Abstract
The notion that dieting makes some people fatter has in the past decade gained considerable interest from both epidemiological predictions and biological plausibility. Several large-scale prospective studies have suggested that dieting to lose weight is associated with future weight gain and obesity, with such predictions being stronger and more consistent among dieters who are in the normal range of body weight rather than in those with obesity. Furthermore, the biological plausibility that dieting predisposes people who are lean (rather than those with overweight or obesity) to regain more body fat than what had been lost (referred to as fat overshooting) has recently gained support from a re-analysis of data on body composition during weight loss and subsequent weight recovery from the classic longitudinal Minnesota Starvation Experiment. These have revealed an inverse exponential relationship between the amount of fat overshot and initial adiposity, and have suggested that a temporal desynchronization in the recoveries of fat and lean tissues, in turn residing in differences in lean-fat partitioning during weight loss vs. during weight recovery (with fat recovery faster than lean tissue recovery) is a cardinal feature of fat overshooting. Within a conceptual framework that integrates the relationship between post-dieting fat overshooting with initial adiposity, the extent of weight loss and the differential lean-fat partitioning during weight loss vs. weight recovery, we describe here a mathematical model of weight cycling to predict the excess fat that could be gained through repeated dieting and multiple weight cycles from a standpoint of body composition autoregulation.
Highlights
In parallel to the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity worldwide, the prevalence of dieting is rising, and current estimates indicate that 40% of adults have tried
We describe here the development and application of a mathematical model to predict the amount of fat overshoot through multiple weight cycles in pathways from leanness to fatness—albeit from a standpoint of body composition autoregulation
The basic concepts here underlying this modeling of weight cycling from leanness to fatness rests upon several findings from our previous re-analysis of data from the Minnesota Experiment on changes in body composition, energy intake and basal metabolic rate in the 32 men who completed the 24 weeks of semistarvation and 12 weeks of controlled refeeding, as well as in the 12 subjects who completed the subsequent 8 weeks of refeeding with ad libitum access to food. These are summarized below: (i) During weight loss in response to semistarvation, an intrinsic lean-fat partitioning characteristic of the individual (Pss) dictates the relative proportion of body energy derived from fat-free mass (FFM), and that this characteristic, which is conserved during refeeding, is a function of the initial body fat% [43, 44]
Summary
In parallel to the increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity worldwide, the prevalence of dieting is rising, and current estimates indicate that 40% of adults have tried. As the lean-fat partitioning ratio PmSS during semistarvation, which is conserved during refeeding, is to a great extent determined by the initial fat percentage % FAT0 of the subject [43, 44], this motivated us to investigate the relationship between γ and %FAT0 To this end, we revisited here the Minnesota Experiment with specific focus on the analysis of data on body composition of the 12 men who completed the entire study (i.e., including the ad libitum refeeding phase) and showed varying degrees of fat overshooting, as elaborated step-by-step in the section below. In our model presented here, it should be underlined that the parameter γ may depend upon the time factor and the period of time between cycling pattern and upon dietary composition
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