Weight Loss Experiment--Interesting Personal Results

I set out on a 6 day somewhat drastic weight-loss experiment to try to determine some answers to personal questions I had about diet and exercise and weight loss.  I underwent a deliberate, but short-termed, calorie deprivation regimen in order to ponder the following questions:

1. Can a person successfully trick his/her body/mind into taking in far fewer calories than he/she needs, but keep that person from feeling deprived of food and from being "hungry all the time"?
2. Can a person successfully lose weight fast but not feel out of energy or "flat"?
3. Will cutting out refined sugars and artificial sweeteners from one's diet make a person crave sweets more OR less?
4. How is important is having high-protein meals, particularly the first meal of the day and having a high protein, meal within30-40 minutes after the hardest exercise workout of the day?
5. How important are high-fiber and "bulky" or filling meals if one wants to feel full, but take in fewer calories?

This is what I found out, for me, on my short-termed experiment.  (By the way--I figured at most I would lose 2 pounds in 6 days, since I was thinkng 3500 calories equals a pound.  However, even if some of the weight was water weight, I went from 170.4 when I started the experiment to my lowest weight of 161.6.  I weighed on average 4 times a day.  I had 24 weigh-ins and averaged 165.96 for the entire 6 days.)

• 1) Yes, I easily tricked my body/mind into being satisfied with only around 1500 calories a day.  How?  Example 1:  Instead of eating, say, a handful of walnuts worth 180 calories and only taking 1 minute, I would eat 3 medium cucumbers cut into spears and dip them into lowfat salad dressing (180 calories), spending from 10-15 minutes eating as I watched TV or played on the computer.  Result:  my body thought I had eaten a big meal and was quite satisfied, although I didn't do much for taking in calories.  I did the same thing with eating 3 apples or eating a bunch of no-butter popcorn.  I made my body/mind think I was eating large meals.  The key for me was getting a lot of fiber and bulk into my diet.
• 2) Yes. Since I ate a breakfast full of a lot of protein and included a high protein meal within 30 minutes after my most intense exercise workout, I only one day ever felt hungry when I went to bed.  That was the day I made the mistake of trying an exercise-making homemade ice-milk experiment and ended up eating 800 calories of my 1500 or so from one cup of sugar ice-milk.  That night I went to bed feeling really hungry.  I attribute that to the sugar burn that was brief and left me feeling hungry the rest of the day.
• 3) Definitely less.  I used to eat up to 6 cartons of nosugar gelatin and put on up to 375 calories worth of nonfat Cool Whip.  Yet, I often felt like binging on cookies and chocolate.  I also would drink up to 2 litres of diet soda in a day.  I gave up artificial sweeteners and sugars (other than the ice milk thing) for the six days.  I got my sugar "fix" from fresh fruits and vegetables like cucumbers, onions, and bell peppers.
• 4) Very important.  I expected to feel blah and lethargic all day because of dropping from 2800 calorie-a-day eating to 1500 or so and going from exercising 2 hours a day to up to 4 hours a day.  Just the opposite happened!  I was often energetic at night when I would spin on my stationary bike.
• 5) Very imporant.  Five out of the six nights as I was in bed preparing to fall to sleep, I was not hungry.  The one exception was the day I ate 800 calories of ice milk.  In fact, on two evenings I had to make myself eat one more meal (on each of those days I had only consumed around 1000 calories up to that point) just to reach the 1500 target goal.  Now, this is the same person who was before the experiment consuming 2800 calories a day and still feeling occasionally hungry when he went to bed.

Conclusions:

1. Don't go on an unhealthy calorie-reduction regimen to lose weight.  I proved to myself that not only can it be done, I got to where I actually found it enjoyable. The one side-effect that I did notice was that I got light-headed on more than one occasion.  I also feel my body was beginning to rob muscle tissue of its protein because most of the fat had been burned up.
2. A person can go on a healthy diet plan to lose weight by eating intelligently-spaced high protein meals and by consuming meals that take time to eat and are full of fiber. 

Always eat healthy proteins, carbs, and fats.  Exercise intelligently.  Slowly lose weight.  Never lose more weight than is healthy for you. 

Great post -- glad to see that it was a simply a short term experiment, however.  The premises will work well long term, of course -- and I would encourage that -- but 1500 cal with 4 hours of workout is not really a good idea, long term.

Good luck

I decided to follow the first experiment with a short-termed follow up experiment. 

Why not overeat for two days and see how the body reacts?  And do no exercise for the two days.

So I consumed homemade caramel corn, lamb chops, grilled burgers, beer, jumbo doughnuts, etc.  I had to, somewhat surprisingly, cut the experiment short by half a day.  My system reacted a bit more negatively than I thought it would. 

Also, according to the scale, I have "gained" back in fewer than two days what I had "lost" in six days.

I proved the obvious in these 8 days, though. Rapid weight loss followed by "binging" is absolutely the worse way to try to lose weight.

Final conclusion:  A person just needs to eat and exercise intelligently, and slowly lose weight in a well-thought out manner.

And thus ends my experimenting with weight loss.

I'm sorry, but your experiment had too many deciding factors to give it a valid conclusion.  For example, what if it was just the protein that was keeping you full, but adding the fiber wouldn't have made a difference?  You wouldn't know because you inputted both of those factors.  I'm not saying that fiber doesn't keep you full, but I'm just pointing out that your experiment had too many deciding factors to make those conclusions.

I think this experiment was an odd choice. It seems as though it just echoes all the other 'diet' information out there. In fact, it seems as though you just put your body through two stressful experiments for no reason.

I agree with both of you in terms of your perception of both my conducting of the experiment and my reason for doing it. There was no general reason for doing it, and how I reacted to it might not be how one of you would react to it. 

However, I personally was curious about how people, and it seems it often concerns women who go on severe dieting to get skinny like a fashion model, feel when undergoing severe calorie deprivation.  And despite all the control factors and lack of control factors, I think I got a "hands-on" feeling of what that feeling is like.  I also maintain that, at least for me, bulk and fiber can go a long ways in keeping me from feeling as if I have not eaten enough on any given day. 

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The biggest surprises to me (after "at the last second) concerns my attempt for 2 days to deliberately eat a lot was that 1) I didn't enjoy doing overeating other than the initial act of deciding stuffing my face would be fun and 2) The blah feeling from the 8 day experiment is not like having the flu or a severe cold that weakens you--it is the feeling one gets after the cold or flu has left him/her feeling exhausted.  I made myself eat breakfast this morning (steel cut oats, which normally I love eating); and I lack the usual energy to even go out for a morning walk.

I related this to my son in an email.  What he replied  was sort of interesting, since as a HS wrestler every year for 4 years during the season he had been doing the very thing I tried for 8 days.  He knew exactly the feeling I was describing, since he cut calories to keep weight, always gained the lost weight in a couple of days after the season, and always felt sort of "crappy" afterwards.  I had never talked to him about that before.

Contrary to other replies, I find it quite interesting and valuable. I'm one of those people who has to try everything. I tweak and change my diet all the time and then spend a lot of time  thinking about how I feel. Nothing this drastic (yet :), but I did end up giving up sugar and most artificial sweeteners after that 'experiment,' I gave up low cal diet foods forever after that 'experiment,' etc.

The ability to change one's taste buds absolutely fascinates me. Its the best reason to give up artificial foods, because actually preferring fresh veggies over other things really makes this healthy thing easier : ) 

Also, while I personally was never noticed junk food making feel bad before, now a big slice of cake just ruins my productivity for the rest of the day.

Original Post by sabbitha:

I think this experiment was an odd choice. It seems as though it just echoes all the other 'diet' information out there. In fact, it seems as though you just put your body through two stressful experiments for no reason.

The reason I think this was a good post is exactly that reason -- no matter how much we read, sometimes it just doesn't work until you try it -- or know someone who has.  That in itself is a good enough reason -- and the time was short enough to not create any long-lasting effects (other than perhaps mentally)

furthermore, the follow-up reflects exactly what I have experienced, that the aftereffects of a junk food blowout are quite enough to set me back on the straight and narrow (as far as types of food, not so much amounts), as the feelings are quite horrible.

I found out something else this afternoon, after I came back from a 90 minute leisurely but steady stroll about town--I gained far more weight in the 3 days after the 6 days of losing weight than I thought possible.  I don't know if I screwed up my metabolism enough to have done that--obviously a bunch of it is water weight--but my goal now is to be back to my maintenance weight by next Monday. I weighed the most this early afternoon that I have weighed since June 30th.

(Gosh, no wonder so many people give up after dieting for a few weeks and then jumping off the diet just for a few days.  Through the years, my older sister, my older daughter, and my wife have all done this.  Things were going well and just a couple of days off were enough to make them give up.   I knew why, but now I understand why.  My daughter is back on now--after a year or so off; my sister is usually "on," minus some days "off," and my wife, well, she is a lot happier never being on again, I guess.  She does go walking 30 minutes a day, and that is good enough.)

I found these "experiments" most interesting.  Certainly, they are not scientific and controlled; however they mirrored what we "lifelong losers" (lol) experience.  The problem for many is that we have trouble making the correlation between bad eating habits and weight gains, energy levels and cravings.  This site has allowed me to stay with a program long enough to get results and see these correlations.  I have come to the conclusion that losing weight is not really that difficult, but it is a slow process.  I'm sure that is why we are encouraged to make it a life-long eating plan rather than a short-term, goal-oriented "fix".  RE: metabolism and/or plateus--My plan is 1200 calories and I usually stay around this amount.  However, I have found a little "trick-my-body" thing that allows me to jump those plateaus.  Once or twice a month I will eat between 1500 to 1800 calories and make minor adjustments on other days to keep the month's average around 1200/day. (not to be confused with  dieting for a few weeks and then jumping off the diet just for a few days.")  This seems to be a more natural way to eat and not only dispenses with plateaus, but allows for special occasions.  The real trick is to average your daily rate for the month in order to keep up your rate of loss.

Congratulation to all on their successes! 

Original Post by mboniger:

 This site has allowed me to stay with a program long enough to get results and see these correlations.  I have come to the conclusion that losing weight is not really that difficult, but it is a slow process.  I'm sure that is why we are encouraged to make it a life-long eating plan rather than a short-term, goal-oriented "fix". 

I completely agree with this.  This time, I am less "goal" oriented and more "process" oriented, and I am finding losing weight (and I have a lot to lose) much easier than I did in my twenties (the last sustained effort to lose weight).  Ironic, now that I am 52, and don't have as much time left to live, I am in less of a hurry than when I had all the time in the world.  Maybe there really is something in getting wiser as you get older.  Congrats to all those younger folks on this site that have figured it out when they have lots of time to enjoy their new, healthier bodies.

pilgrimdude,

Keep up the good experimental work. I like to operate that way too because there is just too much on the topic of diet that is taken as gospel that is really nonsense. Perhaps the 1,256,870 Diet Books might be somewhat responsible.

Yes, it it INCREDIBLE how quickly the body can pack on the pounds in a short period of profligate eating (and DRINKING.)

A good trick to fool the body out of humger is a nice rounded spoonful of Metamucil in a glass of Crystal Light. A glass of cool clear water or a large piping hot mug of coffee works, but not as well as the stomach filling caloriless fiber.

I'm working on teaching my brain to appreciate the feelings of hunger once a day as a GOOD thing and not something to be feared. After all nobody ever died from missing a meal. For the time being I am putting my long held belief that if I went below 2,000 calories I would get "efficient." My body is responding and I have dropped  a quick 7 pounds in 2 weeks...and stopped tallying the calories as I have done every day since 1998.

But ancillary, I have stopped drinking after about 3 weeks of pouring it down...until Thanksgiving Day anyways. I go on the sauce for a couple weeks perhaps 4 times a year.

zip2play:

"A glass of cool clear water or a large piping hot mug of coffee works"

I definitely agree with this.  I have used a strong pot of coffee and frothy beaten skim milk to drink away any hunger urge.  I'm not saying that my doing that is a good thing, but you make a very valid point.  I have also drunk up to 3 glasses of water before eating a meal for the same reason.  You make an interesting point about analyzing whether all things written about dieting is gospel, too.

The biggest surprise to me is a result that has now become keenly apparent: I did indeed manage to screw up my metabolic engine, apparently.  I have yet to lose the weight I gained in the 3 days after my 6 days of calorie deprivation, although I am taking in fewer calories than I did when I maintained for over a month at a lower weight; I am doing just as much exercise, also.   Hawthorne was right: quasi-scientists shouldn't play around with the natural order of things.  LOL

Be careful with huge calorie deficit like that, 1500 in my opinion is too little for any male, especially if you exercise daily, you run the risks of putting your body in starvation mode and slowing down your metabolism, so it may only hurt you in the long run....

I agree, mageulek.  What I did is definitely not something one should engage in.

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I found the following excerpt from an article I read today from MSNBC to be an interesting refutation of what I thought about metabolism:

Myth No. 5: Yo-yo dieting kills your metabolism--by Joy Bauer, "5 diet myths debunked"  "'I've been on so many diets, my metabolism is shot!'  Yup, I've heart that one before.  Fortunately, studies have shown it's simply not true.  Though your resting metabolic rate does slow down a bit when you restrict calories, the drop is only temporary, so dieting won't cause any permanent damage to your metabolism or make it impossible for you to lose weight in the future."