In their efforts to lose weight fast people tend to think that eating less will help them achieve maximum weight loss. I was under the same impression, until I discovered the facts of the harm that not enough calories can do to your body.
The Starvation Response
Ingrained in our bodies through evolution is a reaction that our bodies produce when we do not get enough calories. This is called the starvation response. Food has not always been so abundant. Supermarkets are only a modern invention and so in times long ago people did not know when they would next get food. Even now in modern times people can get lost in the wilderness and survive for long periods of time with no food. This is due to the starvation response.
The starvation response is the ability of our bodies to burn less calories. When the body thinks it is not going to get any food your metabolism slows down and the reason why this happens is because the body actually conserves fat stores and burns the parts of the body that naturally use up more energy such as muscles and internal organs.
Your muscles are what USES energy in your body even when you are at rest. To get energy you need to eat food. Not eating enough food tells your body that it needs to burn less and so it feeds off the parts which are using up the most energy in the first place. This then makes your body use less energy at rest! Literally slowing down your metabolism and storing fat.
Another problem here is that your body does not know the difference between when you are on a low calorie diet or actually starving. This means that physically if you are on a diet where the calories are too low your body will kick off the starvation response and you will start losing muscle and storing fat. You may feel like you are losing weight, but you are not losing fat. You are losing muscle and making your metabolism slower.
Effects of The Starvation Response
- Your metabolism slows down: When you eat less your body burns less energy. Some studies have shown that your metabolism can slow by 30% if your calories are too low. After a long time on low calorie diets you will notice that you can eat very little food and still not even lose any fat.
- You will lose muscle: Getting rid of muscle is the way that your body conserves energy. Muscles burn energy just to exist and so when your body wants to conserve energy it will start to get rid of the parts of your body which use the most energy. This process is called gluconeogenesis. Converting muscle to glucose. On low calorie diets most of the weight you lose is water, glycogen and muscle. So really you are not losing fat when your calories are too low.
- Fat Storing Enzymes Increase In Activity: LPL is the fat storing enzyme your body produces more so that you store more fat when it thinks you are starving. Your body is trying to store more fat to protect you from starving.
- You Have Increased Risk Of Rebound Weight: Say before your low calorie diet your metabolism level to stay at a constant weight is 1600 calories per day. Assuming no exercise, if you eat 1600 calories per day you will stay the same weight. You decided to go on a low calorie diet and the starvation response kicked in. Your body started to feed on your muscle and your metabolism dropped. This could have dropped you to 1300 calories a day. If you go back to eating 1600 calories per day like before the diet you will actually put on weight. For this reason a lot of people who cannot maintain the low calories go back to eating what they did before and find they gain weight because their metabolism slowed!
- Low calories increases your appetite and cravings: This is a natural reaction for your body to trigger your mind only to think about food. Back in cave man days the cravings triggered people to search harder for food. It is a natural response so that your body is telling you to get more food. When you are continuously hungry it is much harder for you not to binge and eat the wrong things!
- You have less energy: You become lethargic and tired all the time. You lose concentration because your body will not let you expend too much energy. You will feel really crap all the time and you may not even be able to do your everyday work.
In essence low calorie diets cause more harm to your body than good. You will feel tired, you will burn muscle and store fat, you will feel hungry all the time and will not be able to concentrate properly. Then when you come of the "diet" you will actually end up putting on more weight because your metabolism has been lowered and so eating the same amount of food you did BEFORE the diet will be too much for you AFTER and you will put on weight.
Low calorie diets in the long run can actually make you fatter!
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