So very tired. I need to remember this day when I don't want to go to bed at 10 and end up passing out in my computer chair watching How I Met Your Mother
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BEST PART! "Starvation is bad, OK? You'll just get fat again, dammit! Also, sick. And look like crap.
Weight loss is largely a matter of reducing calories and increasing activity. So if 500 fewer calories a day than you need to maintain is good, 2000 less is better, right? Not really. Because below a certain threshold, your body thinks you are one of those starving refugees on TV, and does a bunch of things that hurt your long-term weight loss.
Read that again: starving is a bad way to lose weight.
Why this is so:
Your metabolism slows down. Your body will burn fewer calories to maintain itself, and you will feel awful. This is bad for weight loss because as soon as you quit starving yourself, you'll gain weight fast because your metabolism has bottomed out. You will tend to lose muscle more than fat. Your body will naturally try to conserve fat and cannibalize muscle if it thinks it is outright starving. This is bad because your real goal is FAT loss, not weight loss. This is how you have people who lose 100 pounds and reach their "ideal" weight, but still look amazingly flabby. Also, losing muscle slows your metabolism down even further, amplifying the giant horrible rebound effect once you quit starving yourself. Your life will be a living hell. You'll eventually feel horrible, the diet will fail, and you'll binge eat and regain everything you lost, plus interest. You want to run a clear-cut, but tolerable calorie deficit to sustain weight loss over the long term. Very obese people may be put on very low calorie diets by their doctor, but these are medically supervised and designed for people who need to lose weight now or suffer severe health problems. Be safe and stick to 500 fewer calories a day than you burn, which is the equivalent of one pound lost per week."
"Starvation is bad, OK? You'll just get fat again, dammit! Also, sick. And look like crap.
Weight loss is largely a matter of reducing calories and increasing activity. So if 500 fewer calories a day than you need to maintain is good, 2000 less is better, right? Not really. Because below a certain threshold, your body thinks you are one of those starving refugees on TV, and does a bunch of things that hurt your long-term weight loss.
Read that again: starving is a bad way to lose weight.
Why this is so:
Your metabolism slows down. Your body will burn fewer calories to maintain itself, and you will feel awful. This is bad for weight loss because as soon as you quit starving yourself, you'll gain weight fast because your metabolism has bottomed out.
You will tend to lose muscle more than fat. Your body will naturally try to conserve fat and cannibalize muscle if it thinks it is outright starving. This is bad because your real goal is FAT loss, not weight loss. This is how you have people who lose 100 pounds and reach their "ideal" weight, but still look amazingly flabby. Also, losing muscle slows your metabolism down even further, amplifying the giant horrible rebound effect once you quit starving yourself.
Your life will be a living hell. You'll eventually feel horrible, the diet will fail, and you'll binge eat and regain everything you lost, plus interest.
You want to run a clear-cut, but tolerable calorie deficit to sustain weight loss over the long term. Very obese people may be put on very low calorie diets by their doctor, but these are medically supervised and designed for people who need to lose weight now or suffer severe health problems. Be safe and stick to 500 fewer calories a day than you burn, which is the equivalent of one pound lost per week."
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