Why You NEED to Eat

Source

If you are reading this post, it is likely you have figured out that you may not be taking in enough of the right foods to fuel your body and your workouts! You may want to go back and check out my post entitled: Why You're NOT Losing Weight.

Today, I'm going to talk about why the old method of weight loss (calorie restriction or deprivation) no longer works.
Although our bodies have evolved and methods of maintaining and caring for them has changed drastically over time; the hard wired "way" it works internally isn't much different! Think for a moment back to the "cave man days". Our species were hunter/gatherers and food sources depending on us catching and cultivating our energy sources. The fact is, that wasn't easy and our bodies were designed with a method of dealing with those times of famine, when no food sources were to be found. In order to survive and provide energy during a time of famine (or lack of calories) our bodies enter into what many refer to as "starvation mode". Because your body doesn't know when it's next meal (or source of sufficient energy) will come and as a way of protecting itself it begins to use muscle mass to draw energy from and instead, protects it's fat stores.

Why is this a problem?
A.) You are trying to burn the fat off and your body isn't allowing it.
B.) You are losing muscle mass! Which, initially you might be like, who cares! I don't want to be all buff anyway! I just want to see that number go down! WRONG! You want to maintain muscle mass! Loss of muscle lowers the metabolic rate. Which means it causes your metabolism to run slower! Having and maintaining muscle allows your resting metabolism to stay revved and your body to become a fat burning machine!

So, am I saying that you should just eat junk food and fast food to meet your calorie goals? NO WAY! But rather, fill yourself up on an adequate number of quality foods!
Stay Tuned for other blog posts on what you can eat to fuel your body!

Until Then....

*Information in this post was compiled using knowledge from Weight Loss Resources.