The 14-percent advantage of eating little and then a lot: Is it real?
When you look at the literature on overfeeding, you see a number over and over again – 14 percent. That is approximately the increase in energy expenditure you get when you overfeed people; that is, when you feed people more calories that they need to maintain their current weight. This phenomenon is related to another interesting one: the nonlinear increase in body weight and fat mass following overfeeding after a period starvation, illustrated by the top graph below from an article by Kevin Hall ( ). The data for the squares on the top graph is from the Minnesota Starvation Experiment ( ). The graph at the bottom is based mostly on the results of a simulation, and doesn’t clearly reflect the phenomenon. Due to the significant amount of weight lost in what is called above the semistarvation stage (SS), the controlled refeeding period (CR) actually involved significant overfeeding. Nevertheless, weight was not gained right away, due to a sharp increase in energy expenditure. That is...