Are Your Calories too Low?

Starvation mode is a misleading conception that if you are eating, too little calories for your body, it goes into starvation mode to help maintain homeostasis (a happy place). Therefore forcing your body into ‘storing the food you eat, when it gains access to it’. Thus, gaining body fat. 

How many of you then; 

A) Increased your sessions (or at least tried). In order to burn more fat. But didn’t succeed. 

B) Decreased your calorie intake to burn more fat. But didn’t succeed. 

C) Tried a new FAD to achieve fat loss 

Jeez man. In other words, it’s merely a ‘metabolic adaptation’ to the calorie restriction you’ve placed yourself in. All that has happened is your body has slowed down its process of burning fat. You will not store the food you eat, as fat. (no 20 minute intervals on the treadmill is going to blast that ‘stubborn’ fat, let me tell you, I spent hours of my life doing that! 

Now, let’s explain how you can identify your calories are too low, therefore effecting your ‘rate of fat loss’. Slowing things down let’s say. 

You’ll be happy to know, I’ve just helped a class member through the same scenario. 

– You’re becoming quite tired. General day to day tasks are becoming harder than usual, you even opt to skip some of the thing’s you actually have to do ‘oh I’ll do it later’. You feel lethargic & all you want to do is sit down. 

-Hunger has diminished. The thought of eating isn’t a nice feeling, you’re actually scared to eat incase it’ll be stored as fat! 

-Your skipping the sessions you’ve set yourself. ‘Ah my alarm didn’t go off’ – ‘I’ll meet you there’ – ‘I have to work late’. 

-You’re a little stressed, more than usual. Things aggravate you more than they should. 

-You feel run down, a little ill. Perhaps have mouth ulcers coming along? Feel like you’re fighting off a cold? 

-Your hunger levels actually rise. Leptin & Ghrelin are fuckin wit you man! 

-You try to increase your damn Cardio. FFs. When our class bookings go through the roof, from the same person each week. I know it’s time for an email….. 

Please bare in mind this could happen over a good month, so won’t highlight straight away. Please don’t frigging start skipping meals & fasting to increase Autophagy or help hormonal imbalances. 

This is how we’d look at addressing it: 

-Start to track your food. This can help highlight the amount you’re eating. A little boring but it’ll sure help you realise. Damn I’m eating 800 cals a day. Do this for 1 week. 

-Decrease your CV output, increase your resistance/weight sessions. 2 per week. Nothing fancy, keep it simple & enjoyable. Train at the times that suit you & your schedule. 

-Once you’ve established you’re eating dust. Increase your food intake slowly over the course of 7-10 days. Aim for a maintenance caloric range. 

-Stay at this level for a good 2 weeks. Don’t be scared. You will not put on weight. Instead you’ll probably see a shift in weight (downwards). Waaheey! 

-Priortise protein. Spread it out through the day. Aim to consume .5/1g per lb of your bodyweight. 150lbs = 75/150g protein. 

-Increase your veggies. Because fibre & nutrients & all that. 

-Drink more water 

-Increase your step count. What a stress free way to increase expenditure eh? 

I believe if you follow each of these steps, you will achieve a form of fat loss. It’s not forever & won’t work forever. That’s why we’re here as coaches to help you through that. 

 

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