22/11/2016
Starvation does not make us thin. It makes us stocky, sick, and sad. It’s bad for health and it’s bad for fat loss. Your body just doesn’t work that way. Eating less does not cause fat loss.
Eating less does not create the need to burn body fat. Instead, it creates the need for the body to slow down. Contrary to popular opinion, the body hangs on to body fat. Instead, it burns muscle tissue, and that worsens the underlying cause of obesity.
Only as a last resort, if the body has no
other option, it may also burn a bit of body
fat.
Why does the body hang on to body fat and burn muscle? To answer that question, let’s look at it another way.
What does our metabolism want more of when it thinks we are starving? Stored energy.
What is a great source of stored energy? Body fat.
So when our metabolism thinks we are starving, does it want to get rid of or hold on to body fat? It wants to hold on.
Next, what does our metabolism want less of when we are starving? It wants less tissue (which burns a lot of calories). What type of tissue burns a lot of calories? Muscle tissue. So when our metabolism thinks we are starving, it gets rid of calorie-hungry muscle tissue. Studies show that up to 70% of the weight lost while eating less comes from burning muscle—not body fat!
Burning all this muscle means that starving ourselves leads to more body fat—not less—over the long term.
