Effects Of A Few Hours Of Binging Each Week.. ?

[MonStar1023]

I am following an isocaloric diet roughly - 33/33/33. And I was wondering how badly taking one night off dieting completely, around 4-5 hours maybe of straight cheating, effect me. Right now I am training for a little bit of fat-loss and some strength gains. I mean realistically - if I keep my calories around 11 x my bodyweight and train and do cardio hard 6 days a week, etc. Would taking one night off be THAT detrimental?

... Last week I binged off for around 4-5 hours and I was stronger etc. Felt a little more soft the next day but thats expected - and probably mostly water. I mean will this SERIOUSLY bring my fat-loss to a grinding halt. I understand that 6 days of dieting and training and cardio would bring me 2 steps forward - and its just hard to believe that 4-5 hours off my diet could take me 2 steps back.

MS

 

[Vageta]

It will help you more than hurt you in the long run. Just try to make sure most of the calories during your "binge" are in the form of carbs and not fat. These extra calories will help fill your glycogen stores which are no doubt depleted from dieting all week. Also it will bring your leptin levels back up which will keep your body from going into starvation mode and keep hunger down during the week. If you don't know about leptin do a search for it on the internet and you'll find some interesting articles.

 

[MonStar1023]

Some very interesting points. Yeah I know about leptin, that is true. But fat-loss wise I hope I wont be taking 2 steps forward during the 6 days dieting etc. then taking 2 backwards. I am hoping for a 2 foward, 1 backward. This way my weightloss and fatloss will be gradual while increasing my strength.

MS

 

[Vageta]

Well the term "binging" is not the best description for what you should be doing. More like a controlled refeed. However if you do it correctly then it's not a step back, at worst it's not walking that day if you catch my drift and I doubt it's even that. By refeeding once per week, or even twice depending on how lean you are, you will be able to extend the length of your diet. If you take zero refeeds while dieting your body will fight you harder and you will platue much faster. By refeeding and keeping leptin levels high you will be able to diet for a longer time and when you finally reach your goal it will be easier to keep it.

Just imagine what hardcore dieting for long periods of time does to your metabolism. Now imagine how easy it is to gain a lot of it back when your diet stops. Leptin levels are low, your metabolism is sluggish and you're hungry as hell. If you go back to eating your supposed "BMR" you will gain weight back because what once was your BMR is now actually lower because you metabolism is so shot. The only way not to rebound from this plan is to slowly increase your calories in a few week span until you find what your new BMR is.

By employing regular refeeds you will keep your leptin levels higher, your metabolism won't be as sluggish and you won't feel as if you've been starving. When your diet stops you won't have as much problem with gaining weight back because your body is used to being at that weight. Leptin plays a big role in your body's "setpoint" so if your leptin levels are relatively high at your new weight you will have an easier time staying there.

Just because the pros don't do refeeds doesn't mean the average bodybuilder shouldn't. They diet for 16 weeks for a single day and once that day is over they gain a good amount of weight back. We are dieting for the long term, at least for the summer so we want to stay lean once we reach that goal. Refeeding will help to achieve that whereas hardcore dieting employing no refeeds is setting yourself up for failure.

I'm not saying you should just go nuts and binge like a madman, but take a day out of the week and eat what you want without going overboard. You should eat around 15% more than your BMR and if it's mostly carbs you won't have any spillover as they will be stored as glycogen. Don't listed to these morons who think you have to diet like the pros say to in Muscle and Fitness magazine. A well planned refeed will do more good than harm and it will also be very enjoyable and make it easier to stick flawlessly to your diet the next 6 days.

 

[bigmanosu]

damn bro, you got this question posted on like every board

well i got something to make you happy, i'm like you, kinda slow metabolism but i have great fat loss with 6.5 days of strict dieting each week (no cheating!!!!)

except every saturday night, medium pizza, two pints of ice cream, a couple protein bars, candy bars, etc (basically i think of everything i had craved throughout the week) the protein bars are ones that i generally can't eat on cutting diet because of higher carbs.

i do this bulking or cutting, once a week, and i binge hard core like you said man. i dont even want to think how many calories i take in

you are young man, so am i, we can do this once a week no harm.

i wouldn't do a full day though, just 5-6 hours like you said

BigManOSU

 

[MonStar1023]

Replied over @ WBB forums, posted it over at Bodybuilding forums too.

MS

 

[plornive]

I really think that the duration of a binge is important. The theory behind the ABCDE diet is that weight gained after dieting will initially be predominantly lean mass. Your body probably does not even absorb all of the calories you eat, either.

 

[MonStar1023]

plornive-
Yeah thats what I am thinking - but if thats entirely true than there has to be some reason that I feel completely soft and flabby today. I mean I binged for around 5 hours last night. Maybe 6. Big time binge session ya know whatever, but 6.5 days before that I was dieting hard. So you would think that right after dieting with pretty low calories I would be okay to binge for 5% of the week when I dieted for 95% of the week. I dont know though feeling pretty soft.

MS

 

[Vageta]

Monstar, do a search on leptin on the net and spend a day reading about it. You can also go to avantlabs.com and click on the online magazine. There are a few leptin articles written by Par Deus that are must reads. If you aren't willing to take them time to research all aspects of dieting then you have no business assuming anything as in your binges are bad.

Firstly get rid of the "binge" statement. As Par has said "cheat" and "binge" are considered evil words and makes you feel like you're doing something wrong. Change your weekly overeating to a true "refeed" and use some sort of structure to it. Don't eat only what you want but eat what will help you which is outlined in these refeed articles.

Some day in the future the rest of the society will realize how helpful refeeds are then the it will be all the rage just like low-carb diets are right now. It will happen but it takes time because the last ones to convert are followers or closed minded and until "everyone else" is doing it they won't bother.

All it will take is 2 weeks to test it for yourself and you won't have to ask anyone else. Attempt your diet with a controlled refeed once a week and do it for at least 2 weeks. If have still lost fat by the end of the 2nd week then you know it's successful for you. If for some ungodly reason you are fatter then you know they didn't work for you and no matter what any of us say you've proven it doesn't work for yourself.

If you want structure to your refeeds check out my "Not so low" low-carb diet thread below and use my spreadsheet. It will figure out everything you need to know about your refeed instantly. If you attempted this diet for 2 weeks and followed exactly what it said I don't see how it could fail you. I've gotten great success with it and I never feel like I'm suffering on the diet since a refeed is always right around the corner.

 

[MonStar1023]

Vageta-
Thanks a lot but thats the thing - doing regular controlled refeeds I have trouble sticking to. I would rather diet stricly 6.5 days of the week and .5 days of the week go CRAZY. Really a lot of fun I think. Feel fat the next day and all that but oh well, what can ya do.

MS