Last 20 Pounds

Do you weigh everything you eat using a digital scale? Do you eat back your exercise calories?

It can be SO EASY to lose weight if you're committed when you're heavy. But the techniques to eat at a deficit once you're closer to your goal weight are often different. Accuracy is MUCH more important when you're closer to your goal.

Yes I weigh everything on a food scale. I eat back my exercise calories. I have a polar loop and wear a heart rate monitor when exercising so I get a pretty accurate calorie burn.

Eating more food will not cause weight loss.

lol

Umm... clearly you don't know what your talking about... even at 1500 calories I am deficient. At 1200 Calories I was basically starving myself

Thank you!

Eating more food will not cause weight loss.

lol

Umm... clearly you don't know what your talking about... even at 1500 calories I am deficient. At 1200 Calories I was basically starving myself

Please, tell me how starvation mode works.

I'm dying to know.

I said nothing about starvation mode.... I said even at 1500 calories I am still deficient (more then 500 calories actually) At 1200 I was almost a 1000 deficient, I said I was basically starving myself.

In one manner of speaking losing weight at all means the process has begun. But, when referring to the more worrisome side of starvation mode, there are some things you can look for to see if it is time to move into diet recovery.

One of the easiest things to remember is this – if you aren’t losing fat (not just dealing with cloaking) it is time for a break.

Looking below, you can gain some examples of what can take place when you have been in a deficit too long. It should be noted most of these things can be general side effects of fat loss or completely separate issues all together. This is not a list to diagnose or confirm any particular illness or disease and is based on review literature and anecdotal evidence.

Sudden inability to complete workouts at standard performing level
Stalled fat loss
Increase in fluid retention on a regular basis
Feeling unmotivated and lacking energy
Increased susceptibility to colds, sore throats and other illnesses
Decrease body temperature from previous normal levels
Alterations in appetite
Decrease in performance
Insomnia
Aches or pain in the muscles and/or joints
Fatigue
Headaches
Elevated morning pulse
Disordered eating habits/thoughts

It is estimated that there are a hundred trillion cells in the human body. Of those, it is estimated a billion must be replaced every hour. The average person has roughly seven hundred muscles and over twenty miles-worth of capillaries. It doesn’t stop there: between blood, organs, hair, and even taste buds, the human body is constantly in desperate need of fuel.

When the body senses a period of deprivation is taking place, all of those jobs and all of those processes will take stock of importance and will alter direction or priority. That means all those cells and all those billions of processes a second that occur are going to take stock of your current energy input. If at any point your body finds its storage or input of nutrients is lacking in efficiency, it will adapt. It will adjust accordingly to the given parameters.

In short, you providing less energy will mean you expend less energy. Less food intake will mean fewer calories burned to convert it. Less food intake will mean lower oil production in skin and hair follicles. Less food intake will mean less energy transport through the whole body. This is just to note a few instances.

On top of that, fatigue can increase as well as depression and apathy. Your sex drive is lowered and willpower is decreased. In a caloric deficit, we are operating at a subpar level of our capable excellence.

The most valuable lesson of adaptation is that energy is not lost. I repeat, again, energy can’t be lost; it can only be altered or transferred. There is a lot between which is often missed, and the point missed most often is the role of adaptation. You are not defying the laws of energy. You are merely operating at a lower output state of energy use and requirements. How much and how permanent depends on the length of caloric restriction and the amount of permanent body fat lost (being that weight determines a degree of metabolic rate – sometimes significant).

How fast, where, and to what degree is where the details live. Most people think the body flips a switch and no longer allows fat loss. These people’s explanation for what they can’t explain is that the process just stops working. They say, “The body stores fat instead of burning it!” This is a dangerous line of thinking that has been at the forefront of why we have all of the faulty fads, solutions, and diets we do. This is the ultimate aha! moment of fat loss. Pay attention; this is the most powerful thing you might ever read about fat loss.

Any weight loss that takes place carries a significant change with it. We should expect to see a downgrade in metabolic activity. In fact, let me put it this way: in order to lose fat, you have to have a metabolic adaptation. You have to have alterations in hormones.

The changes that take place all work together to decrease the rate of metabolic drop, protect muscle mass, and ultimately protect you. It is a good thing. You see so many people cursing their metabolic behavior, but your body working against you is hardly the worst thing in the world, or even the truth. The only time this is unfortunate is when you need to lose body fat due to health reasons. Believe it or not, you are not entitled to physically manipulate your body for vanity. It wasn’t meant to do this, it doesn’t want to do this, and it will fight you if you try to do this.

Let me restate that again: your body does not want to maintain low body fat. It wants to make you hungry, slow you down, alter your mental stability, and manipulate your hormonal state for one purpose, one goal. What is that end goal? Achieve peak metabolic homeostasis, by any means necessary. It doesn’t matter if that means you stuffing your face due to increased ghrelin (hunger hormone) or the body decreasing your NEAT (subconscious activity).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWlc6eDITuA#t=42

Thank you