Let me tell you a story. This is a story about Suzy. Suzy
likes to partake in juice cleanses and diets that consist of consuming 500
calories a day. Every year Suzy goes on a diet because she’s gained back the
weight she lost the previous year, and then some. She waits until she thinks
she is getting “too fat” and needs to go on another diet. Every year she gains
the weight back faster, and it becomes harder and harder to lose again. Over
time her weight gradually trends upward, and she doesn’t understand why her
diets either don’t work like they did before or fail completely (figure 1). Suzy
doesn’t like to exercise frequently, and when she does, she only does cardio
(because burning calories, right?). Her cardio exercises consist of 20-90
minutes on the elliptical, biking, and long distance runs. Suzy’s efforts
become futile and, eventually, she can’t get the number on the scale to go
down.
But
why can’t Suzy lose the weight and what is going on?
Suzy, over the course of the years, has slowly destroyed her
metabolism. Her body has made adaptations to her low calorie diet and her
cardio queen workouts that have lowered her basal metabolic rate (BMR) to a
point where they are ineffective. Her body has essentially gone into survival
mode and lowered her metabolism to compensate for her low calorie diet. Part of
this adaptation process involves the body decreasing its muscle mass to
conserve energy.
As she’s done extreme diets over the years, has not trained
with weights, and Suzy’s muscle mass has almost diminished to nothing and her
fat mass has gone up. This has created a discrepancy in her body composition.
Your muscle mass plays a large role in regulating your BMR because muscle has
high metabolic activity, even when at rest. Over the years, Suzy’s muscle mass
has gone down, along with her BMR, and she has dug herself a hole that becomes
increasingly harder to get out off, hence her weight rising steadily.
There are many other negative outcomes of this trend, for
example, insulin resistance, lower bone density, and a lack of essential
nutrients that you need in your diet, just to name a few. What are the odds
your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to function well, and at its
full capacity, on such a low calorie diet?
How do you get out of
this cycle?
Simply put, you need to have a well-rounded training regimen
that includes both strength training and aerobic exercise (pick your
favorites), in combination with a good diet. The strength training helps
maintain or increase your muscle mass, therefore increasing your BMR. The
aerobic portion keeps your cardiovascular system healthy, in addition to
contributing to weight control. Finally,
a good diet, consisting of whole foods, that helps you recover from training
sessions and gives you the energy and nutrients that your body needs to be
healthy. These three simple things go a long way. It doesn’t need to be
complicated, it just needs to be consistent and sustainable.
If planning and scheduling is a problem check out my article Making Time, Being Consistant, and Having a Plan.
I hope that this has been informative and has brought to
light why short term diet solutions are not a good idea, and that you need to
think longer term.
Ryan Goodell, CSCS
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