The counterattack of fat that won’t go away even if you starve

In Korea, 7 to 8 out of 10 women have tried or are currently dieting. However, less than 20% of them succeed in dieting without the yo-yo effect. In particular, if you lose weight by starving yourself, you will most likely experience the yo-yo effect. Another concern is that no matter how hard you try to lose weight through diet, you cannot only lose weight in the areas you want, such as the forearms or thighs. I don’t lose weight even when I starve, why is that?

Why do I gain weight even if I don’t eat?

There is a common saying, ‘You can gain weight just by drinking water.’ Although there are people who drink a lot of water and have a tendency to bloat easily, most of them are just excuses for people who fail to control their diet. Some people complain that they gain weight even though they haven’t eaten much. However, body weight is evidence of the amount of food you normally eat. Unless there is something seriously wrong with the body, thin people eat less, and obese people eat more.

If you gain weight even though you eat very little, you need to systematize the calories you consume throughout the day. When dieting, it is not important to simply eat a little, but to choose foods that are less fattening. Even if you eat a little, if you eat foods that are high in calories or easily converted to body fat, your diet is bound to fail. If you eat less but mainly eat fatty or instant foods, or if you have a habit of fasting and binge eating, you are bound to gain weight.

One of the biggest reasons why people fail when dieting is because they plan their diet unreasonably without considering their own eating habits. It is difficult for people who are accustomed to fast food and processed foods to see results if they try to survive on only fruits and vegetables overnight.

The body cannot accept this, and whenever you are hungry, you crave the food you used to eat. In other words, it is not important not to eat, but what and how to eat is the key point in dieting for weight loss.

The enemy of dieting, repetitive yo-yo

Most people have probably tried starving themselves to lose weight at least once. In particular, women prefer to lose weight by starving themselves rather than losing weight through exercise. However, if you lose weight by starving yourself, you gain it again, and so you repeat the process of starving again.

The cells in our body move using glucose as an energy source. The liver makes glucose using amino acids derived from protein. When you starve, amino acids are taken from your muscles to make glucose. In other words, if you skip a meal, muscle mass decreases, and as muscle mass decreases, your basal metabolic rate decreases. As basal metabolic rate falls, the amount of calories consumed decreases, increasing the risk of the yo-yo effect.

There is another reason why diets that involve starvation lead to the yo-yo effect. As soon as you feel like you have lost a certain amount of weight by repeatedly starving yourself, start eating normally. When we eat a regular meal again after not consuming the nutrients our body needs for a certain period of time, our body feels a sense of crisis that we don’t know when the next energy will come in, so it reduces calorie consumption in order to accumulate energy in the body. The phenomenon of consuming fewer calories compared to the amount eaten leads to weight gain. In other words, if you lose weight by starving yourself without supplementing important nutrients to lose weight easily, this yo-yo phenomenon easily occurs. If the yo-yo phenomenon is repeated, the accumulated fat loses elasticity and sags, making you more prone to gaining weight.

The body’s resistance that breaks the will to diet

For people on a diet, the proposition that ‘you just need to eat less and exercise’ is basic common sense. Also, it is absolutely true that if the inequality of ‘calories consumed < calories consumed’ is established, you will lose weight. It seems like you can succeed in dieting right away if you control your diet and exercise. However, not many people succeed in dieting despite knowing this. Why on earth is that so?

Your body weight may increase or decrease between 5 and 10 percent from your current state. If you try to lose weight by going beyond this range through dieting, your body’s defense system kicks in. Humans have a hormone called leptin. Leptin is secreted when you eat, and it stimulates the brain to provide a feeling of fullness and suppress appetite. When you lose weight through dieting, the secretion of leptin in your body drops drastically. When leptin secretion decreases, you cannot feel full and cannot control your appetite. Because of these hormonal changes, when you lose weight, you feel hungry more easily, making you hungrier, and your metabolic rate also decreases. The more weight we lose, the more strongly our body resists. To succeed in dieting, you must overcome this body resistance.

It is difficult to succeed in dieting through diet or exercise alone. Repeated diet failures can actually be toxic, so it is a good idea to seek appropriate help from a professional. This is why a professional diet program is needed, including treatments appropriate for the area in need of dieting, management through professional dietary and nutritional counseling, and exercise methods suited to one’s body.

Diet for a successful diet

01. Eat breakfast
If you skip breakfast, you will feel hungry throughout the day. Because of hunger, we make the mistake of snacking on unnecessary snacks or eating a large lunch. Be sure to eat sugary foods such as rice to avoid lowering your basal metabolic rate. If your basal metabolic rate decreases and your energy consumption decreases, you may actually gain weight.

02. Drink water often
Water is essential for consuming calories. If you lack water, your metabolism slows down and you lose weight slowly. Replacing sweet drinks or juice with water can significantly reduce the number of calories you consume each day. Drinking water also has the effect of lowering your appetite. If you drink two cups of water before a meal, you will eat about 90 kcal less.

03. Eat a snack
It is known that when dieting, it is best not to eat snacks. However, to keep your metabolism running smoothly, you need to eat a snack every 3 to 4 hours. Eat healthy snacks such as almonds or nuts.

04. Write a food diary
According to one study, people who kept a food diary were several times more likely to succeed in dieting than people who did not keep a diet diary. Just by recording what you eat, you can become more conscious of your daily calorie intake and reduce it.

05. Don’t just eat salad
Contrary to commonly known fact, eating only salad is not good. Salads are low in carbohydrates and do not regulate the leptin hormone, which controls hunger. Instead of sticking to a salad full of vegetables, try a sandwich with carbohydrate- and protein-rich ingredients along with a healthy soup. Even when eating salad, add more brown rice and beans. However, do not eat high-calorie salads containing blue cheese or candied walnuts.

06. Cut it into small pieces and eat it
If you cut your food into small pieces, it slows down your eating process and makes you feel like you ate a lot, making it easier to reduce the amount. On the other hand, if you eat a large chunk as a whole, you will eat food faster, making it difficult to control the amount, and consuming far more calories than you think.

07. Eat dairy products
Eating dairy products such as milk, cheese, and ice cream helps with diet. This is because dairy products are rich in calcium. When dieting, it is easy to become deficient in calcium, but consuming calcium in dairy products helps the body consume fat more easily.

08. Eat slowly
It takes about 20 minutes after a meal for the brain to sense fullness. Therefore, if you eat hastily, you end up consuming more food than you need. You should chew your food slowly and thoroughly while drinking a little water between meals. You can also prevent overeating by using your own plate at each meal to eat less food.