5 Reasons Starvation Diets Make You Fatter
Traditionally, fasting has been employed as a religious ritual used to exercise self-discipline and heighten spiritual awareness. Recently the practice of abstaining from eating, or “starvation diets” as we will call them here, has become a trendy way to obtain fast weight-loss results in a society which hasn’t got time to do things properly. A common statement we hear from clients is, “I’ll just not eat breakfast and that will usually help me get into my wedding, evening, party dress!” – but here is why fasting can ultimately leave you fatter
While one-day fasts pose no serious threat for healthy adults, longer fasts (more than 24 hours) can have grave results. Whether it’s a ‘water-only’ detox fast, skipping meals or surviving on just cabbage soup or grapefruit, the body only recognizes one thing – starvation.
Low calorie dieting slows your metabolism making it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. Quite simply, your body goes into ‘starvation mode’. This mechanism means the body becomes very efficient at making the most of the calories it does get from food and drink. The main way it does this is to protect its fat stores and instead use lean tissue or muscle to provide it with some of the calories it needs to keep functioning.
This loss of muscle lowers the metabolic rate so that the body needs fewer calories to keep ticking over and weight loss slows down. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue. It requires a certain number of calories each day to maintain itself. Therefore, the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you’re just sitting around. As your muscle mass drops, so does your daily calorie requirement.
So, before you skip a meal, ‘feast’ on a bowl of cabbage soup, or finish that first and only grapefruit of the day, read about the top three dangers of starvation dieting, and find out what you should be doing to keep your metabolism revved up and burning calories.
Starvation dieting dangers
1. Starvation results in rapid initial weight loss
Under normal circumstances, the principle fuel for the body is glucose. The brain, in particular, must receive a constant supply of glucose in order to function properly. During a period of calorie restriction (such as during a fast), glucose, which is stored in the liver as glycogen, is used first to supply energy.
Glycogen is stored with water, so when it is broken down for energy, water will be released as well. It is this fluid that is responsible for the rapid weight loss that occurs in the first one to two days (anywhere between three to five pounds per day) of severely calorie-restricted diets, such as the Hollywood Miracle Diet, Cabbage Soup Diet and The Grapefruit Diet, all of which claim that you can lose ten pounds in two days.
Consequences: If it sounds too good to be true, it is. This weight loss doesn’t last. When normal eating is resumed, glucose and water stores will be replenished and the original body weight will be attained.
The rapid loss of fluid can also lead to the loss of electrolytes and dehydration, so the only things ‘cleansed’ from the body are the minerals needed for muscle contractions, nerve transmissions, regulation of body fluids and other physiological functions.
The sudden drop in sugar in the blood, as glycogen stores are diminished, will result in tiredness, confusion and mood swings. These are the symptoms that are often mistakenly thought to be the first step in the cleansing process of a detox diet.
2. Cutting calories slows down weight loss,
The liver only stores enough glycogen to last for one day, so when fasting lasts longer than 24 hours, the body will turn to muscle to produce glucose for energy. After following a very low-calorie diet or fast for one week, 30 per cent of the total weight loss is muscle, the rest is fluid.
The amount of muscle in the body sets your metabolic rate (the rate at which you burn calories). So, as muscle is lost, they perform less metabolic work, saving calories and energy. In short, your rate of weight loss will slow down.
In fact, most two or three-day crash diets that claim to burn fat, only burn away metabolically active muscle tissue and actually hinder long-term weight loss. When you eat a meal, overall metabolism is increased due to the energy required for digestion and absorption of the meal. Skipping a meal will have the reverse effect, decreasing the metabolism, which lasts until you eat something.
Overall, the body will save, rather than burn, calories to ensure it has adequate energy during the times of fasting. So, meal skipping to avoid unwanted calories is a counter-productive method for sustained weight loss.
Consequences: When the fast is over and calorie levels are increased to a normal level, weight gain will happen faster and the weight will come back as fat, since your metabolic rate has slowed, so you may even end up heavier than before you began dieting! The loss of muscle will have an effect on your ability to maintain weight loss in the long term, unless muscle is regained by exercising.
3. Starvation leads to low amounts of nutrients for liver function
The Liver is the main organ of detoxification and requires nutrients to help this happen. When you have a healthy liver, your body allows fat stores to diminish. Excess toxins in the blood that can’t be removed from circulation due to low nutrient status means that the body will create increased fat stores to “save or store” the processing for later when the body has more of these important nutrients which allow the liver to function properly.
On starvation calorie low diets, this time never comes, and as soon as more normal eating pattern is resumed the fat stores replenish more rapidly than before, this is why most calorie reduction diets leave dieters heavier than before they started, a common theme in over 90%.
4. Starvation results in fatigue
Body protein provides most of the energy needed during the first few days of a fast, but after that the body will adapt to using fat for energy in an attempt to preserve muscle.
Fat is then metabolised to ketones, which can be used by the brain for energy. However, prolonged inadequate carbohydrate intake results in the build-up of ketones, which become toxic, resulting in an unpleasant condition called ketosis.
Consequences: The kidneys and liver become burdened with toxic waste from the breakdown of fat and muscle tissue so the body?s normal functions are disrupted. Ketosis can cause fatigue, constipation, nausea and vomiting. The potential long-term side effects of ketosis include heart disease, bone loss and kidney damage.
In addition, the lack of calories will deprive your body of essential vitamins and minerals, so hair, nails and skin will show signs of deterioration. So if you try fasting as a means of detoxifying or cleansing the body, you will actually achieve the opposite effect.
5. Starvation leads to fat around the middle
The stress hormone cortisol is known to be associated to umbilical fat, also known as hard to shift fat around the middle. Cortisol is a gluco-corticoid which means that its released to help mobilize glucose in times of emergency, such as starvation, to allow the muscles to act if you needed to move or work. It is designed to help you survive.
So when your body is void of calories from food and you have to move, work, think, your body will send out cortisol to help you achieve these short term “emergencies”. In the long term this leads to hard to lose fat around your waistline, also known as a “muffin top”
The true fast-track to weight loss
The safest, most sensible route to achieving long-term weight loss is adopting healthy eating habits, which endure long after the pounds have been lost. You’ll also want to keep your metabolism revved up to burn calories rather than save them. This can be achieved by:
Having breakfast
A balanced morning meal kick-starts your metabolism after your body has been deprived of food throughout the night. Skipping breakfast keeps your metabolism running slow and you will save rather than burn any calories you eat later in the day.
Snacking frequently
Eating smaller, frequent meals will keep your metabolism busy throughout the day. Snacking also prevents you from becoming too hungry. The hungrier you are, the less control you have over what and how much you eat.
Exercising
Cardiovascular fitness activities such as walking, jogging, swimming, cycling, aerobics and dancing, speed up your metabolism for several hours after your workout, so additional calories will be burned off long after you stop moving.
Resistance or Lifting weights
Body weight exercise or lifting weights will build and tone muscle, which burns up to five times more calories than fat, even when your body is at rest. More muscletone means more calories burned and more weight lost over time.
Eating according to your activities
If you do most of your physical activity during the day, make breakfast and lunch larger meals than your evening meal, so you have enough energy to get everything done throughout the day.
Drinking plenty of water
Your metabolism needs water to function properly. Remember, the recommendation is to drink between one and two litres per day.
NOTE: Fasting and fad diets can be very dangerous for individuals with chronic conditions such as diabetes, coronary heart disease, liver or kidney disease, infection or pregnancy.
References
MF Ball, JJ Canary, LH Kyle -Comparative Effects of Caloric Restriction and Total Starvation on Body Composition in Obesity Annals of Internal Medicine, 1967 – Am Coll Physicians Christy F. Telch and W. Stewart Agras - Behavior Therapy Volume 24, Issue 2, Spring 1993, Pages 177-193 Michael Kofflera and Eldad S. Kisch, Starvation diet and very-low-calorie diets may induce insulin resistance and overt diabetes mellitus, Journal of Diabetes and its Complications
Volume 10, Issue 2, March-April 1996, Pages 109-112