We've all been there, you're focusing on losing weight, and you get off to a good start. Then it slows down, you have a week where you lose no weight even though you did everything right. So, you drop your calories even more and eat less, but nothing changes, you've hit that plateau.
So how do we break through this plateau and continue to work towards our body composition goals? Well it may scare you and sound counterproductive, but now we need to consume more calories, we need to eat more now!
It's all about the old method of the more you eat, the more you burn.
So, let's look at a few reasons why eating more will fast track and reignite our fat loss:
- Thermic effect of food - when we eat, we need to digest all the macronutrients we've just put in our body. This process actually uses energy, burns calories and speeds up our metabolism (the rate at which we burn energy/calories). Great, so again, the more we eat (and more frequently), the more we burn. It's also good to note that protein has the highest thermic effect, it burns up to 30% of its own calories by digesting in the body.
- Our muscle mass burns fat - our resting metabolism makes up 70% of our daily energy expenditure (70% of our calories burnt for the day). The main factor determining how efficient our resting metabolism is, is the amount of lean muscle mass we have. Muscle burns fat. So, the more calories (and in particular protein) we consume the greater chance we have of building our lean mass and speeding up our metabolism even more to become a fat burning machine.
- Avoid starvation mode - when we under consume calories for too long our bodies begin to store energy as we don't know when we'll receive our next hit. So, under eating will slow down our metabolism, stop us burning energy, and promote excess fat storage in the long run.
- It stops us binge eating - our will power only lasts so long. This point is more of a mental factor as opposed to a physical one. If we under eat, we will eventually cave and binge on sugary or poor choice foods which will blow out our daily calorie consumption and promote fat gain. If we eat more and hit adequate amounts of macronutrients consistently through the day, we'll be more satisfied and less inclined to reach for the poor food choices, keeping our calories consistent and in line with a fat loss regime.
So, is it time to stop the yo-yo of weight loss and weight gain over and over? Do you want slower but more consistent results that allow you to maintain them long-term?
Well then - eat more to burn more
*Disclaimer: Individual results vary based on agreed goals. Click here for details.
