What do you mean I'm not eating enough?

I've seen it time and time again - clients thinking they are outsmarting their bodies by consuming too few calories.  When you do not consume enough calories...guess what happens?  You actually WON'T LOSE!

Yup - you heard it.  In terms of calories, if you're not eating enough, your body will most likely go into a 'storage mode'. This is because the moment your body thinks its not getting enough food, it will horde all the calories and hold onto the fat since it thinks its going into starvation mode. Your body will also slow down your metabolism because it thinks a "fasting state" may be close and it will want to conserve as much energy as possiblee and protect the function of the internal organs.  Long-term, the body metabolizes the lean muscle tissue that burns calories.

So for all you non-believers of 'Eat to Lose' - it actually IS true.  Fueling your body with (good) calories fires your metabolism.  Eat frequent meals throughout the day - (3) 400 calorie meals and (2) 150 calorie snacks is what I shoot for on a 1500 calorie diet.  Eating more frequently fires up your metabolism and keeps your blood sugar level throughout the day thus reducing hunger and the urge to binge.

Please Please PLEASE don't fad diet!! I cringe at the sound of the new fad diet 'HCG' which relies on injections of the hormone Human Choriogonadotropin (HCG) and a restricted 500 calorie a day diet.  No one should EVER go below 1000 calories per day (I tell my clients not to go below 1200)  ...this will put the body in starvation mode.  Do people lose weight from HCG - sure....initially they drop a lot but why?  Not because of some hormone injection...because they are eating 500 CALORIES A DAY!  Go from to eating Red Robin every night to 500 calories a day and you will drop; but guess what?  You will gain it back when you come back to the surface of starving your body.  After a few weeks on the 500 calorie diet, HCG dieters are put on the 'maitenence stage' where other foods are slowly introduced back into the diet.  Why do you think that is?  Maybe because if you continued eating 500 calories a day for prolonged periods, your body would cease to drop anymore weight because it goes into starvation mode.

I have had 2 clients and 1 family friend try HCG.  They lost over 20 lbs a piece.  Not one of them kept it off.

Bottom line - EAT!  When people tell me they are doing HCG and some other fad diet, I tell them I get to eat oatmeal with berries and milk and lean turkey for breakfast, veggies and cheese for a snack, a homemade burrito bowl with brown rice and chicken and salsa for lunch, sweet potatoes and egg whites for a snack and fish and veggies for dinner and I am NEVER hungry and I still lose and maintain weight loss.  How AWESOME is that?! 

You can do it too.