Fat Sparing / Starvation Mode

shivers

Ok, so I know we're supposed to eat our exercise calories... but I was starting to panic cos my weight wasn't dropping so I stuck to my 1200 everyday regardless. Now my Taekwon-Do Coach has come back to me after reviewing my training for the week and told me that the reason I gained weight was because I was taking way too few calories. He said that 1200 is too little for the beginning of a weight loss plan, that I should have started at 1800 and just increased my exercise, and then worked at cutting back, but trying to eat straight after training if possible. I know this is all common sense but it's not fair, surely if you eat less you should lose weight... grr..... :grumble: :laugh:

So now I have to eat more... of the good stuff of course... but I'm nervous... I've been so careful I'm afraid to relax my diet even a little bit!

shivers

Ok, so I know we're supposed to eat our exercise calories... but I was starting to panic cos my weight wasn't dropping so I stuck to my 1200 everyday regardless. Now my Taekwon-Do Coach has come back to me after reviewing my training for the week and told me that the reason I gained weight was because I was taking way too few calories. He said that 1200 is too little for the beginning of a weight loss plan, that I should have started at 1800 and just increased my exercise, and then worked at cutting back, but trying to eat straight after training if possible. I know this is all common sense but it's not fair, surely if you eat less you should lose weight... grr..... :grumble: :laugh:

So now I have to eat more... of the good stuff of course... but I'm nervous... I've been so careful I'm afraid to relax my diet even a little bit!

banks1850

I know it seems counterintuitive, but it's true.

Here's the deal. The human body has developed from a hunter/gatherer society where there were periods where food sources were scarce. During those times the body developed a means of combatting starvation by slowing down the metabolism, shutting down unessential organs, and storing as much fat as possible and using muscle as an alternate energy source. This did 2 things, it reduced the available muscle so that the body burned less calories at rest, and it also conserved the fat for the leaner times that would inevitablty come. Unfortunately for us, this causes some issues, like gall stones, fatigue, gastrointestinal issues, and possibly weakend immunity. Along with having no muscle tone, strenght, and weird fat deposits.

So that is why eating too few calories is bad. The body reverts to it's old ways cuz that what it knows how to do. In 50 thousand years or so we probably will no longer have this defense mechanism (if we are still around), course by then, we probably have a whole host of new things to deal with.