As you attack your fat loss diet plan, chances are you’re looking at how you can cut calories here and cut calories there. Basically, the fewer calories you eat, as far as you’re concerned, the better.

If this is your thinking pattern, you may want to re-examine it.

The truth of the matter is far too many people, especially women as we tend to be so ‘diet focused’ are not eating enough food to even see successful fat loss take place.

While a low calorie diet is good and necessary for the body to start using body fat as energy, a very low calorie diet can be a disaster waiting to happen.

Let’s take a look at whether you could be suffering from the ‘not eating enough’ syndrome.

The Problems With Not Eating Enough

So what is so bad with not eating enough anyway? You would think that if you can create a 300 calorie deficit per day,
wouldn’t an 800 one be better?

The problem with this is that the lower your take your calorie intake, the more the body is going to get scared. It could start to think that starvation is in fact taking place and when it does, it’s going to do everything in its power to prevent this from happening.

What that’s occurring, what does it do? It slows down your metabolic rate and essentially clings onto your body fat.

So you begin burning fewer and fewer calories each and every day, making further fat loss seem next to impossible. If it’s been a while since you’ve seen any success with your fat loss diet, there’s a good chance that your metabolism is running on super slow mode.

Another issue with not eating enough is that you likely won’t have enough energy to complete your workout sessions, nor will you have enough nutrients coming in.

You may begin to lose lean muscle mass, which just slows your metabolic rate further and could cause you to gain body fat should you ever come off that diet.

Assessing And Fixing Yourself

So how do you know if you’re in this situation?

First take an honest look at how many calories you’re consuming. Are you eating fewer than ten calories per pound of body weight? If so, chances are you aren’t eating enough.

Also think about when the last time you took a diet break was. If it’s been months on end since you had a break, now’s the time to do so. The body can only diet for so long before it’s just too stressed out to keep going.

Start focusing on bringing your calorie intake up to a more reasonable level and make sure that you’re eating five or six smaller meals a day. This will help ensure that you are taking in enough calories and protein and also help to keep your blood sugar levels regulated better as well.

So there you have the key information to know about setting up a proper diet that fosters a healthy rate of fat loss. If you aren’t eating enough, you will definitely be in for some trouble ahead so really take a good honest look over your program to see if this could be an issue for you.

If you have any specific questions about this subject, feel free to post below 🙂