When
we want to lose weight, we start
cutting things. We cut out soda, cut down on fat, and cut our calorie intake. If slashing 500 daily calories
is good, cutting 1,000 has to be twice as good, right?
Nope. When
you go too low, you can drastically damage your metabolism—meaning that you’re working
in complete and utter opposition to your weight-loss efforts. For instance,
when one New England Journal of Medicine study followed men and women who lost weight
through intense calorie-cutting, researchers found that the participants’
metabolic rates and hormone
levels were whacked out even a
year after they hit their weight-loss
goals.
Sound
familiar? It should. It’s exactly why "The
Biggest Loser study," which
assessed the weights of 14 people who lost weight on one season of the show,
found that all but one contestant regained everything. For example, Amanda
Arlauskas, who was on the show, has a daily caloric burn that’s 591.1 calories
lower than it is for the average woman her size. That means, to maintain her
weight, she has to eat nearly 600 fewer calories than other women.
“What
people forget is that we all have a resting
metabolic rate—the number of calories our bodies burn breathing, thinking, and
keeping out hearts beating,” says Wesley Delbridge, RD, spokesperson for
the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. “If your caloric intake is less than
your resting metabolic rate, which is around 1,200 calories for most women,
your body is forced to adapt to a lower metabolic rate.” You burn fewer calories during any given activity, making
weight loss even harder—and weight gain oh-so easy.
Seriously,
that sucks. Luckily, it’s totally avoidable. Start by answering these seven
simple questions to find out if you need to be eating more to weigh less.
