The Consequences of a Very Low Calorie Diet (aka Starvation

This is taken from an article by Tom Venuto's Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle article entitled Big Fat Lies (Love this article). Thought of sharing this very important article here especially for those having problems with their calorie intake. Here it goes:

Here Are Some of the Consequences of Starvation Mode:

1. Your fat cells sound the alarm and release less leptin. Leptin is the "anti-starvation hormone" that tells your brain you are well fed with plenty of reserve energy. When leptin goes down, fat-burning goes down.

2. Your appetite rages out of control. Your brain flips on the appetite switch and hunger hormones increase. You become a ravenous food-seeking machine.

3. Your body releases fewer fat-releasing and fat-burning enzymes such as hormone sensitive lipase and lipoprotein lipase.

4. You lose muscle. Maintaining muscle requires energy. Extreme diets are like an "energy crisis", so excess muscle becomes expendable and you cannibalize your own lean tissue.

5. Your metabolism ratchets down. Levels of T3, the active form of thyroid, fall, decreasing your metabolic rate.

It's hormonally, metabolically and psychologically impossible to achieve permanent fat loss by starving yourself.

You can't fight these biological defense mechanisms with willpower. Your body is too smart for that.

Eventually, extreme diets lead to frustration, binge eating, weight re-gain, and you end up with less muscle and a slower metabolism than when you started.

The good news is, you DON'T have to starve yourself to get a lean body. In fact, you can eat more and burn more fat - and IT'S SIMPLE!

Here are 4 easy tips that will get you started with the Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle approach to losing fat and keeping it off for good, without going hungry:

1. Avoid very low calorie diets.

Before going on any diet, look at the recommended calories first. You'll discover that most of them require you to slash your food intake to the level of "semi-starvation." 1200 calories or less for women and 1800 or less for men are dangerously low levels and yet this is exactly what most popular diets recommend... and why most fail.

2. Customize your calories.

You must adjust your calories according to your overall body size, amount of lean body mass, activity level, age and gender. Effective programs always take individual body type into account before telling you how much to eat. If a diet recommends the same calories for everyone, that's a warning sign of an ineffective generic program - stay away.

3. Decrease your calorie intake slightly.

Small calorie cuts don't trigger the starvation response as much. Use a conservative calorie deficit - just 20% below your maintenance level at first. For example, a typical female needs about 2150 calories a day to maintain. A 20% deficit is 1720 calories per day. NOTE: if you are very overweight, your body can handle larger calorie deficits without negative side effects (because you have so much reserve energy in storage).

4. Increase your calories burned.

If you only cut your food intake slightly, then how do you cut body fat without the process taking forever? Simple, you BURN MORE. Increase your deficit with fat burning workouts and an active lifestyle. First, if you're not doing so already, you should aim for 3-4 days per week of strength training with weights. Weight training protects you from losing muscle while you're in a calorie deficit. Second, do at least 3 days per week of moderate to vigorous cardio training. Push yourself at a high enough intensity to really get your heart pumping. Third, to accelerate fat loss more, or to break a progress plateau, bump up your activity further by adding additional cardio sessions or increasing the intensity or duration of your current workouts. Fourth, keep your lifestyle active, and participate in physical hobbies, housework, walking, sports or recreational activities that you enjoy. This is known as Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or N.E.A.T. Every calorie you burn adds up.

The fat loss truth is: starvation diets can actually make you fatter- so always remember my fat loss golden rule:

DON'T STARVE THE FAT... BURN THE FAT!

Source: http://www.burnthefat.com/BIG_FAT_LIES_1_starvation_diet_lie.html