Can't I Just Stop Eating To Lose Weight?

by Kris Pitcher

This is a question that I know a lot of people have asked, or have heard asked, or have answered a million times until you're blue in the face. Can't I just stop eating to lose weight?

Well, essentially yes. It's called anorexia and eventually you will kill yourself. I don't think that's your goal here. Eating disorders are serious and should be treated as such. Anyone suspecting this issue should seek professional help. You can't fix this on your own.

I'm talking about the person who thinks that less is more in the pursuit of weight loss. The irony here is that the exact opposite is true. But let's not start there.

These people usually fall into two groups. The "eat once a day" group, and the "eat only salad" group. Either way, there's a big problem. One of the most important components to losing weight is increasing our metabolism.

When we stop eating, or eat very little - we are essentially turning off our metabolism. When we eat once a day, we are turning off our metabolism. Kind of the opposite of our weight loss goal, wouldn't you say?

The other big issue here is that when our body doesn't have the right nutrients, or any nutrients coming in - these folks think that they'll just burn fat. The challenge is, our body wants to spare our fat (because it's in famine, there's no fuel coming in) and burns muscle for fuel.

So, now we've done two things by eating only salads. We have turned off our metabolism, and we are now burning our metabolically active tissue. Double whammy.

What we need to do is we need to fuel more frequently. That's right, eat more often. And, we need to eat more. More of the right nutrients. We need to be fueling with complex carbohydrates, lean protein, healthy fats, and fruits and vegetables.

Eating frequently turns our metabolism up. That's what we want. It fuels our body, our muscles, sending the message to burn fat for fuel. Stored fat. When we add exercise we increase our metabolism further by building our metabolically active tissue.

So, the answer is no, you can't just stop eating to lose weight. The science doesn't pan out. You need to eat more frequently, and you need to be eating the right nutrients in order to lose weight.

Quit pushing that lettuce around your plate and get with the program, it's time to make some progress! Don't you see, more is more here?