When Diets Go Down The Pan

Following on from my recent post about tracking calories, diet and exercise with iPad apps, I thought I’d share my experiences of using one of these apps for a while and how it has affected my diet.

This all came about over a steak, chips and sticky toffee pudding when a conversation with friends revealed that I ate more than most. The apps I reviewed allowed me to track this and amazingly, within a few days of using them I did actually change my diet.

I wasn’t worried about my weight, at 5’7″ and 70kg I was right in the healthy region as far as BMI is concerned and I do a fair bit of exercise, so I was obviously eating the right amount. However, as soon as I started keeping a track of what I was eating I also started cutting down a little. Gone were some of the chocolately snacks straight away. This meant that I never quite got to see how many calories I was consuming before using these apps, but for the first week or so I was averaging around 5,000 calories per day

5,000 calories per day is twice as much as the recommended average for a man, but I wasn’t putting on weight so that was fine. Mind you, if I had been eating the chocolates and sweets that I was before using this calorie tracking app then I would probably have been eating more like 6,000 calories a day and maybe quite a bit more on particularly piggy days! That’s quite a lot, even with my levels of activity, so where was it all going?

I decided to see what would happen if I cut down a little and tried to keep my calorie intake below that of my calorie expenditure.

According to the app I was burning around about 4,000 calories per day so I decided to try to keep my intake below that. I only just managed it and I did feel hungry almost all the time, but with my calorie intake at around 3,800 per day I did start to see some changes. However, it wasn’t necessarily a loss of weight. My weight did drop a little and continued to do so, but as I was always hungry I always felt as though I’d let the ‘diet’ slip at any time. The other main change (other than being hungry all the time!) was a dramatic reduction in the number of visits to the toilet! Rather than my normal 3+ sit downs on the loo a day I was immediately down to one at the most – The first day I didn’t need a poo at all was a very strange day indeed for me!

Your body is a very clever thing indeed and rather than shedding the pounds I think it had decided to retain as much as possible of the food I was eating. Before this little experiment my body didn’t bother storing too much as fat reserves, it didn’t need to as there was always plenty more food on the way. However, as soon as the food intake was reduced it must have switched over and decided that it needed to make the most of everything that was available.

This made me think. Maybe dieting isn’t such a great thing afterall. Clearly if you keep your calorie intake below that of your calorie expenditure you will lose weight, there’s no arguing with that and that is what happened with me. However, if (as is almost inevitable) you let the diet slip and have a bad day, a bit of a binge or just eat a little too much now and then despite sticking mainly to your diet, then maybe your body will take that opportunity to store some of it away as fat. Afterall, it is used to your diet and would like just a little bit more to keep things balanced, If it gets the chance to make some stores for leaner times then it will.

Conversely, eating far too much and not burning the calories off will clearly lead to obesity, but maybe just eating a little too much, as I was, isn’t such a bad thing. Your body knows that there is plenty more food just around the corner so doesn’t need to make any fat stores for leaner times. Yes, I was eating more than I was burning, but I was also getting rid of those calories in another way – I’m not going to start analysing the calorific value of my stools but there must be some and I was certainly producing more than my fair share!

Could it be that people who are always on a diet (but often let it slip) are actually going to end up fat simply because their body will store fat at any opportunity it gets, whereas people like me who always eat a little too much will simply remain at a healthy weight but spend a little more time in the ‘little room’?

I think I may return to my usual ways – The ‘diet’ may be cheaper and mean less time on the toilet but I wasn’t putting on weight before and at least I wasn’t hungry all the time. Double sticky toffee pudding for me please!

 

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.