Has anyone else experienced this? Not that I'm complaining, but I tend to lose weight much more quickly the first few days after eating more calories- that is, 1500 a couple times a month, 2,000 once every few months.

Any brilliant ideas about why this is happening?

yes. when i first started dieting i was only eating about 900 calories a day. i lost REALLY fast for a few weeks then it just stalled. i came on to this very forum for the first time and these crazy ladies told me i needed to eat MORE to lose. it seemed totally counter-intuitive, but it worked. i started cycling 1400-1600/week and broke my plateau.

sometimes more does = less

Yes. It's odd but I sometimes lose during a week where I ate more than the previous.

I noticed this too and wondered what was up with that (kind of believing the weight loss myth that "shaking things up" somehow helped prevent starvation mode... all the stuff we hear), but then after keeping a detailed food log and looking for the patterns, I discovered that what I thought was a pattern, was merely coincidence. Sometimes I lost right after a higher calorie day, sometimes I gained, and sometimes I stayed the same. Same thing after a very low-calorie day. Sometimes I gained, sometimes I stayed the same, sometimes I lost. I just remembered the inconsistent pattern better than the normal one (which I remember from psych college and graduate school coursework is actually very common... it's the source of most superstitions. An unusual or inconsistent result, makes a greater impression on a person than one that is logically consistent with common sense).

An example is if you get sick after eating a new food, you're far more likely to attribute it to the new food than to the foods you ate that were familiar - even if the food wasn't to blame (even if you didn't get food poisoning, but instead caught a cold or flu that was going around). In fact, even if you KNOW it wasn't the new food that caused the sickness, you still may develop a strong aversion to that new food.

I realized that I was seeing a pattern where there really wasn't one.

It's a bit like having a job where the paychecks are given out on a random schedule, and when the check comes after a day of goofing off, deciding that you're being paid to goof off. Or that goofing off will trigger a paycheck.


While I found no clear pattern between eating more calories and losing more, there was a pattern between eating more volume (especially from fiber), and losing more.

Warning, graphic tmi ahead: What the pattern boiled down to was poop. Eating a larger (volume) meal or two was more likely to "cure" the diet constipation problem. The sudden "cure" resulted in weight loss (that wasn't fat loss, it was just poo loss).

You're probably right, it sounds like the "Texas Sharpshooter fallacy." While, for me, it does happen more than it doesn't when I eat more, that doesn't mean there's a causative connection. Thanks for reminding me to use my brain!

This happened with me and I agree with kaplods sometimes you just gotta poop

Always the voice of reason, Kaplods. I agree that we humans are given to finding patterns where none exist. (The "winning streak" fallacy, exposed by Malcolm Gladwell in one his books, is a good example.)

One thing I've noticed -- and this too may be meaningless -- is that my body seems to be able to "absorb" one major indulgence without storing extra fat. For example, last Friday we went out for all-you-can-eat Japanese food and I probably had about 4,000 calories. The next day I got back on plan, but didn't eat less than my usual 2,000 calories. Within a couple of days I was back to the low end of my maintenance range. This has happened several times, so I have to wonder whether a highly concentrated intake of food somehow shocks my body into expelling the excess calories (i.e., through poop).

F.

Magic.

Might as well be. Either way, it always feels good knowing that you are the exception to all the rules and can overeat and be rewarded with quick scale losses.

Was this directed at me? It sounded a little snide, but I know that's not your style, so I'm probably interpreting it wrong.

F.

No - I reread it and it sounded super beeyotchy, which was not my intention at all. Not directed at anyone, just meaning that such scale readings and findings are probably meaningless a good portion of the time but are encouraging and fun to see when they happen.

That's what I figured, but thanks for clarifying!

F.

There could actually be a lot more to it than that. I am very lean, so the rules for me are a bit different, but I find that when I have a refeed day/meal I ALWAYS drop a couple of pounds. There is most definitely a pattern for me, and it has to do with an increase in leptin and the results from that.

I highly suggest you read Lyle McDonalds' writings on Leptin/refeeds, and an article he wrote called "Of whooshes and squishy fat". Food for thought.

www.bodyrecomposition.com