Weight Gain After a Diet

This seems to be unexplainable in a lot of cases, but the reasoning behind it is unfortunately incredibly simple and comes back to the same formula that “Diet books”, “Diet Guru’s” and your typical diet quick fix tends to ignore. calories in VS Calories out. That’s it. Diet books love telling people calories aren’t important, it’s all about the food that they’re consuming, and usually make some analogy that eating a carrot as a snack isn’t the same as eating a chocolate bar, which is self-explanatory. The part that isn’t addressed is the fact that a carrot that weights 100g only contains 41 calories, while 100g of chocolate contains 546 calories (That’s dark chocolate, but that’s the “healthy” one?). What does that have to do with weight gain after a diet? Well, let’s get into some maths! (just kidding, I already did the maths.)

Case Study: Steve. Height 170cm, Starting Weight 100kg.

(Side note: This person doesn’t exist, and this isn’t exactly a realistic representation of what would happen, it’s more so to explain a point)

Steve is 40 year’s old, he works in an office, he spends around 8 hours a day at a desk, he drives 30 minutes to work and 30 minutes back, he sleeps for 8 hours a night, the other 7 hours left daily is spent between a mix of having meals like breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and watching TV before bed. Let’s pretend he does this every day for 365 days a year. Fun guy.

This is mostly from inactivity, as he believes he has an overall healthy diet. Steve has gained a lot of weight over the past few years, he currently weighs 100kg with some minor daily fluctuations but he’s gotten to the point where his Diet and Weight are mostly balanced. To maintain this weight, he only has to eat 2241 calories. That’s not a massive amount of food. Steve’s doctor has informed him that if he doesn’t lose weight, he’s more than likely going to have heart disease or diabetes. So, Steve goes on a diet and decides that he will eat 1700 calories daily. For a long time.

Results:

You can lose about 1kg a week, safely. It would be incredibly difficult to do through dieting, so we’ll just say this took a number of years, it’s also very unlikely that weight loss would be linear as fluctuations are expected but Steve isn’t real so we’ll let him away with it. By eating 1700 calories for a long period of time he’s managed to diet down as far as 60kg, this would probably put him on the side of underweight, from about 100kg to 70kg the majority of that weight loss would be fat, as well as some muscle, as the diet continued and the calories stay the same, the speed at which he is losing weight would quickly decrease, but persistence has worked and he’s reached his goal.

Now it’s time to go back to a normal diet! So, he up’s his calories to 2200. Due to the fact that he’s still inactive, this puts him on track to gain half a kilo a week. He’ll continue to gain weight (not necessarily half a kilo) until he gets to 98kg. Two kilograms from his starting weight. 2200 is the number of calories he requires to maintain his bodyweight at 98 kilos. 1760 is the number of calories he needs to maintain his 60kg weight. Any more than that, and he’ll start to gain weight again.

This, again, is down to inactivity, those calories can be 1760 calories of ice cream or steamed chicken and it won’t make a difference. Steve is now stuck. He can either increase his food, and gain weight, or eat a very restricted diet of 1760 to keep his progress. This is arguably not sustainable at all, so he would have to increase his calories, this will just result in gaining fat and maybe a small bit of muscle gain.

Dieting alone, without exercise to maintain muscle mass, results in post-diet weight gain.

Case Study Two: Steve’s Twin. Height 170cm, Starting Weight 100kg.

Steve twin is also 40 year’s old, he also works in an office, he too spends around 8 hours a day at a desk, he drives 30 minutes to work and 30 minutes back, he sleeps for 8 hours a night, the other 7 hours left daily is spent between a mix of having meals like breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and watching TV before bed. Let’s pretend he does this every day for 365 days a year. Here’s the difference between Steve, and Steve’s Twin, he has also been inactive and gained weight to the point of where he’s doctor has also warned him of his weight. He does some research, he joins and gym and he figures out he needs to have a Calorie Deficit of 300 calories a day to lose weight. Steves Twin starts exercising 3, sometimes 4 times a week. Here’s what happens!

Because he starts exercising, Steve’s Twin actually has to eat MORE food, to lose weight. Wait what?? That isn’t right?

Well, based on his level of activity, and his goal to lose weight through a calorie deficit, Steve’s Twin has to consume 2895  calories to maintain his 100kg weight if he exercises three times a week. So by only consuming 2595, he loses weight. This type of diet and training system allows Steve’s Twin to lose the majority of his weight through fat while maintaining and in fact gaining a portion of muscle mass, to begin with.

As his weight decreases, so does the overall calorie requirement, but thanks to his research, Steve’s twin is more than well aware of this and recalculates his calorie needs each time he loses 5kg. He maintains his 300 calorie deficit at each weight interval until he reaches 75 kg. At 75kg, Steve’s Twin can eat 2500 calories a day to maintain his weight. This is a hell of a lot more food than Steve, who is limited to 1760.

On top of that, Steve’s twin has gained and maintained a substantial amount of muscle, dieted down to a healthy level of weight, increased his activity, his strength, his energy and arguably improved his overall quality of life for the future, without having to eat less than 2000 calories at any stage.

This isn’t mentioned in diet books or by people trying to sell quick fixes because it won’t happen over the space of 4-12 weeks. 

Sorry. 

If you rapidly lose weight without increasing activity and correctly altering your diet to suit, you’ll either quit said diet because it’s going to be so unfamiliar, almost anti-social (you can’t go to a restaurant if you can only eat 1700 calories),  restrictive, tiring, or, when you’re finished with that diet. You’ll regain that weight.

The opposite is also true if you plan to exercise to the point that your diet is manageable. If you’re consuming too many calories, but doing incredibly high-intensity workouts 4-5 times a week, you’re going to struggle as you get busy, sick, or get older. 

You don’t see too many people over 60 doing burpees and sprints, for a good reason.

Any questions? Shoot me an email at [email protected], or on Instagram or Facebook. Or, sign up for the Newsletter.

Chris.