FAT LOSS SECRET #1...

EAT MORE, NOT LESS: THE LIE OF CALORIE RESTRICTION

Have you ever celebrated the fact that you went all day without eating anything? (shame shame!) Or perhaps you thought your diet was right on track if your breakfast consisted of half a bagel and your lunch a small cup of salad greens.

The media along with a slew of fat loss misinformation has programmed us to believe that less is best. The less you put into your mouth, the more fat you’ll lose. Twelve hundred calories is much better than sixteen, and a simple thousand even better. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of how our bodies work.

To understand why, you have to understand your body’s number one priority: to keep you alive! Fail to give your body enough food each day and it won’t be long before your body shifts into “starvation mode” as a defense mechanism. It’s simply your body’s way of protecting you from a lack of food.

Now, you’ve probably heard of starvation mode, but it’s not likely that you fully understand it...

As you begin to curb your food intake, especially if you are heavily restricting calories, the body begins to send out hormonal signals to decrease metabolism, preserve body fat, and increase appetite. Not so great of a scenario when you’re trying to lose body fat, right?

One of the major players in this whole chain of events is the hormone leptin. When you heavily restrict calories, leptin levels plummet, sending a signal to the brain that you are not eating enough food. Once this happens, all those other things (decreased metabolism, stalled fat loss, increased appetite, etc) occur as a chain reaction. At this point, fat loss becomes one heck of a battle, and so many individuals fail at the whole dieting for fat loss thing.

So what do you do?

The key is to create a moderate caloric deficit through both diet and exercise— enough to have you losing fat at a consistent, steady rate, but not so severe that it triggers your body’s starvation protection mechanism.

Some practical recommendations:

First, never skip meals—ever—especially breakfast.

Second, be mindful of your calorie intake. To avoid the disasters of starvation mode, keep your caloric deficit moderate—no more than 500 calories below your daily maintenance intake.

Eat more, lose more. It’s a counterintuitive concept, but one that will save you a lot of dietary frustration when followed.

I'll be back soon with secret #2--avoiding a deadly combo (ok, it's not really deadly, just detrimental to your fat loss!)