Today we return to T-Nation as Chris Shugart takes a look at yet another extremely retarded theory in an effort to sell some supplements to their gullible readers.
As you might know, I worked for more than 30+ years the fitness/coaching-, diet-, supplement-, and medical industry at an elite level, coaching more than 1100 athletes — especially within Bodybuilding and Fitness, as in getting athletes ridiculously shredded for competitions and keeping a decent appearance year-round for photo shoots, guest posing, seminars, and so on. So, let’s see what nonsense they dug up this time.
“You’ve seen it. You’ve probably experienced it. It’s called fat overshooting.
That’s the sciency way of saying that after a fat-loss diet, most people gain all the fat back, plus a little bonus fluff. This is typically caused by hyperphagia, defined by Bill Campbell, PhD, as the obsessive and uncontrolled desire to eat. It seems to happen even more often when normal-weight people try to get ripped.”
Sciency, uh? Only if you actually understand the science. And yes, I’ve seen it in some people and a lot of competitors being misled by extremely bad coaches (99% of them are clueless) but I never experienced it among a single client that I have coached, and I will explain why in a bit. But let’s humor them first, especially Bill Campbell who is totally oblivious to human physiology and biology, not unlike Chris Shugart himself.
“The question is, why does that happen? Well, according to Dr. Campbell, there are two theories:”
Theories? If you understand physiology and biology and also have a little common sense, it’s incredibly simple. It’s all in the literature too, easily accessed if you know what to look for, which should be a no-brainer.
“Through various mechanisms that kick in after a strict diet, including increased hunger, your body tries to regain the fat you worked so hard to lose. The over-the-top hunger remains until the body is back to “normal” – your pre-diet weight.”
No, you incompetent fool. Your body does not really care about body fat, and it does not try to get it back, not unless you are extremely ripped, as in competing at a bodybuilding show and all the protective layers are almost gone, but even then, our body’s first priorities lie elsewhere, which we will get to.
Hunger and cravings, which happens to most ignorant people during a diet and especially afterwards when they no longer have to use willpower and discipline to stick to the diet, is simply the result of nutrient deficiencies. Their diet and the food they consumed was utter crap, lacking in one or several essential nutrients and especially animal fats, which are essential to our health. And as the diet went on, they got malnourished, as in developing one or several nutrient deficiencies. And as soon as that happens, your body will try and do everything to get you to eat more food to remedy the problem, as the body can not work optimally if it does not get all the nutrients it needs.
This is also why some lose muscle mass during a diet, why some see their sex hormones plummet, and why their body temperature and metabolism get lower and lower. Their bodies do everything they can to limit the damage of lacking nutrients and keeping all essential life-sustaining processes going.
Considering that most people who go on a diet, including those in the bodybuilding and fitness community, rely on a high-protein, medium to high carbohydrate, and low fat diets composed of mostly plant-based crap as a filler and then some low-fat meat like chicken breast or white fish, they do not only get a high toxic load and antinutrients that block nutrient absorption from the plant-based edibles, but the low-fat animal-products are also those that are the lowest in micronutrients — and of course lowest in the life-essential animal fats such as saturated fats and cholesterol. And since they also follow a retarded reduced energy intake, which means even less food on the plate, the outcome is inevitable as their food is extremely low in micronutrients and animal fats.
In contrast, my clients always had a more ketogenic approach, as in medium to high fat, high to medium protein, and zero carb diet. Although I used a cup or two of veggies in the past before I learned the truth about human nutrition, they got all their fats from animal sources. I never used seed/vegetable oils and very rarely carbohydrates. Only some of the biggest guys had carbohydrates before and during workouts to get in more energy, as they used fasting for fat loss while eating a lot most days.
As a result, all across the board, not one single client lost any muscle mass ever. Most of them actually gained a few pounds of muscle during the start of the diet because they simply got more nutrients than they got from their “off-season” diet. And not one single client had any direct hunger or cravings, and not one single client had a rebound after their competition, although they transitioned back to their previous off-season diet. With that said, many of them felt so good that they simply continued on my ‘competition diet’ by adding some extra food items or increasing portion sizes.
“This is the newer theory, promoted mainly by researcher Abdul Dulloo. It’s not that your body is just trying to gain the fat back; it’s trying to regain lost muscle mass. Fat overshooting is a prerequisite to allow complete recovery of fat-free mass, he notes.”
Dulloo or Dumboo? Again, if you are driven to overeat after a diet, it is because you are severely malnourished. And while overeating will put back some muscle on you, that is simply a correlational observation. Your body always prioritizes nourishment to keep you alive, to keep all vital and essential bodily functions running. At that stage, it does not really care about muscle mass, and that is why you lost it in the first place, it was a source of animal fats, amino acids, and some essential macronutrients. If you would have followed a better, more human adopted diet full of bioavailable nutrients, that would never have happened.
So, to conclude, your desire to overeat, which will pack back pounds on your frame, is driven by your body to remedy all nutrient deficiencies and thus make sure that all essential bodily processes are functioning and back to normal, which include making sure all organs and vital tissues are back to normal operation, correcting metabolic imbalances, upregulating energy metabolism, and modulating cellular signaling. First when that has happened and your body is back in homeostasis, will the rebuilding of muscle mass and other tissues start. This is simple physiology, biology, and common sense. This Abdul Dumboo sure is dumb.
“The gist: The hyperphagia effect doesn’t wane after the lost fat is regained, but only after the lost muscle is regained. If the muscle isn’t regained, as is the case with untrained individuals doing stupid crash diets, one could theorize that the overzealous hunger mechanisms stick around and lead to obesity. Even with weight-trained individuals like you, it’s still easy to get lean, then get a little too chubby post-diet, diet again, and repeat the whole process until you hate yourself.”
No, correlation does not imply causation. The overeating effect will start to diminish as soon as ALL essential nutrient deficiencies have been corrected, as in key micronutrients and especially animal fats. If your diet sucks, this can take a long time, months or even years.
Also, as most people consume a lot of processed food, they will get addicted to the dopamine hit and they will experience blood-sugar crashes, leading to continuing their overeating due to the brain’s reward center and the need for an “energy fix” as their blood-sugar drops from their retarded way of eating.
Of course, this will put some muscle back on, but that has nothing to do with the urge to overeat, as we already have established beyond discussion.
Three Ways to Stop the Muscle Loss
“1. Eat More Protein
Low-protein diets are the single biggest reason that average people are overweight. Eat more protein and the rest of your diet autoregulates: you’re not as hungry, you replace a lot of excess carbs and calorie-dense fats, and you’re far less likely to lose muscle.”
Yes, I removed their attempt to sell you their unnecessary and mostly useless protein powder. And here’s the thing, for the average guy and gal who go on a diet, yes, eat more protein. And those who are into weight-lifting and fitness, well, they already get plenty of protein considering the protein hysteria.
Instead, I would say ‘eat more bioavailable nutrients’! This is key, and the only nutrients that are bioavailable for humans are found in animal-based foods, especially fatty meat and organ meats.
Fatty meats were the staple of all my diet plans. Only during the last week right before a show did we remove them (as in removing as much fat as possible from the diet) and replace them with white fish and some chicken breast, for getting a dryer look and doing a simple carb-up to oversaturate the glycogen stores before cutting the water. But that’s a completely different topic.
“2. Keep Lifting Weights
That’s easy enough. But some people opt for higher rep lifting protocols during diets, often with the idea of burning more calories. Instead, you might opt for more heavy sets with fewer reps. No, you won’t build tons of strength as an experienced lifter during a diet, but that’s not the idea. Instead, the goal is to “encourage” your body to hang on to muscle by signaling that you need it.”
Yes, if you do a traditional diet, as in eating less most or every day of the week, this is a must. If you do an intelligent approach, as in eating at or just above maintenance for 4-5 days a week and then fast 2-3 days a week, this is not as important as muscle loss will be impossible.
“3. Don’t Crash Diet
All things being equal, a slower diet helps you retain more muscle. Instead of dropping 1200 calories below maintenance, subtract 300 to 500 calories and have some patience.”
Again, only if you do a retarded traditional diet. Again, eat plenty of nutrient-dense food and then do fasting for fat loss. It’s much healthier and also much more effective.
And that was it for their latest advertisement article, trying to sell you protein powders based on a ridiculously retarded theory by some Dumboo-guy.
And again, all this is easily avoided by adopting our natural human carnivorous diet. And if you need to lose some fat, simply throw in a few days of fasting every week. It’s super simple.
If you need help with improving your physique or transitioning from your current way of eating to our natural species-appropriate, species-specific way of eating, I’m available for both coaching and consultation.
And if you found the article and my insights helpful and enjoy my free information, please consider donating to help pay the webhosting bills and keep the site running. And if you’re interested in discussing and sharing information with likeminded people, consider joining our uncensored community at Ungovernable.se. Thank you!
