Health Network News

It is a known fact that 3500 calories is a pound of body weight and to lose one pound, you must reduce your intake of calories by 3,500. Given that information, if you want to lose five pounds in one week, you must reduce your calories by 17,500!

We are all aware that an average diet is about 2000 calories per day. That’s only 14 thousand calories per week. That’s average! That’s what keeps you healthy. If you are going to diet off five pounds which is seventeen thousand five hundred calories, you have to burn 3500 more calories than you eat for the entire week, or go totally without food PLUS burn 3500 calories in one week. That just won’t work. You can’t lose five pounds in one week by dieting. You have to have some food to stay alive.

Here’s what will happen when you stop eating: Your body recognizes that there is no food and goes into hibernation mode. This is not a conscious decision, it’s involuntary, like your heartbeat or breathing. The first thing it does is gives up water, and that means protein, which is 75% water, and constitutes lean muscle mass. After it depletes your water, it will start to burn carbohydrates, which causes you to store fat. In other words, you will start to gain weight. This is a metabolism thing, where your body reacts by slowing down the burn rate, and any food you take in is immediately sent to the fat storage unit. You have to change your metabolism or you won’t lose weight, you’ll put more on.

If you can’t diet off the weight then it stands to reason that you have to work on increasing your metabolism. Normally a diet gets you to take in fewer calories and what you burn slowly reduces your size. Actually, you are just losing water. As your metabolism adjusts, you stop losing and pretty soon you start to gain again. You are in hibernation. Any food you take in is converted immediately to fat to help you through this period of starvation. Store fat and slow down. A bear can sleep though an entire winter without eating.

When you cut out food, your body will throw all of it’s protein under the bus trying to protect itself. Without food, your body makes a bunch of decisions. (This is your body, not you. It’s a physiology thing.) After it takes all of the protein out of your muscle, (I’ll come back to body builders in a minute) your body will start to live on carbohydrates and when that happens you will gain weight! Your body will go into hibernation mode. You have to change the way your body works to make fat go away. It’s called METABOLISM. Your metabolism slows down and you won’t lose any weight, you’ll gain more.

Fact is, you can’t just diet and make fat go away, so you have to make a complete lifestyle choice. You want to lose weight? Start with a little exercise. Get your metabolism kicked up. Once that starts to take off a little weight, THEN you start your diet, and after that you increase your exercise. When you start AFTER you have increased your metabolism, the work will be more effective. The pounds will come off faster and more easily. The weight loss is a lifestyle change and more likely to stay off.

This isn’t about trying to sell you a product; it’s about what will be good for you. Wrap your head around the fact that you put your weight on because you don’t burn everything that you eat. You store some of it, and over time, that weight becomes your weight problem. Storage is driven by consumption, and consumption is mostly about water. Protein is 75% water. When you go on a diet, after you clear out the water you burn protein from your storehouse.

You can’t just diet fat off because your body will give away all of it’s protein to protect itself, so you start to live on carbohydrates- and gain weight. When you lower your food intake, you lose protein, and this loss lowers your burn rate.