Dieting and Eating: The Battle Rages, Part Two

I eventually hit a weight-loss plateau, overcame that, and continued on with my same eating schedule. It wasn’t until my wife shared her medical knowledge with me, that I discovered why my weight was staying pretty much stable. My body was in, what she called, a Starvation Mode. Yes, I was still working out. Yes, I was still maintaining my low caloric intake. Yes, I was still drinking like a fish (again, water). Yes, I was still only eating once a day. Yes, my weight stayed the same.

Starvation Mode is when the body feels that it is starving (big surprise there) and starts to hoard any food that is taken in and stores it as fat. It’s afraid to burn any calories, because it thinks it needs them in order to survive. Therefore, any food I ate during my one meal, went directly into fat storage and I was going through the pain of dieting for nothing.

This didn’t really apply during the first several months of my diet, because I had an excess of fat for the body to draw from. However, as I lost that fat and my body had less fat in reserve, it started to hoard what was taken in and use that to survive. Now that I know why I haven’t being losing weight, I need to correct this problem and continue with my Die with a T.

The way to rectify this problem is to let your body know that it isn’t starving, so it won‘t find it necessary to hoard fat. You do this by eating a number of small meals throughout the day. You still continue to maintain the same caloric intake as before, but you spread it throughout the entire day. This way your body will get used to the fact that it is being fueled on a regular basis and thus there is no fear of starvation and no need to save any fat in reserve.

How many meals you choose is up to you. Some feel that 5-6 meals a day is what you should eat. I personally feel that this is kind of excessive. Who has the time to eat that many times a day? For myself, I'm going to eat the usual 3 meals a day, with the largest eaten during the beginning or middle part of the day.

Good luck with your diet and if there is anything you have a question on, or would like to share your experiences, please leave a comment and I will get back to you.

See Also:

Dieting and Eating:The Battle Rages, Part One