When it comes to weight loss, we are bombarded with messages telling us to stop eating so much. The general rule is if you eat less calories than you burn you will lose weight but this isn’t always the case. Sure, there are some of us who certainly do eat too much and need to cut back but believe it or not, sometimes you actually need to eat more. Now you may be shocked at this one but it’s true. Many times I have brand new clients that come to me, struggling to lose weight. After our consultations we have them eating more than they already are and all over a sudden *BOOM* the weight starts to drop. If you have been trying your best to eat well but the scales wont budge, this article is for you so listen up.
So how on earth does this happen? How can I eat more and lose weight?
Too often we associate dieting with drastically dropping our calories but any smart person knows starvation diets never work. In fact, anyone that has tried one just ends up weighing more than they did before starting the diet. Let me explain.
Our body’s big food processing furnace is called the metabolism and if we starve ourselves, our metabolism shuts down and goes into what I call survival mode. You probably hear the word metabolism all the time but do you really know what it is/means/does?
Our metabolism is the amount of energy (calories) your body burns to maintain itself. Whether you are eating, drinking, sleeping, cleaning etc… your body is constantly burning calories to keep you going. Basically, the higher your metabolism, the more calories you burn per day. Those stick thin people who eat junk food all day have a VERY fast metabolism whereas those who put on weight just by looking at that donut have a very slow metabolism. Along with factors such as body composition (the more muscle you have, the higher it is), the way you fuel your body effects the rate of your metabolism.
As stated before, if you starve yourself your metabolism shuts down goes into starvation mode. Instead efficiently using and burning the calories we put into it, the body begins to hold onto every skerrick of food that we eat as it doesn’t know when it might be lucky enough to be fed again! This creates a world of problems as the next time you binge (and you know you will), the body will be unable to efficiently process the food and will be stored as fat.
Make Sure Your Metabolism Is Firing On All Cylinders By Eating More Frequently!
Instead, we should be eating 5-7 small meals a day which continually stokes our fat burning furnace (aka metabolism).These meals will probably end up being more food than you are eating right now. By eating these small meals throughout the day, it’s basically sending a message to our metabolism that says “hey buddy, I’m feeding you regularly so there’s no need worry about starving, just keep burning it away for energy!”. As a result we get to eat more, have more energy and believe it or not, lose weight!
Now obviously you should still be exercising and putting all those calories to good use. If you are not sure exactly how much you should be eating and when you should be eating it, we strongly suggest you looking into one of our nutrition coaching packages. So many of our clients say that they are eating wayyyy more than they were but feel amazing. We love showing people that they are allowed to eat the foods they love and shouldn’t feel guilty as long as they exercise appropriately.
