Starving Yourself – The Truth for Fat Loss

Can you lose fat by starving yourself or not eating? I got an excellent question from a reader today that went something like this: I've been barely eating for two weeks and have lost weight. How do you explain this? This is such a good question and a topic that I think people are interested in so I decided to write an article so hopefully others can benefit from it.

Many people wonder the same thing. Why do I need to exercise and eat healthy when I can lose weight by starving myself? And probably a lot of us have seen people who have stopped eating almost entirely and have lost weight. So why is this the case and why would not you do this if it works?

Well, let me say up front that starving yourself does result in fat loss. And, it can be quite effective. The reason it is so effective is because you are creating a huge calorie deficit between the calories you are burning on a daily basis and the calories you are eating on a daily basis. You can not help but lose fat when you do this.

Remember a pound of fat is 3500 calories. So to lose a pound a week, you have to burn 3500 more calories in a week than you eat. I'll use myself as an example. My basal metabolic rate, the amount of calories my body burns just resting, is about 1900 calories per day. So, if I were starving myself by only taking in say 800 calories per day, I would be creating an 1100 calorie deficit per day. This would result in a 7700 calorie deficit over a week. I would burn a little over two pounds of fat a week at this rate.

Sounds great, right ?!

Well, there are two problems with starving yourself to lose weight. First, your body will figure out very quickly what you are doing. When it realizes it is starving, it will adjust your hormones that regulate fat storage. So your body responds by becoming very efficient at rationing the calories you give it and also very efficient at storing fat. And why would not it? Your body assumes it is starving.

This starving response causes your metabolic rate, your body's natural fat-burning engine, to slow down and burn as few calories as possible. Therefore, when you start eating normally again, your metabolism has slowed substantially. Hence, you store even more fat than you were before you starved yourself, making it harder to lose weight in the future. This effect has been documented in a recent study that I read and could not reference now to save my life.

The second reason starving yourself is not the most effective weight loss strategy long term is that you sacrifice muscle. Your body, when faced with an energy shortage, will break down your lean muscle mass and use it as fuel. This is of course a last resort but your body does not know the difference between starving and dieting. It is trying to protect itself.

It is also well-documented through research that muscle mass burns more fat. So, when you reduce your muscle mass, you reduce your body's ability to burn fat, now and in the future. The more muscle mass you have, the more calories you burn, the more weight you lose. You reduce this fat-burning muscle mass when you starve yourself, making it harder for your body to burn fat.

So, while starving yourself may work to lose weight in the short term, you do yourself a tremendous disservice by making it harder to lose weight in the future. A far safer and more effective method to lose weight is to follow a healthy diet that creates a calorie deficit and an effective exercise plan. A very discuss the I Effective method to lose 's fat and KEEP it off in my blog post Called the Fat Loss Files . This is the exact plan I used to cut my body fat by 54% in just 3 months while exercising an average of 20 minutes a day.