I’ve read this and heard this from Dr Fung several times. He talks about the coal plant that starts getting less coal, so they have to burn less to not run out and how your body works the same way. He talks about how when you restrict food your BRM slows down, and when you eat more it speeds up.
So, is eating more calories than you need a strategy to increase your BMR. Or, does that just not work for us?
I think it is learning what is the right amount of fuel for you where you are at now so that the hypothalamus and liver and all our hormones don’t get all freaked out and start compensating for too high or too low energy intake. That’s why finding your own macro sweet spot is so awesome. You are literally making your body use its own fuel and it is happy while doing it.
Easier said than done for some of us.
Once your hormonal hunger signals regulate after being on keto for a while (especially if you’re coming from a background of having diabetes or other metabolic dysfunction) your appetite does indeed become more appropriate for your particular needs. That being said, there are definitely times when we all either "over eat " or eat below what our bodies require on a daily basis. It’s my understanding that if either of these is done consistently over a period of time, our metabolic rate will respond accordingly and either increase to use up extra energy or decrease if it senses there isn’t sufficient energy coming in. I don’t know the mechanisms of how this works on a daily basis, if our bodies respond to more acute instances of either too much or too little energy or if it’s something that happens when it’s a more consistent pattern. I know from experience that when I “over eat” (keto stuff of course…if you count peanut butter and dark chocolate as keto haha) I can almost feel my body ramping up its energy expenditure on the form of generating additional body heat. I wake up in sweats. It’s very uncomfortable! I would be really curious if there was some kind of study that measures basal metabolism in response to variable increases and decreases in energy intake.
I’ve read that after fasting when you have an increase of HGH, your BMR actually goes up! I think it was Fung, might be wrong.