People love the thought of this concept. Being allowed to stray from their dietary plans for an hour, a meal or in some cases a day. Sometimes this is a conscious decision on their behalf or perhaps a strategy implemented by their coach to illicit better results, be it lean muscular gain or simply getting leaner. In some cases re-feeding or cheat meals even have their place in performance sports.
The big question for most is when are these appropriate and not detrimental to their plans. What is the science behind it and how can eating excessive amounts or what we may deem as junk help?
If we initially think about metabolism as a fairly simple concept. When you consume food your body will elevate your metabolic rate in order to digest, utilize and shuttle nutrients to where they are required. When we eat therefore our metabolic rate will go up. The more we consume the more our metabolism will attempt to burn. This is under the assumption that various systems are working appropriately and at what level, which I will come onto.
The other major dictator in metabolic rate is activity, exercise and training. When we move we require energy to do so. In this process our body metabolizes fuel to illicit the physical and neural actions required and through a series of fairly complex mechanisms creates heat as a byproduct of energy usage. Not that dissimilar to a car engine.
Training in many respects become contra-indicatory as we as trainees typically try to be inefficient as we wish to burn more fuel yet our body is ultimately trying to be efficient and survive. This is one of the reasons that low calorie dieting will always fail for fat loss. The bodies’ prerogative is NOT to be inefficient.
Eat 1000k/cals and the maximum amount of nutrients you can take in to support basic physiological function, metabolic rate and all of the things required to sustain lean tissue is, you got it 1000kcals. The body will slow down everything it sees as non essential to life, neural (brain) function, hormonal output etc. etc and it will switch on it’s fat preservation and storage mechanisms to ensure the same thing happens at the next feeding. It’s fairly basic physiology and it’s the bodies’ basic survival instinct. The level at which the body will do this will be dependent upon an individuals general intake and meal frequency but needless to say below basal metabolic rate this WILL happen.
Eat 10,000k/cals and the body will ramp metabolic rate through the roof and attempt maybe even achieve in burning that 10,000k/cals. The thing is it needs certain hormones and certain metabolic determining factors need to be working at capacity, not fatigued nor overused or overworked. Someone compulsively over or even under eating will have fatigued these systems to the point that even 1000k/cals will not be burned efficiently. To rectify this level of metabolic damage a period of what I call metabolic recovery is required. Yoyo dieters are the primary candidates for this issue and those with history of using extreme diets.
In understanding what causes damage it allows us the ability to understand the concept and application of ‘cheat’ or re-feeds better.
Following on from a period of consistent eating and with a deficit in any of the macronutrients, particularly carbohydrates and or calories there are certain hormones that adjust their production over usage levels. Basically meaning we have given them chance to increase their production due to lack of usage and have stockpiles generating.
As a note the reasoning carbohydrates will be the first macronutrient brought into deficit is that it is the one least required and ‘non essential’ to general function. I like to analogize this sometimes with reference to an egg; an egg can sustain and develop life in the absence of carbohydrates. As we well know eggs contain, essential fats (good quality ones if the parent of the egg had eaten their natural diet), cholesterol (which again is critical for hormonal functions, which may surprise some) and protein or essential amino acids. Carbs can be obtained from a conversion of Protein or fats should the body require them.
The hormones mainly of note are, Insulin, Thyroid hormone and Leptin, we also need to consider Ghrelin as well somewhat.
Lets derive a hypothetical situation to explain how each of the hormones interacts and is used. I am also going to focus on their most simple roles within the your diet.
Insulin acts to stabilize blood sugar levels following the consumption of food. In essence the more food you consume in a sitting, particularly carbohydrates the more of a response is required. Large sittings or consuming refined carbohydrates will increase the level of insulin required to stabilize the hormonal environment. As the pancreas can only regenerate a given amount of insulin per day over time if the demand outweighs the supply insulin stores diminish. Pretty simple really.
As long as the pancreas is still capable of production recovery can occur and the supply far outweighs demand for long enough the theoretical ‘Insulin bottle’ can be filled again, even people with Type II Diabetes are capable of this but in the defeatist society we live in they are often told otherwise. If production stopped or has never actually worked this is what is classed as Type I Diabetes.
So, following a prolonged period of a nutrition plan the insulin levels stockpile and allow for a moment when a dietary lapse will be dealt with efficiently. This means however the nutrition plan must be locked into almost immediately following this controlled or uncontrolled lapse otherwise the whole positive purpose fails.
Goal #1 Stockpile Insulin Stores
Following on nicely from this is Leptin. Leptin is an interesting one as its production is stimulated with carbohydrates. Its role is to send the signal to the body to determine if it’s moving to a level of starvation (the aforementioned signals we DON’T want) or we’re not. As leptin is stimulated by carbohydrate intake yet managed and mediated by fat cells the higher someone’s bodyfat is the higher their total leptin levels become. The issue that occurs is that despite the gross amount of leptin getting higher the net amount available gets lower. In someone who is lean the opposite occurs. The Gross amount goes down but net amount available goes up.
As the hope is that someone on a strict nutrition plan is getting leaner the net amount available is increasing. However in a restricted carbohydrate environment the gross production goes down. Which we don’t want continuously. It will again over time start to send the ‘starvation’ signals, which we don’t want. A reefed or cheat meal that is again structured at the right time will stimulate levels of leptin to ensure this signal isn’t sent and the NET levels of leptin rise but fat loss may continue efficiently.
Goal #2 Increase NET Leptin availability.
The third hormones of note are the Thyroid Hormones.
Again to simplify their role in this context they are the group of hormones that will elevate metabolic rate when required. This again goes back to the point about insulin production and overeating. Someone who ‘overeats’ per meal. Nb: this is not a direct reflection on total daily intake. Will make Thyroid hormones to kick in to burn the elevated level of calories beyond what is required. Overuse of this system will in turn fatigue the production of these hormones and create in medical terms what is referred to as an ‘Underactive Thyroid’. Many people use this as a reason for them gaining weight when in fact it is a byproduct in most cases OF them gaining weight.
Part of the Metabolic recovery process is to regulate meals and keep them little and often calorically. Someone eating two meals of 3000 k/cals is very different to someone who eats 6 meals of 500k/cals. No one is actually overeating but one is over consuming and fatiguing the thyroid glands. This also then has impact on digestive turnover and nutrient absorption that is also part of the fat loss equation.
Goal #3 Regulate Thyroid output and increases stockpiles.
One that has slightly less impact however for some may be a good indicator of ‘when’ to re-feed is Ghrelin. Ghrelin levels increase and will signify hunger when the body starts to go into chronic caloric deficit. This is the point that we get metabolic slowdown and ‘survival’ kicks in. This for those more adept to dieting and regulating the signals the body sends will find this useful. Walking past a pizza shop can knock this signal out, as even food smells will send a similar signal. So be aware!
SUMMARY
To summarize, the regulation of a diet over continuous periods of time and provided someone is lean enough will see benefit from re-feeds or cheat meals.
There is NO exact science as to when you would cheat but these are the guidelines I generally would advise.
If bodyfat is in excess of 25% there are NO cheat meals as in the onset someone at this level WILL make conscious and unconscious mistakes.
- 15-25% I would look at implementing a cheat meal every 4-5 weeks.
- 10-15% I would apply a cheat meal at least every 14 days without fail.
- 4-10% I would use a ‘re-feed’ or cheat meal every 7-10 days.
WHAT CONSTITUTES A CHEAT MEAL?
A cheat meal simply has to be an excess of calories and a substantial elevation in carbohydrates if we want to achieve the goals outlined. A re-feed does NOT have to be junk food. It can simply be clean foods but in excess of what is normally consumed. The amount will vary between people to get the desired response but I would aim at least double calories and about 4g/kg in Carbohydrates to begin with. Tweak this depending on what you see. If lean enough you should observe a further improvement in physique 1-3 days preceding the re-feed. Following the re-feed the metabolic rate will stay elevated for several days after but once regulated back to the norm will dig into fat stores, as ‘survival’ is no longer the systemic signal being sent.
