Is this possible?
No. But the chances of you properly being in a deficit while having high amounts of sugar is ludacrisly low. And if you do stay in a deficit with high amounts of sugar you’ll probably feel like crap. Bigtime crap.
I saw a video a while back where this guy ate only candy and lost weight to prove that it doesn’t matter what you eat, it’s the calories that matter.
He ignored all the health issues that come with doing it long term though
I’m not a nutritionist so I could be wrong but from what I understand you can’t gain weight in a calorie deficit. But if enough of your calories come from sugar and you don’t eat enough protein/essential Amino acids, your body might start cannibalizing muscle to supply essential Amino acids. Also, If you eat enough sugar often enough your insulin might stay high enough for long enough that your body has a harder time burning fat and you might end up doing gluconeogenesis, getting energy in the form of glycogen from your muscles instead of from fat cells. So you might lose muscle at faster and fat at slower than normal rates for your given calorie deficit. If it’s bad enough you might even lose more muscle than fat. All that being said I think this is a fringe scenario unlikely unless you are eating a huge amount of your calories from sugar. Also I could be entirely wrong so if someone knows better than me please correct me.
not if you really are in a calorie deficit. any anecdotal stories include people who either 1. didn’t count calories accurately enough, or 2. have some sort of condition that makes their metabolism slower than expected (source: literally law 1 of thermodynamics)
if you’re seeing fat gain while you know you’re in a caloric deficit, consult your physician
Short answer. Likely no unless there are unaccounted metabolic disruptions happening.
There was a professor who ate nothing but twinkiea while staying calorie deficient to illustrate this. I’m sure you can dig that up online somewhere.
Longer answer: De novo lipogenesis is the process by which sugars are stored as fat. Though the body CAN do this, it doesn’t want to because this process is so inefficient . During studies, diets high in Fat and carbs led to fat gain when subjects were given excess calories. Of that fat, about a measly 1% was gained from the carbs. The rest came from fat.
Shouldnt be surprising to most people to hear that the body can turn fat…into stored fat much easier than it can turn sugar into fat.
Edit to add a quick read :
https://paleoleap.com/science-turning-carbs-to-fat-de-novo-lipogenesis/
I’ll add my “yes” answer to the crew getting all the downvotes. The question is whether it’s possible and the answer to that is yes.
The “calories in calories out” thing misses the fact that it’s possible to lose weight and gain fat at the same time. You would just need to be losing muscle mass faster than you’re losing weight overall. If you’re losing 1.1 pounds of muscle per week but only losing 1 pound of weight overall, that 0.1 pound difference is likely caused by fat gains.
For an extreme example, imagine a bodybuilder with huge muscles and very low body fat who suddenly stops exercising entirely and starts living on 100% sugar. He’d most likely gain fat even if he’s losing weight overall from muscle atrophy.
“Too much” sugar would mean more energy (kcals) than is needed to cover your total daily energy expenditure, so that statement is oxymoronic; you wouldn’t be calorie deficient.
But if you meant ‘Can consuming high amounts of sugar cause fat gain despite calorie deficit?’, the short answer is no. But your health will suffer.
Yes if you have some endocrine diseases related to the cortisol axis.
No if you don’t.
You still probably shouldn’t, it will be hard to create a balanced diet and a caloric deficit while eating big amounts of refined sugar
Hello I’m a fourth year nutrition student, please don’t believe every comment you see here, people have their biased opinions on nutrition and most of the time they’re not completely true.
To simply put, no you will not gain fat in a calorie deficit, fat is mainly produced when eating a calorie surplus as a way for the body to store and use it for energy later. What you will be doing is putting yourself at risk of developing diabetes.
Complex question.
Assuming the strict definition of calorie deficit, this could happen if you are putting on fat at the same time you are burning lean mass (muscle).
But “calorie deficit” is a squishy term. Most people mean “eating less than I used to”, and that does not guarantee a calorie deficit as the amount of energy the body uses is under the control of the body. So it’s possible to eat a lot of sugar on what you think is a deficit and still gain fat.
Yes it will. Calorie deficit only controls n helps with weight loss. You can loose weight n gain fat at the same time. Basically you’re loosing muscle mass and which then increases the overall fat%age of your body.
Sugar is worse than fat for your health. Also, if your calorie is too low you will lose muscle, will will bring up your body fat. It will also lower your energy levels, which maybe is why you’re craving so much sugar
Research insulin/insulin resistance and impacts on weight— if you’re consistently consuming sugar your cells are persistently inundated with insulin and will grow likely resistant over time. Significant lean muscle mass helps avoid insulin resistance in people whose cells pretty much bathe in insulin 18 hours a day.
i am sure it would lead to a bad body composition: skinny fat. Source: due to developing recently a mast cell syndrom, i survive exclusively on very small quantities of white rice, boiled peach and a bit of chicken breast. Everything else gives me anaphylaxys. I eat only once a day and as i said, very small quantities of such food. But 90% of my diet is sugar. I lost tons of weight (20 kilos) but went from muscular and fit to skinny fat.
any amount of starches, refined carbs or sugar (another super refined carb) will require insulin, and thus weight gain. calories are useless to ponder. look into ketogenic concepts, which do not request insulin to be produced.
You can certainly gain bodyfat at the expense of lean tissue. Anyone who tells you otherwise doesn’t understand the chemistry behind the food. Now, you won’t gain “weight” in a calorie deficit, but your body will certainly suffer from a lack of raw materials, and you will look and feel worse from it.
I believe so. Regardless of calorie count, sugar is a fast converter to glucose the body’s main fuel source. Glucose is either converted to energy to be used right away or stored as glycogen. Your body only has so much storage capacity for glycogen so when it is full it is converted to fat for storage. This will cause fat gain. I will use an example:
Example 1: You are sitting on the couch watching TV, so not exerting a lot of energy, but some because you are alive and breathing. You eat a cookie which is high in sugar and low in fiber and converts quickly to glucose. Since you are not exerting much energy you don’t need to convert the glucose to use as energy right away, your glycogen stores are already full because you just ate dinner so it converts to fat to store.
Example 2: Same scenario, you are sitting on the couch watching TV. Instead of a cookie you eat an apple which has fructose as its sugar, but is high in fiber. Due to the fiber content the sugar in the apple converts a lot slower to glucose. Since it converts slower you have a better chance of once it is converted to glucose of not being stored as fat since you during the slower conversion period you burned more energy than if you ate the cookie.
Moral of the story is that not every calorie is created equal. Eat more fruits and vegetables which are complex carbs, full of nutrients and has fiber. Avoid simple carbohydrates such as white breads, cookies, cakes, sweets.
High sugars diets are not good for your body, especially your liver - if you consume more calories than what your body can use, your liver will convert excess energy from fructose into fat which surrounds your organs (which are meant to be lean). Over time this can lead to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. So even at a healthy weight, a high sugar diet has a detrimental impact on your health.
No , sugar is low energy source that gives you energy fast while fat is slow but gives you higher energy. Calories are important , for example me : im eating lot of salads etc. that causes calories deficit even im drinking 2 l of coca cola per day. I’ve made weight of 100 kg from 110 kg.
No, but this scenario is unrealistic.
If you are consuming too much sugar, that means you eat too little fat&protein to reach calorie deficit. If you are eating too little protein, your muscle mass will suffer which will lead you to have even lower TDEE and health problems/deficiencies.
Also you will experience sugar crashes and have very low satiety which will lead you to eat more calories.
There is a reason people dont lose weight on a cake diet… it is unsustainable.
Consuming too much sugar can cause insulin issues. Insulin blocks access to the energy stored in fat, so if your insulin is too high throughout the day and you’re in a calorie deficit, your body will likely reduce its calorie expenditure in any reasonable way it can.
The result is that no, when consuming too much sugar, you can’t gain fat in a deficit, but you may find your calorie expenditure is lower than expected, and therefore you’re not in a deficit at all.