Dieting Too Hard: Starvation Mode

So in order to lose weight, we should just starve ourselves right? I mean that makes the most sense, if you put less in your body you are going to be smaller. While this may seem like it makes the most sense, when you are exercising regularly (or not) the last thing you should do is deprive your body of necessary calories, or else you run the risk of entering the dreaded starvation mode, when your body will hold onto all the fat in the body because it is not getting enough nourishment.

Now if you don't exercise that much or at all, you should not eat less than 1200 calories a day as female, and 1500 calories a day as a male. But for those of us who exercise moderately to a lot need to make sure we are getting a good amount of calories; when you keep stepping on the scale and not seeing any drop in weight it may be due to the fact that you are not eating enough! Sounds crazy right? It is true, here is why...

Your metabolism needs energy to work! This means that if you don't give your metabolism those necessary calories to actually do the work it is going to come to a halt. It will literally stop working and your body will enter a flight/fight mode (back to caveman times I suppose) and try to hold onto every bit of fat it can to ensure it has energy stores (lb of fat has 3500 calories, that's a lot of energy!).

So, if you are working out a lot, 4-7 times a week, you HAVE to make sure you replenish your body immediately after a workout (some P90x results and recovery formula tasty...) and all through the day with 4-6 smaller meals. If you are trying to lose weight, your body needs a lot of GOOD calories in order to do so.

So as an example, after doing the Harris Benedict Equation (look it up on wiki, it is a great tool!) I found that I need to eat around 3000-3200 calories a day if I want to maintain my weight with the amount of exercise I do...I want to LOSE weight though, so what I do is create a deficit (not a huge one). I eat around 2500-2700 calories a day. That way I get a slow burn in my body, and end up burning around 3500 calories (as you remember this is a lb. of fat) a week! Perfect!

In the worst cases, and this is VERY extreme...you can enter into super extreme starvation mode, called muscle cannibalization. Where your body can't find any energy to help it function and it will actually eat your muscles. Nom Nom Nom!!!! You will start to lose muscle if you don't eat enough! So don't be afraid to eat when you are doing a diet/exercise program, it is crucial. But eat well, don't eat crap! (a bit of sugar is good after a hard workout to help restore glycogen in the muscles and reduce lactic acid (soreness)). Keep at it folks! Follow me (@CoachZoso) on Twitter!

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Tim (Coach Zoso)