If you’re restrict calories you’re restricting weight loss

Most people’s strategy to lose weight, especially if they want to lose weight quickly is to restrict calories and increase the amount of exercise they are doing.  There is a serious problem with this strategy that leaves people with short term results and hitting plateaus very quickly. 

Here are a few of the things that occur when you restrict calories:

·         Feel hungrier because your body responds by releasing hormones that signal hunger

·         Your level of thyroid hormone drops, causing a slowing of your metabolism (which will stop weight loss very quickly)

·         Stress hormone levels increase due to the stress of not consuming enough food, this signals your body to breakdown muscle for energy which slows your metabolism

·         Reproductive function slows because of a decrease in sex hormones (which can lead to a decrease in testosterone making it difficult to maintain muscle mass)

·         Growth function such as cell regeneration and tissue repair is inhibited (again making it difficult not to lose muscle, which slows your metabolism)

Most people that start restricting calories will notice an initial weight loss, and then seem stumped when it stops after a few weeks.  This is often occurring because of the points that I’ve listed above, basically the person is often decreasing their metabolism by having less thyroid hormone and decreased muscle mass while trying to fight their hunger cravings.  All of this causes your body to release more stress hormones which signals your body to store more fat.  Not a recipe for weight loss success.

I’m sure you’ve probably experienced this, most people’s solution to break through this plateau is to eat less and/or exercise more which is actually making the problem worse.  Typically they get frustrated and go off their “diet.” This leads to all the weight that was lost being gained back (in some cases even more weight is gained).

With my clients I don’t worry about counting or restricting calories, because they are getting their hormones, digestion and detoxification systems working properly again.  This combined with eating the right food will signal your body to start release fat burning hormones.  You will be able to lose weight without having to worry about counting/restricting calories or feeling deprived. 

If you’re looking for help with developing a strategy to lose weight without feeling deprived, without suffering from cravings, and sets you up for long term success contact me at info@peak-personaltraining.com to book a free consultation to see how I can help you.