If You Are Losing Weight, You're Starving!

We've had a question on our fan page...

"When I followed slimming world my typical days food would be either boiled eggs, banana and porridge for breakfast/brunch or at weekends an omelette on a bed of spinach. Lunch was something like a jacket potato, salad and tuna or soup or maybe a whole meal bread salad sandwich. Dinner would have been roast chicken/cottage pie/pork chops, all with fresh veg. Snacks would be apples, satsuma, popcorn or chocolate when I fancied it. How would this be considered starving myself? It's the one thing I don't get with your argument as I never felt hungry, nutritionally I ate way better than at ww. As it is I no longer follow any of them, so I'm not defending them or speaking for them, just genuinely curious. Whilst not perfect food I honestly can't see what was wrong with it, all perfectly within the realms of their plan and how I knew many other people ate too. Thanks x"

A very good question, thank you! And your question makes perfect sense...

"How can I be starving if I'm eating so healthily?!"

Ok, you'll need your super smart rebel hats on for this, you ready?

What is STARVATION?

*pulls out medical dictionary*

"Starvation is the result of a severe or total lack of nutrients needed for the maintenance of life."

Hmm, too complicated.

Let's make it simpler.

"Severe lack of nutrients needed for life."

Now what do you notice about this definition? What really stands out to you, when you look really close?

LACK. OF. NUTRIENTS.

Apples are nutrients. Avocados are nutrients. Hifi bars are nutrients. Mugshots are nutrients. They all contain carbohydrate, protein or fat, making them "nutrients". But there's no mention of any particular nutrients in the definition of starvation, because, quite simply, it embraces ALL NUTRIENTS.

Starvation is simply a lack of food. And it doesn't matter whether it's a lack of apples, or a lack of mugshots. If you aren't eating enough, your body will STARVE.

Someone could be eating fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, and basing their nutrition around what most would consider "healthy foods", but if they don't eat ENOUGH of them, they can still be "starving".

Think about that.

Really get your head around it.

Starvation doesn't mean...

"Eating the wrong foods"

Starvation means...

"Not eating enough foods"

And how can you tell? Because your body LOSES WEIGHT. Weight loss is a symptom of starvation. That's why when we see those horrendous images of starving people in the world, they are painfully skinny and light. Because the starvation (lack of nutrients) has caused their bodies to burn off all their fat, muscle, even their organs, to make up for the energy deficit.

Just because you aren't that skinny and light yet doesn't mean you're not starving. It just means you haven't starved for as long as they have. Usually because, as all dieters will know, you BINGE UNCONTROLLABLY well before that level of starvation occurs. 

(sadly not everyone in this world has that luxury)

Right now there are 1000s of people at Slimming World who are eating fresh food, who are eating fruit, vegetables, meat, fish and other nutritious foods...

But they are losing weight every single week, and starving their bodies, because... you guessed it... they are not eating ENOUGH OF THEM.

"Weight loss" is synonymous with "starvation". And the faster you are losing weight (2, 3, 4... maybe even 5lbs a week for the most applauded slimmers), the more you are starving your body. Regardless of how healthy you eat.

Every Slimming World member who is shouting about their 4, 5, 6, maybe even 10 stone weight loss, is basically shouting about how successfully they've starved themselves. Slimmers Of The Year may as well hold a placard over their heads saying...

"I'm A Champion Starver!!!"

So it's time for us to all realise the truth. That the scales are simply a tool for measuring how much we've starved ourselves. So why the hell are we applauding it?

And guess what happens when you starve your body? When you deprive it of the nutrients it needs to survive, resulting in weight loss?

It gets better at storing fat! It adapts itself, through what we now know as "persistent metabolic adaptations", making it more efficient at gaining and storing fat longer term.

The take home message?

It doesn't matter what you eat, or how healthily you think you eat...

If you are LOSING WEIGHT, and in particular, losing large amounts of weight very quickly...

You. Are. Starving. Your. Body.

And not just that...

You. Will. Regain It. And More.

The alternative?

To put the right amount, enough nutrients, into your body, to FUEL IT and NOURISH IT, making it adapt itself for leanness. This is "nutrition" and it is the science of getting enough nutrients into your body to prevent weight loss and starvation, preventing those "persistent metabolic adaptations" that make us obese longer term.

Liam

[If you're a veteran dieter trapped in the yo-yo diet cycle, please feel free to email us for a non-judgemental chat about your weight and nutrition. Please allow one week for a response.]

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