Organisms are “forced” to allocate resources in a manner that should benefit their long-term reproductive success, but the devotion of resources to one process comes at the expense of other processes. Here, we manipulated food availability for populations of speckled cockroaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) to study the effect on body mass and stress resistance using a simple feeding regimen. In short, individual cockroaches had access to either: (1) unlimited food (puppy chow; ad libitum or AL) or (2) limited food availability via the manipulation of the number of feeding stations, as well as the provision of the diet itself. In one instance, individual cockroaches had access to puppy chow at each of two feeding stations that were refilled only when all chow had been consumed (2T). For the second feeding condition, food was provided at a single feeding station which was refilled when completely empty as above (1T). This feeding regimen had been maintained for approximately 300 days prior to the initiation of this study and all individuals would have been from the third generation continuously exposed to these conditions. Despite the most limited access to food, cockroaches in the 1T condition were significantly heavier than those in both the AL and 2T groups. Consistent with this difference in body mass, we also found that 1T individuals were more susceptible to both heat stress (45° C) and cadmium chloride (CdCl2) induced toxicity using time until death as a metric. These results suggest that speckled cockroaches invest more resources toward growth when food is limited at the expense of cellular defense pathways. It remains to be seen whether the increased body mass is associated with increased fecundity as predicted.