I Ate More Food and Still Lost Weight
I was eighteen years old, I had just started college, and I was obsessed with sculpting the perfect body.
I was on MyFitnessPal every day meticulously counting my calories,
I would obsessively weigh out every chicken breast and bowl of rice,
I was motivated, determined, and focused.
I wanted the body of my dreams and I was going to get it…
Once a week my buddies would invite me to eat with them in the cafeteria, and I was determined to show them how mentally tough I was
You see, the school cafeteria had every single food that you could ever want.
Every craving you had could be instantly satisfied.
I firmly believed that at this cafeteria of cravings, I could eat healthy and stick to my diet and show off to my friends while doing so.
But when I set foot in that cafeteria, my diet went
Straight. Out. The window.
I saw every single food I’ve ever desired and it was all at my fingertips
Juicy hamburgers, cheesy pizza, zesty nachos, and… ice cream.
OHHH ice cream is my (and probably your) achilles heel.
I couldn’t hold back.
I stacked my plate as high as I could and ate until my stomach protruded farther than the brim of my hat.
I sat there feeling disgusted with myself and wondering how I’d lost control so quickly.
Week after week I would try to conquer the cafeteria and would miserably fail.
But then I noticed something…
I was still losing weight.
No matter how much I ate that one day during the week, the pounds kept falling off the scale.
I was getting shredded and losing weight faster than when I was strictly tracking my diet.
How is this possible?
Well, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’ve dieted before.
And chances are, you’ve failed before.
So how could I eat like s#!* and still lose weight while you just look at a hamburger and gain 10 lbs?
Well, most people don’t know how to diet.
It’s common knowledge that weight loss occurs when the amount of energy expended is greater than the amount of energy consumed (or calories out > calories in).
But when people diet, what they don’t realize is that their metabolism can adjust to it.
Your body has a basal metabolic rate, or, put simply, a certain amount of calories that it burns when it is at rest.
So if you do no exercise, if you don’t even get out of bed, your body still burns calories.
This amount varies from person to person, but this number can also be manipulated.
And when I ate all that food in the cafeteria, that’s exactly what I was doing.
You see, your body gets used to receiving a certain amount of calories each day.
When you cut your calories, or diet, your body begins to slow down your metabolism so that it doesn’t expend energy it doesn’t have.
This creates a new basal metabolic rate, which will slow down your weight loss on the scale.
So when you’re dieting and then all of the sudden you consume 500 more calories than usual, your body jumpstarts your metabolism
And that’s exactly what I did in the cafeteria.
After dieting all week, I ate in a caloric surplus, which jumpstarted my metabolism.
This kept the scale moving and my motivation growing.
Although this boost in my metabolism slowly wore back down over the next couple of days, as soon as I ate in the cafeteria again, it boosted right back up again.
Basically, the eating in that cafeteria kept me from hitting a plateau with my weight loss.
How You Can Apply This
In most communities, what I experienced in the cafeteria is called a refeed.
A refeed is a dieting tool intended to keep you from hitting a weight loss plateau.
It is an increase in calories for one day of the week (or other specified time frame) and is usually increased around 200–300 calories.
This can be a useful tool if the scale starts moving slower than you expected, you feel uncharacteristic fatigue, or your workouts begin to suffer.
Refeeds are not an excuse to eat more when you feel like cheating! Use them in the proper way and they can be a great tool to maintain an amazing amount of progress.
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