

Lisa

Thanks for this! I have started my diet with calorie cycling and am having good results so far. Its nice to know the science behind it :)

Awesome Jojo   Let me know how it goes.  Any tricks you learn would be great.  I am pretty new at this but have read other books on carb/calories cycling.  There is great science behind it.  I really don't feel like I am on a diet at all, weird because I did on Atkins even while I was eating a big old steak because i knew I couldn't have a taste of a new potato or sweet potato and no cereal for me but now depending on the day I get to eat almost everything.

Lisa