The Low Down on Low-Cal

Is limiting your calories the reason you’re not shifting those last few lbs?

It may seem like the quickest, easiest and most sure-fire means of losing weight but a calorific deficit too great has many negative side effects on your body. It may even cause you to gain weight, ruining all of the effort you’ve put into achieving your goals.

It’s well understood that energy out must be greater than energy in if you’re looking to lose weight. In other words, you need to burn more calories than you eat. I don’t deny this.

It’s true; a calorific deficit will result in weight loss.

BUT - and it’s a big but – low-cal diets offer short-term benefits and can actually harm your long-term success.  Let me explain…

Your body is a clever nugget, but it needs food (energy) to function properly. Upon detecting that you’re restricting it’s fuel source a number of preservation tactics are adopted sending your internal systems out of whack and potentially causing you to actually gain weight!

One of the biggest changes relates to your thyroid activity. In an effort to reserve energy and restore a state of homeostasis*, the production of metabolic hormones adjusts effectively slowing everything down and making it harder to lose weight. An underactive thyroid can also lead to a number of other health problems such as tiredness, sensitivity to cold temperatures, muscle weakness, dry and flaky skin, brittle hair and nails and, for women, irregular periods. All in all, not good

Keeping on the topic of hormones, low calorie diets have been linked to raised cortisol. Also known as the ‘stress’ hormone, studies have found that cortisol actually increases appetite, tells the body to hold onto fat and messes with your sex hormones, all of which hinders your weight loss objective

Finally, as the body detects that it is receiving an insufficient amount of fuel it starts to look elsewhere. Fat is needed for insulation, nutrient absorption and immunity so the body ain’t going to want to use it if it doesn’t need to! As muscle is the most calorie-intensive tissue to maintain, it becomes the first port of call and is broken down for energy. Remember, the more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn at rest…you need that muscle if you want to ‘lean out’       

Low calorie diets aren’t sustainable for the most part. Who wants to eat as little as possible for the rest of their lives? When you do eventually start eating ‘normal’ meals and portions it takes your body a long time to sort itself out again and in the interim, with a slow metabolism and an out of sync body, you’re likely to put on the weight you lost in the beginning, perhaps even more.

So please, if you’re eating low-cal – or even thinking about it – don’t. Eat real food, watch your portions and try to take a more relaxed, realistic approach to losing weight.

Healthy weight loss is 1-2lbs per week. This can be achieved with just a 500kcal deficit from your calculated daily calorie needs. To lose weight safely, and to better secure your long-term success, it is a slower process. But you’ll get there. And along the way you’ll pick up healthy, sustainable habits for achieving a healthy, happy relationship with food and yourself.

* Homeostasis refers to a state of balance, equilibrium and natural order within the body