I don’t mean eating in a surplus, but say your maintenance was 5000 for example, because you exercise a lot or whatever reason, is it harmful in the long run to be eating this much on a consistent daily basis for years and years? Whether that’s harmful to your body, your GI tract, your teeth etc what are your guy’s thoughts?
All I can contribute is my recent personal experience…I went through an approximately 3 month period where I had to be VERY VERY active. I kept having to bump up my calories to match my activity level, but since my regular diet is skewed heavily toward veggies and lean protein, adding MORE of that stuff meant I was eating constantly and getting in a ton of fiber and protein. This ended up being way too tough on my digestive system. As of last week, I was able to cut down on the physical activity and calories, and am feeling much better. When that situation occurs again, I would probably bulk up the calories by using healthy fats instead and avoiding having to eat so frequently.
I do know that, in hunter-gatherer tribes existing today who spend huge amounts of time being very active, their metabolisms have adapted so that they only burn about as much per day as we westerners do so that they don’t require thousands upon thousands of calories that simply don’t exist in their environment. So I am assuming the situation you’re suggesting would not actually end up happening for years and years. Whatever is causing the need for 5k calories, I’m guessing the person’s metabolism would eventually adapt and scale that need down.
In general the longest lived people in the world do not eat a large amount on a regular basis. However, if you’re burning 5000 a day and not eating 5000 eventually you will either wither away and die (or your metabolism will fall, and you’ll eventually reach equilibrium). You should eat what you need to eat to be at the weight you want to be.
When you’re talking about lean individuals eating a ton of calories you’re really talking about endurance athletes, and all the data is that these individuals live longer than the general population. So no, there’s absolutely no reason to think it’s bad for you. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fspor.2020.588204/full
Interesting question and being pretty immersed in the gym world it definitely is a good question. I can’t answer it but I also don’t think the answer is as simple as metabolism and how many calories you need and all that. I’m on a bulk but only at around 3400 calories max. If someone’s eating excess of 5000 as some do, it must have some toll as it’s kind of an unnatural amount of food.
Harmful might be the wrong word, but calorie restriction in general is consistently shown to increase longevity. We’re not sure why exactly, and there are competing theories.
A brief rundown: https://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2020/can-calorie-restriction-extend-your-lifespan/
You likely would need to be eating frequently, which never lets your body enter various states of rest. When you are eating and digesting, your heart rate increases. When you re done digesting, you “rest” for a while and that normalizes. When you have to eat so much/so frequently, you only get to that rest periods for short times overnight which over time is unhealthy for the body. It is not intended to spend the majority of its time within a digesting state. Doing so keeps the body in a sympathetic nervous system response, which is basically like being stressed out all the time. It is one of the reasons Intermittent Fasting can be good for people, it increases the time your body spends in a resting versus digesting state, which is when you body has time to do it’s repair and healing. If you are always digesting the amount of time your body has to repair the damage that daily life does to it, eventually it accumulates.
Eating this amount of calories is hard. I struggle to do it. If I don’t use shakes through the day it’s very hard. That in turn sometimes can mess with my stomach. I think it’s caused by the whey quantities.