Loose Fat not Energy
In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than it takes in, but keep in mind that your body needs calories for energy and when we exercise; our body needs even more calories. The first thing we must understand is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing. Just because we lose weight, does not mean that we lose fat also, and just because we lose fat, does not mean we will lose weight. When we eat, the body uses most of the calories for energy. If we eat more calories than the body consumes, it will get stored as fat. If we do not consume enough calories per day we will lose weight, but along with it we will also lose energy. When we do not consume enough energy (calories) for your body, it will start using up our energy stored to make up for the energy deficiency. Unfortunately, the energy stored is not our stored fat, but instead it’s other nutrients like protein and carbohydrates that supply most of the energy. Our body will take the protein and carbohydrates from our muscle cells; causing our muscle mass to reduce which forces our metabolism to decrease (a low metabolism = slow or no fat burning). When this happens our body requires less energy to maintain its new lower body weight, which is why our body conserves energy by slowing down the metabolism. In other words, the body has adapted to the new lower energy (calorie) intake which means that we will no longer continue to lose weight.
Keep in mind that the weight we loose in the first place was mostly water weight and will eventually gain back in the form of fat. When carbohydrates and protein that are already in our body are used as the energy source, our body will lose water weight because both carbohydrates and protein hold water in the cells. In essence, we dehyderate ourself to lose weight. And just as we know, exercising while consuming a small calorie intake makes the situation worse. This is because when we exercise, we start burning off more energy and the more we workout, the more energy our body needs. I had already told above where the energy comes from, and if we do not give our body the energy it needs, it will just feed on our muscles even quicker now that we are exercising. So eat more food! In addition to this, when we cut down too much on your calorie intake, our body will start storing calories because it doesn’t know when you will eat again. The calories that are stored will be stored as fat. So in other words, when our body is storing energy, it’s basically storing more fat.
Conclusion : Not eating enough calories results in muscle loss, dehydration, slower fat burning, and your body will always adapt to a lower calorie intake.
To lose weight properly we must increase your metabolism and our need for oxygen while eating enough calories each day (nutritious diet) to give you energy and maintain the protein in your muscles because protein helps build muscles, which indirectly burns fat. This brings up another good point: When we build muscle our weight will increase because our muscles are made up of mostly water, but our body fat percentage will decrease because building muscles increase our metabolism. So keep in mind that losing body fat can’t be measured by a scale; use a measuring tape and also look at yourself in the mirror, and then you will see the true results. One of the best ways to know if you are losing more body fat than water is by using a body fat analyzer.
Make sure that you focus on fat loss not weight loss. Your goal should be to lose weight by burning fat, not losing water from your muscles.