
All-you-can-eat study shows body copes well with one-off calorie indulgence - woldemariam
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/all-you-can-eat-pizza-study-shows-body-copes-surprisingly-well-with-one-off-calorie-indulgence/
======
crazygringo
Some commenters here are misinterpreting the headline/article -- the study
does NOT say you won't gain weight!

It mainly just says your blood sugar won't spike, which is entirely expected
("managed to keep the amount of nutrients in the bloodstream within normal
range"). Emphasis added:

> "Specifically, those tested in this study were able to efficiently use _or
> store_ the nutrients they ingested during the pizza-eating challenge, such
> that the levels of sugar and fats in their blood were not much higher than
> when they ate half as much food. The main problem with overeating is that it
> _adds more stored energy to our bodies (in the form of fat)_..."

This just confirms the conventional understanding of how our bodies work. The
raised insulin levels quickly convert excess blood sugar into glycogen and
fat.

A lot of people seem to be misinterpreting this headline as meaning you won't
gain weight from a single meal. This study does NOT support that conclusion!

------
sbierwagen
N = 14

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-
of-n...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-
nutrition/article/physiological-responses-to-maximal-eating-in-
men/25C29D75CB1553B9D3D23E276295A4D8)

~~~
saas_sam
Sample size isn't as big of a deal-breaker as the layperson may think. If the
mechanism of action is well understood and the potency of the effect is
strong, you don't need a big sample size. For an extreme but apt example of
this: how many people _really_ need to be beheaded to prove that it kills
someone to a reasonable degree?

~~~
sbierwagen
Wow, motte and bailey.

Hengist et al publish a toy paper where they fed 14 guys pizza and ran a blood
panel. Sure, why not. Probably took an afternoon, and was real cheap to do,
gave some of his grad students publication credits and LaTeX experience. We
learn that eating a pizza will not instantly give you diabetes, or make you
obese, which we already knew. This, by itself, is fine.

Separately, the University of Bath has a press office which is required to
issue a certain number of press releases per year, even when the research
isn't interesting. Again, no real problem. Plenty of press releases are issued
with nobody ever reading them. If the University of Bath wants to employ
people to do nothing useful, that's their own business.

This press release is submitted to HN and gets a bunch of upvotes. Problem.
People in the comments try to generalize the study. Big problem!

The paper had _no_ followup, no dose schedule, tiny experimental groups...
because it wasn't trying to solve obesity!

Nobody knows what's causing the obesity epidemic. There are many hypotheses,
all with holes and strange contradictions. There have been many gigantic
studies, all with inconclusive results.

There is no reliable way to lose weight.1 There are many diets that work for
some people, all with holes and strange contradictions. There have been many
gigantic studies, all with inconclusive results.

This is a nice little toy study. I don't doubt the data or the results. I just
don't think it's useful. And studying obesity _certainly_ isn't like running a
randomized clinical trial on if beheading will kill a person!

\---

1: Yes, if you lock someone in a cage and not give them food, they will lose
weight. Obviously. Once you release them back into modern society, they will
regain that weight.

~~~
totony
>There is no reliable way to lose weight

Correct me if I'm wrong but that is false. It seems pretty well known and
accepted that caloric intake below BMR will make you lose weight. Your BMR
might fluctuate, but if you take that into account there shouldn't be a
problem.

Going back into society and resuming your previous eating habits (before the
cage) will ofc make you gain weight because your BMR will have lowered during
your starvation.

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notJim
> Hormones that are released by the gut to stimulate insulin secretion and
> increase feelings of fullness were changed the most by overeating (e.g.
> GLP-1 and peptide YY).

I wonder if people who chronically overeat (hello!) develop insensitivity to
these hormones, leading to a cycle where it becomes harder to eat the correct
amount. Similarly, I wonder if people who tend to eat too little are hyper-
sensitive to them, making it hard to gain weight.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> I wonder if people who chronically overeat (hello!) develop insensitivity to
> these hormones, leading to a cycle where it becomes harder to eat the
> correct amount.

Sounds like Leptin Resistance. [0]

I wonder if I have that. When I see that my rather sedentary lifestyle means
I'm only supposed to eat 2,000 calories a day, I don't see how the hell that's
possible without constant hunger. Even if I eat a diet rich in protein and
fiber, which is supposed to make me feel fuller longer, I'm still always
hungry. I can eat a 20 oz ribeye with a large side of broccoli and wheat rolls
(A meal that's likely 1500+ calories) and still be hungry in only 2-3 hours.
If I eat something in the 600 calorie range, like a 10 oz chicken breast and
veggies, I'll be hungry again in an hour, if I ever even feel full at all.

Meanwhile, I know a couple people that say "I eat like a lion and I can't gain
weight!" then discover that they'll cook up an 8 oz filet and sides and be
full without even eating it all.

[0]
[https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/leptin-101](https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/leptin-101)

~~~
anthomtb
As a fat-guy-turned-skinny-guy, I ask this most respectfully: Are you hungry
or are you bored?

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
It's a perfectly valid question.

If it only happened while working, certainly I'd attribute it to being bored.
But no, it happens even when I'm playing games with my friends and having a
blast.

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kevincox
You can also find this anecdotally by talking to competitive eaters. They will
almost all tell you that as long as you eat a regular amount of calories most
days they have no problem with weight gain from binge eating once or twice a
week. AKA there is there is a difference between eating 2000 calories 6 days a
week and 6000 one day than eating 2500 calories 7 days a week.

~~~
mrfusion
I have always wanted to see that idea studied. Is it possible? Any further
reading?

It certainly violates calories in/calories out. But I’m ok with that. We’re
not steam engines.

~~~
__s
Your body isn't able to adequately digest binges

~~~
mrfusion
I wonder why though. And if it’s proven. Maybe there’s a maximum rate of fat
storage and any extra calories just pass through?

Can your intestines stop adding sugar to your bloodstream?

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hprotagonist
It shouldn't be terribly surprising that we do OK with "feast and famine",
especially if you're young. I remember being 16 and eating an entire large NY
pizza for an afternoon snack before dinner...

I assert without proof that it's the all-feast-all-the-time dietary novelty
for most of humanity in the last, oh, 200 years that probably throws a spanner
in the works.

~~~
centimeter
Another complication is that most of our ancestors would probably only have
been "feasting" on meat - there wouldn't have been any bread, sugar, palm oil,
etc. in the mix.

~~~
hprotagonist
that's at best a very contentious claim. Midden heaps tend to preserve bones
longer than carrot-tops, though, which certainly skews the record.

Certainly the vast majority of humanity throughout _written_ history --
numerically, the bulk of our ancestry -- has subsisted primarily on non-meat
foods, be they wheat, barley, maize, or whatever. Peasants were not regularly
eating meat; often we have the written record to point to for that, as well as
archaeological evidence from grave finds and the like.

and my usual critique of "paleo" holds here, which is that it ignores
evolution. As a species, we've evolved the persistence of digesting lactose at
least twice, in independent subgroups, through two different metabolic
pathways, so it's not like we're incapable of getting used to dietary shifts
over the span of human history.

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yboris
"The researchers acknowledge that their study involved healthy young men, so
they plan to investigate whether similar effects are apparent in women, and
for overweight and older populations."

~~~
distrill
By definition this would be hard to test with an overweight population. The
reason they're overweight is because their calorie indulgence is not one-off.

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hammock
It's called homeostasis. This is the reason why it's hard to lose weight and
keep it off. Your body has "set points" that it creates, and it takes a
consistent effort to push your body off of that set point and dig a groove
into a different one.

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obilgic
Body can only consume X amount of calories from the food you eat every day
(just like any other process/machine it has its upper limit), and the rest
will be thrown out without being digested. That's why short bursts of high
calorie intake won't result anything more than the X amount. However reaching
that upper limit everyday will add up to weight gain.

~~~
aidenn0
Source? I'm almost certain that's not true. The human body is fairly stingy
about sending digestible calories out as waste.

~~~
baal80spam
I was wondering about this myself for some time now. I haven't been able to
find any research regarding the amount of food/energy/calories that human body
is able to digest.

For example: I eat 10 buns with butter. How much of this food will be digested
by my body and how much will 'go through' and not be converted into energy?
What's the ratio? Is there even a ratio or everything we eat we eventually
digest?

~~~
aidenn0
Dietary fiber is known to be largely undigested, (the microbes in your
intestine will feed off of them). Your body is really efficient at pulling
nutrients from simple carbohydrates and fats. I forget what happens to excess
protein though.

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carrolldunham
> Four hours after eating maximally, the participants [...] reported no desire
> to eat anything else, including sweet foods. This was surprising because
> reward centres in the brain are usually food specific, so eating pizza might
> not be expected to change the desire for sweet food.

No it's not surprising because - whether it's contrary or not the neurodrivel
"reward centres in the brain" i'm not sure - as an adult you know that craving
for a specific food item is entirely a high-level construction in your
psychology to do with the story you're telling yourself about what it will
mean to eat that, etc. and you should have experienced that it will go away as
soon as you eat enough of anything else.

~~~
piva00
Sweet foods work differently in our brains though [0], it is surprising that
people would reject sweet foods in that case.

[0] [https://particle.scitech.org.au/food/always-have-room-for-
de...](https://particle.scitech.org.au/food/always-have-room-for-dessert-
heres-why/)

------
opportune
Is this really that interesting? Overeating doesn’t appear to affect blood
sugar beyond regular eating in healthy adults - seems normal to me. Lipids
didn’t spike after a single meal - also seems normal. All they found is that
these are linear up to the point of satiety and then the body’s hormones keep
levels in check beyond that.

~~~
notJim
Why this anti-intellectualism? Are studies only worth doing or reading if you
personally find the results surprising? If we don't have data about something,
we should get it, rather than just assuming our intuitions are correct.

~~~
opportune
I’m not being, or at least intending to be, anti-intellectual. I do think that
a study confirming something this obvious is not notable or interesting enough
to be at the top of HN though

~~~
enjeyw
I personally agree that you're not being anti-intellectual, and that your
original question was valid.

That said, I think there's huge value in studies that scientifically validate
things we believe to be true to 'common knowledge' (because often common
knowledge is totally wrong), which justifies this study being at the top of
HN.

~~~
ska
Considering how little we actually understand scientifically about these
processes, nearly any good study (not a judgement on this paper) would seem to
be worth doing.

------
dirtyid
I have AYCE sushi scheduled monthly as part of lifting routine, and notice
overcompensation that day has no real long term consequences. Body will either
eat less or shit more in the following days. I track calories as well and will
definitely end the week with AYCE surplus, which never makes it to scale
weight.

~~~
refurb
Do you notice water gain?

Back when I worked out 6 days a week, cardio and weights, I'd do the binge
meal for one dinner a week. I'd eat whatever the heck I wanted and have a beer
or two. It was a good way to not feel like your depriving yourself.

That said, I'd usually notice the scale went up the next morning by 3-5 lbs.
It was pretty much water weight from the carb overload and it went away after
a couple days.

~~~
dirtyid
Yeah, a few days of incredible water bloat from extra carbs = exploit schedule
for extra cushion on squat days.

Otherwise, all things normalized like calorie + pedometer for NEAT + morning
weigh in trend suggest thousands of indulgence calories just goes straight the
colon. If I spread the extra calories over weekdays, I will gain weight. If I
skip fiber, the food will stay around (=more absorption?) and I will gain
weight. I've also done big weekly binges a few years ago to similar affect.
6000 calories over 3-4 meals just doesn't account get registered on the scale
at the end of the month. Had to stop due to heartburn :-/.

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gruez
So are "one-off calorie indulgences" okay because they're smaller in scale
than long term over eating, or because they're not frequent? In other words,
is eating 3000 more calories for one meal, once per month worse/better/equal
for you than eating 100 more calories every day?

~~~
Noumenon72
I suspect that either your gut bacteria, or general homeostasis, don't make
permanent changes based on one-off indulgences. I even think that bingeing
gives you psychological safety to eat fewer calories -- your body "knows" it
will catch up eventually, so it doesn't demand you get 2400 calories every
single day. This is just my experience as someone who eats a full bag of
Doritos/peanut butter cups every 3-5 days and got to middle age without
getting fat.

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benatkin
Add Brazilian Steakhouses to the list of anecdotes.

~~~
rootusrootus
I really love going to Fogo de Chao, but it's hard not to overindulge. The
worst I've ever felt in my life was after a trip to Fogo. An hour later I was
still just sitting up straight on my couch trying not to look as uncomfortable
as I felt. Took a while before I went back again, and I had a lot more
control.

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curiousllama
> Young men can eat twice as much food as they need to feel ‘full’, research
> shows.

I. AM. SHOCKED.

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rozab
This makes sense to me since early humans hunted large game. Also, feasting
seems to be present in some form in almost all human cultures. If it really
were harmful, I would expect some cultures to have figured that out.

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dgudkov
No surprise, TBH. For thousands of years prehistoric humans didn't eat
similarly sized meals N times a day every day. They ate whenever and whatever
they could hunt/catch. Which means huge meals after days/weeks of hunger only
to have days/weeks of hunger again. No wonder our bodies are well adapted to
such irregularities.

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mrfusion
It seems like this would be obvious. Why would one instance of overeating
damage your metabolism?

~~~
jmcgough
A lot of things that seemed obvious at the time (spontaneous generation,
geocentrism) didn't turn out to be true after being studied.

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Markoff
Only twice as much? I'm quite surprised, when I used to go to AYCE buffets I
could easily push it to 3-4 times to make it worth the money, twice as much
would not be worth the money.

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CarbyAu
Huh. So everything in moderation, including moderation.

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ed25519FUUU
This was a big thing with Tim Ferris when he was making an argument for "cheat
days". Personally, I also found cheat days to be effective when on a
restrictive diet. I think he ended up actually weighing his poop to prove the
point.

I did notice that I couldn't breakthrough some key weight loss levels without
both cheat days and intermittent fasting, with the cheat days seeming counter-
intuitive to me.

~~~
mrfusion
What point did he prove? I don’t remember that part.

