Research

Energy balance

In healthy young men, overfeeding by ~1,000 kcal/day for 21 days does not trigger a significant adaptive increase in energy expenditure (other than obligatory thermic effect), resulting in 85-90% of excess energy being stored as fat and protein.

If you are a healthy young man, eating 1,000 extra calories a day for three weeks will not significantly boost your metabolism to burn off those calories. Instead, your body will store about 85-90% of that excess energy as fat and protein. You might naturally eat less later, but during the overfeeding period, you will gain weight because your energy expenditure does not increase enough to match the intake.

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Thus energy expenditure did not substantially adapt to increased energy intake. However, significant decreases in voluntary energy intake (1,991 ± 824 kJ/day, P < 0.05) and fat intake (48 ± 11 g/day, P < 0.01) followed overeating, indicating that adaptive changes in nutrient intakes can contribute significantly to body weight regulation after overeating.
Susan B. Roberts et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 1990

Why this rating

Controlled metabolic ward study with objective measures (doubly labeled water, calorimetry), but small sample size (n=7) and short duration.

Source

Energy expenditure and subsequent nutrient intakes in overfed young men

Susan B. Roberts et al. · American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology · 1990

DOI 10.1152/ajpregu.1990.259.3.r461

rct · n=7Cited 123×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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