We can all agree that nobody knows more about how to gain lots of weight than these guys. What they primarily employ is the “meal patterning” technique.
The sumo wrestler diet is based on this:
1. Skip breakfast. By depriving their bodies of food after eight hours of sleep, their metabolic rates stay low.
2. Exercise on an empty stomach. If their bodies have no food, their metabolic thermostats are turned down even lower to conserve fuel.
3. Take a nap after eating. The Sumo secret for gaining weight is that, after eating, they sleep for at least four hours.
4. Eat late in the day. Going to bed with full stomachs means that their bodies must respond to the huge flood of nutrients with a rush of insulin, forcing their bodies to store some of it in the cells as fat instead of in the muscles and organs as nutrients.
5. Always eat with others in a social atmosphere. According to leading researchers, a meal eaten with others can be at least 44 percent larger and with 30 percent more calories and fat.
In short, eating a lot of food late in the day and going to bed on a full stomach is the way to gain a lot of body fat.
Dr. James Hill, an obesity researcher at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, explains, “With a pattern of eating a few large meals, the system actually gets to expect that, and so it gears up more toward being able to quickly put it into storage.”
In 1972, another famous researcher, Dr. Franz Halberg, performed an experiment where each of his subjects ate one 2,000-calorie meal at breakfast for a full week. The next week, these same people ate one 2,000-calorie meal 12 hours later at dinner. Most subjects lost weight on the breakfast pattern and gained weight on the dinner pattern.
We can learn a lot from this information and apply it to our benefit and our weight loss goals:
1. Eat lots of small meals. “Fuel inject” your body with about 250 to 300 calories every two to three hours so you can better use the fuel, storing it in the muscles and organs as glucose instead of fat.
2. Don’t skip breakfast. Your metabolism slows while sleeping. Food is fuel. The body needs fuel to boost the metabolism.
3. Never starve yourself. Weight Watchers teaches people to “stay ahead of the hunger.” Starvation actually slows down metabolism.
4. Eat your bigger meals early in the day. Give yourself three hours between food and bed. Eat larger breakfasts and lunches with smaller snacks the rest of the day to keep your metabolism from slowing down.
5. Don’t exercise on an empty stomach. If your body could speak it would say, “Are you crazy? First you don’t give me any fuel and then you expect me to run on a treadmill!”
6. Be aware when dining with family and friends. It is hard to eat, drink and be merry and be vigilant at the same time.
The Sumo wrestlers are professionals who train specifically for their particular physique. As the disclaimer says: Don’t try this at home.
