WHY DO PEOPLE GAIN WEIGHT WHEN EATING LOW CALORIES?
Whether you’re at 1,500kcal… 1,00kcal, or even lower…
there are some cases where you can gain weight (even when you’re eating low calories).
Here’s why.
In many cases, it’s because whether what you think is a deficit right now for you to lose weight… in reality, your metabolism has adapted to the point that it’s no longer a deficit.
This is assuming you’ve been accurately eating (ideally, tracking) the number of calories you’ve been eating for a while.
And I know it doesn’t make sense.
You started by creating a deficit of at least 500kcal or greater to lose weight.
Because of that, you started to see some changes and how the scale was actually moving as you were losing fat, yet…
after 2–3 weeks, the scale stopped moving.
That’s where you wanted to lower more your calories, thinking that it should be what moves the scale again.
But as you’ve seen, that’s not really happening.
So what should you do, and how to break past that plateau?
Well, you have 2 options.
You can either take the risk of going low calories to continue losing weight, but at the expense of feeling hungry all the time, not being able to go through your day without starving yourself and cravings, and maybe not even keeping that weight off because of how unsustainable it is.
Or… you can think long term and stop dieting for now while you start a reverse diet.
It’s not the answer you want to hear or the one that sounds good, but it’s the one that will make sure you can lose more weight without going through hell… while being able to keep that weight off.
It’s up to you and what you want the most.
But these are the options you have… especially when you’re so low on calories and there’s not much room to adapt.
Sure, you could affect the other side of the equation and increase your exercise activity (usually with some type of cardio).
But the result is the same.
You will end up losing a couple of pounds more, but you’ll face another wall later on.
And chances are you end up eating very low on calories while exercising and doing cardio every day for 1–2 hours.
I don’t know about you, but not many can spend hours doing cardio every day — plus, adding more hours of it won’t help you any better.
In the end, choosing the second option allows you to lose weight (consistently) without having to go so long on calories…
and maybe without having to do a single minute of cardio.
I’ve done it this way, and many people I’ve coached have done it as well.
You’ll have to choose between what you want now vs. what you want the most.
But if you go for the second option and would like to know in greater detail how to do a reverse diet, as well as how to make the next diet you make the last one you’ll need to lose those pounds… you’re gonna want to sign up below to my list where I give you daily email tips (just like this).
Now make your choice, but don’t forget to keep enjoying the food you like and the process of losing fat.
Ivan @ Fitnessthetic
