The problem with not eating enough

When most of us think about dieting, we think about eating less and exercising more. Simple. But time and time again, people try this strategy and fail to lose weight. Some even gain weight. Others lose weight, but their body composition actually gets worse. Meaning their body fat percentage goes up. So, even though they are now smaller and weigh less on the scale, they have less muscle than before and more of their total body weight is made up of fat. Why does this happen? The answer is simple but counter-intuitive. When we continuously eat less and exercise more, our metabolism actually slows down. One good way to think about this is, your body recognizes it is getting limited calories and has to keep up with a high demand via intense exercise and learns to use fewer calories to perform the same functions. This leads to storing body fat and breaking down muscles. Muscle is an “expensive” tissue, meaning it requires more calories to maintain than fat. Your body will start to store this excess body fat instead of muscle because it is sensing there might be a time in the near future where calories will be even less plentiful and extra body fat could be needed for survival purposes. With all this in mind, you may be thinking: How can I boost or improve my metabolism and prevent this scenario?

To prevent the development of a slow metabolism, it is essential to focus on building a solid foundation of muscle mass. This can be a touchy subject for some people because they hear “increased” muscle mass, and they worry they will look bulky or buff. This is not something to worry about, muscle is lean tissue, hence it takes up much less room than fat. To get an idea of how much less, try Google imaging,” 1 lb of muscle vs 1 lb of fat”, and you will see just how little space muscle takes up on the body. To build muscle, it is essential to go through a phase where you are eating in a calorie surplus. Or in other words, eating more calories than your body needs to maintain your weight. This is where things become counter-intuitive and requires trusting the process. When starting this process, it is important to start by eating in a slight surplus, meaning only about 100–200 calories above your maintenance calories. Too many excess calories will lead to unwanted fat gain along with muscle gain. If you don’t know your maintenance calories, you can just google ”maintenance calories calculator”, which should give you a pretty accurate number. You may just have to do some slight tweaking through experimentation and experience. After some time eating in a slight calorie surplus paired with proper strength training, you will start to gain muscle mass. This will cause your calorie maintenance to increase, and what was previously a surplus for you will now be closer to your maintenance. This means you will have to increase your calorie intake again in order to gain more muscle. This process can be done repeatedly until you reach your desired amount of muscle mass. It is important, however, that from time to time you go into a “cut” or calorie deficit. As your body will become acclimated to the surplus, and it will lose its effectiveness if done for too long continuously. This is something best done with the help of a trainer and/or nutrition coach, to ensure you’re engaging in this process correctly and effectively.

To sum it all up, the problem with not eating enough lies in the fact that our bodies are constantly adapting to outside stimuli. So, if we underfeed and overwork it, it will adapt and slow down our metabolism. Once we start placing the proper demands on our bodies through strength training effectively and fueling our bodies with adequate calories and nutrition, our bodies become calorie-burning machines. This makes weight maintenance much more manageable and through this process we are able to better understand how our bodies really work and give them what they need to thrive. Understanding this allows you to manage your body weight intuitively over time and takes the mystery out of maintaining a healthy weight.