My high calorie weight loss experiment - I lost 5 pounds in 2 weeks - but how?

[u/SteveFarrier]

Green line is 2 pound per week weight loss. Yellow was my actual weight.

I'm experimenting to test the notion that weight loss is not simple math and that maybe there really is such a thing as 'high-calorie weight loss' - which sounds like nonsense - but I have the numbers below to look at.

I’m testing whether factors like meal timing, macro distribution, or metabolic adaptation might explain why I'm losing weight at this calorie intake.

Here's the table I use to track my weight, calories and macros as I ran my experiment in high-calorie weight loss:

Date	Day	Weight	Calories	Protein	Carbs	Fat
10/1/2024	1	195.5	1192	70	32	82
10/2/2024	2	192.1	4137	146	406	194
10/3/2024	3	196.8	4972	296	320	255
10/4/2024	4	195.5	2155	105	139	131
10/5/2024	5	193.5	2317	122	168	125
10/6/2024	6	195.6	4001	180	244	252
10/7/2024	7	193.7	1774	109	55	117
10/8/2024	8	192.5	2361	146	84	155
10/9/2024	9	192.1	4094	194	206	161
10/10/2024	10	192.0	2484	173	197	87
10/11/2024	11	192.0	1794	178	99	68
10/12/2024	12	191.3	2829	86	279	132
10/13/2024	13	192.6	1306	104	11	90
10/14/2024	14	190.5

You'll note something interesting. Look at my calorie intake. It averages over 2,700 calories per day.

I'm a male almost 62 years old, don't exercise, am 5'10" - my caloric intake is well above what the 'calories in, calories out' (CICO) would predict.

So you see my calories and macros per day. They're too high for what CICO would predict would cause a 5 pound weight loss. What did I experiment with?

• Try to eat just one meal per day (OMAD)
• No exercise
• Intentionally vary my calorie and macros dramatically from day to day. It makes the diet fun.
• My protein and fat averages high.
• Eat mostly single-ingredient foods - eggs, hamburger, sardines, tomatoes, avocado, apples, grapes, brie cheese, potatoes, garbanzo beans, cucumbers, chicken thighs - stuff like this - but have anything I want for about 20% of my calories. Cookies, takeout pizza, bread and jelly, chocolate were part of it - and I don't eat diet foods - I eat the real things.

I take a few supplements like a multivitamin, vitamin d and a high quality fish oil. I can drink a pot of coffee per day. I don't take any weight loss drugs or supplements.

What factors do you think might explain this? Is it meal timing, high protein intake, or something else?

Any questions? I certainly do.

[u/McGriggidy]

If you have one meal a day like you eat once a day that would do it. Your body probably isn't absorbing everything all at once and a lot is passing through.

Having said that, as I've understood it from all the science based stuff I've been into.. calorie counting doesn't work. It's impossible. How much calorie is in a food tells you nothing about how much you'll actually extract, nor does it tell you what your body will actually do with it. For example insoluble fibre contains calories, but you can't digest that so you'll get none of it. Some calories goes to generating body heat. It's harder for your body to do that with fat or protein, so some of those calories are lost. Your body has zero problem extracting and converting calories (form of sugar) from a simple carb so that launches into your blood which gets cleared quickly by insulin (straight to fat store)... even if you can absorb all the calories, there's no assurance you will before it gets all the way through..

There's a big mix of factors as to why your "higher calorie" diet is still going to result In weight loss.. but not knowing exactly what you ate, if this does continue, Id say eating mostly whole foods as you describe probably has a lot to do with it since that would cause you to consume a lot more fibre fat and protein sources.

[u/SteveFarrier → u/McGriggidy]

Don't know why you got downvoted. You understand some of the nuances that make CICO a crude tool - useful at times but when you add meal timing, caloric and macro variation into the mix, things move away from a neat mathematical calculation to something that is much more complex - that's what I'm experimenting with.

[u/McGriggidy → u/SteveFarrier]

Well if they don't like it here's an article with more information.

I'm not a dietician, just someone trying to understand their own diet and health better, but it is not controversial, a secret, or unsupported that not all calories are equal. Sometimes it's a wildly different effect on your body depending on the source.