Why “You’re Not Eating Enough To Lose Weight” Is Fucking Terrible Advice

I once heard a personal trainer tell a lady:

“Hey, maybe you’re not eating enough calories to lose weight.”

Fucking kill me now.

That was 18 years ago, and it’s something which I’ve heard pop up every few years since then, and it continues to grind my gears because all it does is cause confusion.

So today I’m going to deep dive into the science on this topic and show you why the absolute fucknuckles saying “HeY, mAyBe YoU’rE nOt EaTiNg EnOuGh CaLoRiEs To LoSe WeIgHt” are dead fucking wrong.

What About Starvation Mode?

I’m just gonna come right out and say it:

Starvation mode doesn’t exist!

I’m leading with this because the theory that “you’re not eating enough to lose weight” always leads back to the belief that you’ve pushed yourself into so-called starvation mode.

It is said that when in starvation mode the body feels like it is being attacked (by your diet), so it responds by hanging on to every last bit of fat and making it impossibe for you to lose any weight.

By instructing you to eat more food, these self-appointed “experts” are trying to pus you out of starvation mode, and then you’ll be able to continue seeing weight loss results.

There’s just one problem… it’s fucking nonsense.

You see, there’s never been a single case in human history (ever!) of someone who “isn’t eating enough to lose weight”, nor has there ever been a single study (ever!) of someone is “starvation mode”.

So don’t fall for this bullshit.

If so-called “starvation mode” was in fact real, then starvation itself wouldn’t happen! Heck, third world countries wouldn’t need to worry about a lack of food, because their bodies would just enter this miracle state where they didn’t lose any more weight and never starved to death.

Sounds ridiculous now, doesn’t it?

Oh, but your resident office bell-end is telling you that the mythical “starvation mode” only happens to middle-aged women who work in offices?

Fuck you, Dave.

Anyway, we can end this “stavation mode” nonsense once and for all by looking at some science, because it was actualy debunked all the way back in 1944!

Researchers at the University of Minnesota were testing out methods to refeed the world’s hungriest populations in the aftermath of World War II when they conducted one of the most brutal studies of all time. They took a group of 36 men and put them through a gruelling 3-hours of exercise per day while literally starving them (no joke).

Guess what?

So-called “starvation mode” never fucking happened.

Instead, the participants just kept on losing weight until the whole process got downright dangerous. After six months of this craziness the study was over, and each trainee had lost an average of half their body weight, with some almost dying in the process. (7)

NOTE: Before we move on, I’d like to briefly mention metabolic adaptation. Many people confuse this with starvation mode, but it’s not the same thing. Metabolic adaptation is the process by which your body reduces the number of calories you burn throughout the day as you lose weight. This happens because less mass requires less fuel. (8, 9)

The Real Culprit

The reason I came down so hard on “starvation mode” is because it often leads people down a dark path where they begin thinking there is something wrong with their body.

It can lead them to thinking they are “broken”.

That’s not the case at all, because what’s really happening here is a simple case of mathematics.

You see, either your calories were set incorrectly to start with, or you’ve not been tracking them as accurately as you think.

Sorry to call you out on your bullshit, but someone needs to do it.

If your calories were set incorrectly, then increasing this target will only make you gain more weight, whereas if you haven’t been tracking them accurately then you simply aren’t eating what you believe you’re eating.

I’ve had countless people come to me over the years saying stuff like, “Hey Russ, why can’t I lose weight on 1000 calories per day?”, and the answer is ALWAYS the same – they’re not tracking their nutrition properly!

In most cases they don’t include things like sauces, biscuits, drinks, or entire weekends. This is incredibly common (MyFitnessPal recently said they have a 43% drop-off in logins on Saturdays and Sundays!), and it means your daily calorie average is higher than you think it is. (5)

How To Fix This

There’s a solution for each situation.

If you think your calories were set incorrectly then you can fix the issue by decreasing your target.

There’s no need to do anything extreme (in fact the less extreme the better!), so just reduce your current target by about 10% and see how your body responds over the next couple of weeks. Eventually you’ll find the “sweet spot” for maximizing results. (6)

Alternatively, if you haven’t been tracking your foods correctly the you can fix this issue by grabbing a good nutrition tracker and logging everything you eat from today. By the end of the first week you’ll have the actual data on where you currently stand.

Remember, weight loss is always governed by the law of thermodynamics (calories in versus calories out), and anyone telling you otherwise is talking absolute bullshit. There has never been an instance (ever!) of someone gaining weight when they are in a calorie deficit, and there has never been an instance of someone needing to “eat more calories to lose weight”. (1, 2, 3, 4)

This is the only mechanism by which we can gain weight or lose weight, which makes it impossible for somebody to be “not eating enough calories to lose weight”.

Now let’s discuss one final issue…

If you find yourself constantly falling off-track at the weekends and binge eating out of sheer frustration, this is a sign that your calorie intake was set too low and your diet is too unsustainable to achieve long-term success.

So it’s not really that you’re “not eating enough to lose weight”, but more like you’re “not eating enough to stay consistent for more than a few days at a time before binge eating and throwing all your weekly numbers out of whack!”

This is also an easy trap to fall into, because people want fast results, so they often try to diet too hard and too strict, making it impossible to sustain and triggering binge sessions every few days. If that’s happening then we want to move away from bullshit fad diets and set a more realistic daily calorie target.

Did that all make sense? Great, now get back to the fucking gym!

Further Reading:

If you enjoyed this blog, then you’ll probably also like reading these.

>> Why I Ditched “Clean Eating”
>> Is Food Eaten Late At Night Stored As Fat?
>> Your Macronutrient Ratio Means Dick; Calories Are King

References:

1. Howell S., et al. “Calories in, calories out” and macronutrient intake: the hope, hype, and science of calories. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab (2017).
2. Leibel R.L., et al. Energy intake required to maintain body weight is not affected by wide variation in diet composition . Am J Clin Nutr (1992).
3. Golay A., et al. Similar weight loss with low- or high-carbohydrate diets. Am J Clin Nutr (1996).
4. Golay A., et al. Weight-loss with low or high carbohydrate diet. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord (1996).
5. Lichtman S. W., et al. Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. N Engl J Med (1992).
6. Stewart T. M., et al. Rigid vs. flexible dieting: association with eating disorder symptoms in nonobese women. Appetite (2002).
7. Keys A., et al. The Biology of Human Starvation. Civilian Public Service (1944).
8. Camps S., et al. Weight loss, weight maintenance, and adaptive thermogenesis. Am J Clin Nutr (2013).
9. Zinchenko A, et al. Metabolic Damage: do Negative Metabolic Adaptations During Underfeeding Persist After Refeeding in Non-Obese Populations? Medical Research Archives (2016).