Ladies, do NOT brag about only having eaten a cracker today. That’s not being strong and it’s not being healthy. In fact, it might be setting you back from the health goals you think that you’re sacrificing to reach. And it’s probably making you a snappy, angry little fuss pot in the meantime. I’m about to explain my favorite part of being really fit; you HAVE to eat to be in shape. I love to eat, so that’s a relief for me to have learned.
BMR is your Basal Metabolic Rate. It is the number of calories that you need to take in during a day to simply exist. That means, regardless of how much you work out or what you did otherwise that day, your BMR is how many calories it takes for your body to work it’s processes and be alive. It is NOT safe to eat less than this number of calories whether you are dieting, maintaining or whatever you are doing; eating less than your BMR requirement constitutes starving yourself.
So what is your own BMR? You can figure that out with just a little math. Here is the calculation:
(4.35 x weight in pounds) = ?
Now subtract (4.7 x age in years) from that.
Now add (4.7 x height in inches) to that.
Now add 655.
Your answer is your BMR, the number of calories you need a day at a minimum, just to live and function. Your body needs these calories to keep control of your internal temperatures, do cell repair, keep your heart pumping, power your muscles for rest and movement, and a lot of other metabolic activities.
When you are working to lose weight, the basic principle is that the number of calories that you intake minus the number of calories that are used for metabolic and other activities is the equivalent to how much is leftover to be stored as fat. So why not just starve yourself below your BMR requirement to lose weight? The reason is that starvation over time will actually train your body to ‘exist’ on lower calorie requirements, lowering your BMR. Next time you eat normally, your body will rebound and consider that all ‘extra’ calories and store them as fat! Namely, you’ll end up gaining the weight back twice as fast after that starvation diet.
Your body responds to being ‘starved’ by surviving. It is going to conserve stored calories for later and more desperate use, as if it is anticipating that you will continue to not eat. Even though if you keep it up with the starvation you will eventually lose fat as your body is forced to turn to this fuel to keep going, it can cause lasting damage to your body and metabolism.
Technically, a starvation diet is defined as cutting your caloric intake to less than 50% of what your BMR requirement calls for. Starvation sounds like you’re not getting any food at all, but it is actually defined by not getting enough food to function. This poor technique, found with a lot of crash diets, is not only going to impeded weight loss and guarantee that the weight will come back,
Besides messing with your fitness goals and ability to actually burn fat, a starvation diet will cause a drop in Serotonin (the hormone in your brain that makes you feel happy). This is why people get cranky when they haven’t eaten in a while. When you’re trying to really change your life and live fit, the starvation effects of serotonin drops can make change too difficult to cope with… a very common reason for diet yoyo-ing.
Failing to get skinny is not the worst thing that can come from starvation diets. In addition to being cranky you can experience fatigue (extreme tiredness), body aches and can even cause gallstones (as a result of cholesterol elevations in the gallbladder) which cause pain, nausea, bloating, gas and indigestion and may need surgery to remove the gallbladder. Your heart and your brain can also be damaged by starvation diets, leading to heart attack, heart failure or stroke.
None of this is a license to go get kicked out of Golden Corral. You do need to eat healthy, and I suggest trying the 6-smaller-meals-a-day (which add up to a normal size 3 meals a day). This keeps your blood sugar consistent, keeps you from being too hungry or too full at any time and (for people like me that ENJOY eating) keeps you from feeling deprived. Your diet should have whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fruits and a healthy moderate about of ‘good fats’. And, my catch phrase at this point, stay hydrated!
The healthy way to increase your BMR is to increase your muscle mass. That doesn’t mean you have to look like a body builder- you can replace fat with muscle, or increase tone which actually makes you look smaller even with more mass! The more muscle fiber you have, the more calories you burn--- even at rest!! This is why that strength training is so important to put into your fitness routine. So many women only want to take aerobics classes, stating that they don’t want to ‘look like a dude’, etc. Aerobics and cardio will help you lose weight to a point but when you overdo it with just these, they can break down muscle tissue for energy (which is not healthy) and your body will have less muscle fiber--- and what did we just learn about the connection between that and BMR?
It is important to know that BMR can be reduced for other reasons besides starvation and these other reasons can make weight loss difficult (not impossible). Certain hormonal issues and some medications are known to have this effect (anti-depressants are famous for it unfortunately) which can of course lead to weight gain. Medication related BMR changes should be discussed with your doctor- there are obviously cases where the medication’s intended use is more valuable than the difficulties in your weight loss plan… but it is good to know what is going on with your body so that you can avoid the frustration of feeling like you aren’t getting the results that you should be and to maybe work around the challenges!
Exercising fueled by proper nutrition with a moderate and individualized decrease in calorie consumption (NOT starvation) is the best and safest way to lose weight and keep it off. When you look at a crash diet or hear one of these fast-fast-fast promises, there is a question you need to ask yourself; is this ‘diet’ idea something that I could live with doing for the rest of my life? More often than not, the answer is going to be no. In fact, most of these crash diets are limited because they KNOW they aren’t healthy (only do this for 1 week, 30 days, whatever!). Then what?! Real weight loss doesn’t come from temporary ‘diets’ where you eat all avocados by moonlight for 20 days or whatever. Real weight loss comes from permanent life adaptations that you can live with!
So be good to yourself. Food is not the enemy and you deserve to fuel that hard work that you’re putting in. Make sure your fuel is high-grade and is going to get you where you want to go!
**********
If you know that you aren’t taking in enough calories and you are compelled to keep going with this habit, then this is a serious problem. It is not commitment to your goal to hurt yourself and there are plenty of resources that can help you get control of your health. You should always feel comfortable to speak with a nurse or a doctor about any worry that your diet might be getting out of control (even if you aren’t sure that it is). Please, if you have even a doubt that you might be going too far with dieting, at least reach out to the National Eating Disorder Hotline for information: 1-847-831-3438.
No comments:
Post a Comment