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Home » Diet » Why Not Eating Enough Food Can Make You Gain Weight

Dai ManuelBy Dai Manuel on April 22, 2017, Updated March 24, 2020
Diet

Why Not Eating Enough Food Can Make You Gain Weight

If you have decided to get serious about losing weight, then you have probably started to make far more sensible choices with your diet, as well as incorporating a solid exercise routine.

Or maybe you haven’t.

Maybe you’ve bought into the latest diet marketed to the masses? Whether it be the “HCG diet”, “low-fat-low-carb-high-protein”, “Atkins Diet“, some new “miracle diet pill”, or the latest newfangled “detox diet“, DIET is still a 4-letter word.

However, unknown to most people, one of the biggest reasons people gain weight is simply NOT eating enough. Counter-intuitive? Absolutely!

Why not eating enough food can make you gain weight

Although a healthy diet and plenty of exercise are essential tools for losing weight on a consistent basis, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

In the enthusiastic early days of a diet, many people tend to take a far more restrictive approach than is necessary. Cutting your calories too low too soon can actually be counter-productive, as we’re going to explore today.

 

Why Not Eating Enough Food Causes You To Gain Weight aka “Crashing On Your Crash Diet“

The body is a very intelligent machine in the sense that it knows how to effectively regulate its many processes to support homeostasis.

In the context of dieting and weight loss, this means that if you restrict your food intake too drastically, your body will simply decrease its metabolic rate so it is burning fewer calories.

Of course, if your body begins to burn fewer calories each day, then it is going to be far more difficult for you to lose weight, but the problem is even greater than that.

One of the biggest reasons people gain weight is simply NOT eating enough food!

If you aren’t providing your body with the energy it needs to fuel your daily activities, then it will have to begin sourcing it from somewhere else. You might be thinking the first place it will look is your stored body fat, but it is far easier for your body to begin breaking down your lean muscle mass so it can be converted to glucose and burned for energy.

This result is a snowball effect, where you are holding less muscle, meaning your metabolism begins to dwindle even further.

Before you know it, you will have essentially crashed your metabolism. As a result, you will have to gain some of what you have lost by eating more food, simply to get your metabolic rate back up again.

 

3 Tips to consider when trying to Lose Weight

…and when I say weight, I’m referring to body fat.

  1. Ensure you are drinking enough water each and EVERY day
  2. Know your body fat to lean muscle ratio – feed your muscle, starve your fat – base your daily need (or BMR) on lean mass not body weight
  3. Practice the 40/60 split when reducing calories i.e. if you are trying to cut 500 calories per day, then cut 40% from diet and 60% with exercise (eat 200 calories less than your BMR and burn 300 calories with exercise)… I like food too much.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll not only reach your goals, but you won’t starve yourself in the process — after all, UNDER-EATING is just as bad as overeating as far as the scale is concerned!

How to Effectively Start a Diet and Succeed

If all else fails, there’s always the Mouse-Trap Diet

When you first start dieting to lose weight, the best thing to do is to cut around 300-500 calories from your regular diet, or your ‘maintenance calories’.

To figure out your maintenance calories, you can use a basal metabolic rate or BMR Calculator; this will tell you how many calories you need to consume to maintain your current body weight.

 

Cutting just a few hundred calories each day will enable you to lose somewhere in the region of 1 – 3 lbs per week, which is just about right to make sure you are predominantly losing fat and not muscle.

If your weight loss stalls for a week or two, then you can simply cut another couple of hundred calories or consider adding a little extra exercise.

Remember that when it comes to weight loss, less is often more, so there is no need to go to extremes to meet your goals.

Suggested next post: How to Lose Weight when You Live with Diabetes

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Categories: Diet

Dai Manuel

About Dai Manuel

Dai Manuel is a founding partner and former COO of Fitness Town Inc, keynote speaker, award-winning blogger (DaiManuel.com), Podcaster, CrossFit athlete and coach, a BC Children’s Hospital Grind For Kids Ambassador, and published author of the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto.

View all posts by Dai Manuel
Previous Post: « Working Out With Diabetes – 10 Step Guide to Getting Started
Next Post: 5 Things I Wish I Had Known Earlier About Food and Fitness »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. AvatarNicole says

    December 29, 2020 at 6:10 am

    I’ve been practicing intermittent fasting about few months already however up until now there’s no changes in my body. In addition it seems like I gained weight and my body size ended up bigger than usual. What should I do? (I also practice calorie deficit *not quite sure bec I don’t know if sometime I ate so low or ear in surplus*) what should I do?

    Reply
    • Christel OerumChristel Oerum says

      December 29, 2020 at 9:58 am

      Intermittent fasting in itself won’t impact your body fat percentage significantly unless you’re in a calorie deficit. Other factors than a calorie surplus, that can make your weight go up are water retention, constipation, or illness/hormone imbalance.
      If none of those are other issues are relevant for you, you might not be in a calorie deficit. If you have been dieting aggressively for a long time, you could try taking a 2-4 weeks diet break and then start again

      Reply
  2. AvatarFemke says

    September 9, 2020 at 2:24 am

    Hey hello I have been losing weight in the beginning but now I just start gaining it back even though I still eat healthy and burn what I eat and burn even more I dont know what to do because I haven’t reached my goal yet if someone has advice please tell me

    Reply
    • Christel OerumChristel Oerum says

      September 9, 2020 at 4:48 pm

      If you’re still in a calorie deficit (and you don’t have any underlying conditions halting your progress) the only way you’ll gain weight is through muscle, water, or waste gain.
      Remember weight loss takes time and it’s not linear

      Reply
  3. AvatarCosette says

    July 18, 2020 at 10:31 am

    It’s so hard to identify if I’m eating enough or not! I try to eat 5 meals of around 350 calories each (give or take) and do try to eat if I feel hungry (not just emotional). I’ll lose 1-2 pounds and just really fluctuate around 135-140 seemingly no matter what I do. I walk 1-2 hours per day, try my best to drink 100 oz of water. How do I tell if I am overeating or undereating when I eat about the same daily and still sit in a range of 5 lbs? (trying to get to 120).

    I’ve tried fasting for 1-2 meals to see if I’m eating to much and I feel lean the next day, but then nothing happens or my weight increases.

    If I eat more than what I am giving myself, I just feel like I’m eating too much and feel full. And I gain weight.

    Ugh! How do I tell which one it is?

    Reply
    • Christel OerumChristel Oerum says

      July 18, 2020 at 2:05 pm

      Weight fluctuations are very normal for most people. Often when we talk significant undereating people are consuming less than 1200 calories a day. Based on what you write, but without knowing you, it doesn’t come across as significant undereating. You might benefit from working with a nutritionist for a while if you have access to one

      Reply
    • AvatarAnna S says

      August 1, 2020 at 3:54 am

      Hi Cosette,
      Personally, I think that you might be overeating and not getting enough cardio exercise. I am a registered nurse so I am not a dietitian or a weight loss coach. This is just my opinion based on personal experience in the weight loss. I’d like to stay around 115 pounds, but, time to time, I let myself get lazy by eating too much, not exercising and ending up gaining weight. Then I go on my weight loss plan, which I have done a few times,, and get to my regular size. My go to formula for the weight-loss is eating just about 1200 cal a day, low-fat, less than 20 g. I’m sticking to a regular cardio routine, which is usually 45min to 1hour on the elliptical 5-6 days a week . Getting my heart rate into the fat burning zone and sweating up a storm are essential elements for my weight loss.
      I just wanted to share my experience. You will get there! Keep us posted!
      Anna

      Reply
      • AvatarDiana Malas says

        January 3, 2021 at 4:48 pm

        Are you staying at 1200 forever? Or until you reach you goal? And then you reverse diet?

        Reply
  4. AvatarKate says

    July 6, 2020 at 1:34 pm

    Hello,
    I have been on a weight loss journey since last year, I’ve gone from 186lb to 137lb and my target is 125lb. I eat between 1000-1200 calories a day and do exercise between 500-1100 calories a day but I’m struggling to lose weight? Am I not eating enough? I have a healthy diet food wise x

    Reply
    • Christel OerumChristel Oerum says

      July 6, 2020 at 2:56 pm

      You can’t live in a calorie deficit or on a constant weight loss journey. Sounds like you’ve come very far, 50 lbs. is a massive achievement. Maybe give yourself a break for a few weeks or months where you dial back on the exercise or up your calories. I’ve found that those “diet breaks” can be very helpful for breaking through plateaus

      Reply
    • AvatarEric says

      January 1, 2021 at 1:15 pm

      Cut out the Cardio and switch to strength training!!!

      Reply
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