Having given it some thoughts I’ve actually found some more ‘kind of true but not as true as we think’ things.
Things that have a central element that is valid but are often exaggerated to the point of negatively affecting our progress.
Another is the concept of metabolism “slowing down” / “starvation mode” / ‘needing to eat more to lose more weight’.
Purely anecdotally this isn’t as prevalent as it was only handful of years ago.
Maybe five years or so ago it seemed like every third conversation I had someone would say that they felt the reason that they weren’t losing weight is that they weren’t eating enough.
Which, again, never really made sense to me.
And, like most things, this boils down to that old ‘all else being equal’.
If we reduce our intake and are deficient in essential nutrients to the point where we’re feeling lethargic and don’t move and exercise as much then that’s not a ‘metabolism thing’ that’s a ‘not moving and exercising as much’ thing.
If some tweaks to our eating means that we feel better and we move and exercise more and that creates a bigger deficit overall so that we lose weight then, again, that’s not a ‘metabolism thing’.
If we have consistently very low intake then it is true that our body can take steps to reduce our resting energy usage.
There can be some up and down regulation of various processes in the body but the effect is minimal.
And it’s never enough to counter balance the actual change in deficit.
All else being equal, if you were to reduce your intake by, say, another 100 calories, it is physically impossible for the body to make sufficient adjustments to counteract that and more – you’ll always be in more of a deficit overall.
And, let’s be honest, the times that we might have described ourselves as “being in starvation mode” we haven’t been starving – we’ve been “rather peckish” at most.
For me a lot of these misleading situations can be resolved by just changing one of the words we use:
Metabolism.
Because, as I’ve said before, what we are meaning when we say this is essentially ‘our energy needs’.
“I’ve been eating so little that my energy needs have changed a bit” lands a little bit differently to…….
“I’ve been eating so little that my metabolism is shot and I’m in starvation mode” doesn’t it?
Ultimately, we need to be in an energy deficit to lose weight.
What that looks like, how we implement it and what we find maintainable person to person.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.
Ignore things ‘vaguely based in fact’ that seem to suggest otherwise when badly phrased.
Much love,
Jon ‘Vague’ Hall
P.S. For an actual science and research based approach coupled with the personal touch and proven coaching to help make changes that work for YOU, then try us out, risk-free via www.myrise.co.uk/apply
——————————————————————-
RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
