Why being under you calories is also bad.

So I officially had to repost a rant I made in a thread to another thread and decided I would put it in it's own thread too.

So here is my unofficial and unscientific rant about why being too low on calories is a bad thing.

We have already gone over the science (and we will again) behind increased calorie intact. Let's try completely unscientific metaphors now. Right now you are starving your body, it is a poor African orphan who no matter how badly wants some food it just can't get any. Now one day the UN comes and gives this child (aka your body) a whole loaf of bread. Boy is that child happy now! But does he scarf it all down in one go? No, he SAVORS every single bite of that loaf. He portions it out so the lovely enjoyment lasts longer. That is what your body is doing when you increase your calorie count. It holds on to them and savors them.

Now we give that child a loaf of bread EVERY day. Do you think by the 3rd week this child is still savoring every bite of his bread? Probably not, he knows there will just be another one tomorrow.

This is what we are trying to get you to do. You need to teach your body that you are not going through a famine. That there is in fact more than enough food around to survive and it can relax on the survival instincts and start letting those calories slide here and there because there will always be more tomorrow.

Do it for the starving African child!

(Now for some more of that science ... mmmm science)
Your body takes one form of energy and converts it to another just like almost everything else in the world. There are two laws that govern all the energy in the universe. Those are the laws of thermodynamics.

The first law of thermodynamics states that you can not create or destroy energy. This is seen in everything from photosynthesis to nuclear bombs. It always holds true. The second law is a little more complex and involves isolated systems and entropy but it basically states that no system is 100% efficient this includes your body.

If we look at only the first law it would seem that if you don't burn the calories you eat then you will store them as fat. This is the general "accepted" view of calorie counting but it is in fact wrong because that breaks the 2nd law.

It is this law that states that there is always a waste by product in all systems. This means that you don't burn every calorie you put in your body, some of them are changed to waste energy and some of it is quite simply discarded through your bodies wastes. With this law you can begin to see that your body doesn't have to "burn" or "store" all calories put in (but it does have to do something with them as per law 1).

Thus increasing your calorie intact allows your body to get sloppy with the over storage of calories and it begins simply discarding them or running a more inefficient conversion. So the actual calorie "storage" is less even though calorie "intake" increased.

Now please realize this is all in balance and you can't just shoot your calorie intake through the roof hoping it won't keep any of them. The universe is constantly trying to balance out including your body.

Helpful at all?



This is a part fun and part science (but no biology) explanation behind why your body isn't black and white and why increasing your calorie count may sometimes result in the loss of weight.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, the laws of thermodynamics are physical laws (aka Physics) not biological laws (though they still apply just more complexly), this is no reason why you should ignore MFP or any physician. Infact this is more of a reason why you should follow MFP exactly.

MFP already calculates a healthy deficit from your calorie total. So if you set up your weight loss goal properly then constantly and consistently have 0 calories or as close to it (even by going over) on your food and exercise diary every day you will achieve the best results. Just cutting out an unhealthy amount of calories from your diet is what we like to call a "crash diet" and we all know those don't work well.

Bonus Points: MFP also calculates several other nutritional sources such as fats, carbs and protein. By getting those as close to 0 every day you will experience consistent results ... through consistency.

I am in no way related to myfitnesspal and in fact I barely care about weight loss ... I do however care about science and when people abuse it. So stop abusing my science people!