Weight Loss Tip #12: How Starving Your Body Can Make You Gain Weight

No, that title is not a typo.
One of the things that makes people not get the weight loss results that they want is that they may occassionally be starving their bodies.
There are two basic ways that this can happen. One is for it to be done inadvertently---like when you just get busy and forget to eat.
Another is when you purpose deprive your body of food to try and "speed up" your results.
Regardless of how it happens, either scenario in this case is equally damaging. Although you will decrease the calories that you take in which may lead to some short-term weight loss, the kicker here is that you will be slowing down your metabolism.
What this means is that after the starving is over, your body will hold onto the next meal you eat for dear life, expecting be be starved again.
If you allow starvation to become a habit, you will actually be contributing to your own weight gain in the future.
One of the main reasons that this is even possible is because of what happens to your body when it goes into starvation mode.
Many people are at least initially excited to see a few pounds drop off because they haven't even.
However, what they do not realize is that when the body is being "starved", it is burning muscle tissue at a very unhealthy rate. Since muscle weighs more than fat, the majority of weight being dropped during starvation may indeed be muscle.
This is very bad news, especially for women, who have a more difficult time building new muscle.
Muscle is actually one of the things that helps keep fat off in the first place because it literally burns fat 24 hours per day.
Now more than likely the weight will be gained backed because:
A) People who tend to starve themselves often lack the discipline to eat right and exercise regularly, and/or
B) With less muscle, the body now has a weakened ability to keep fat off (this is also why many people gain MORE weight than they initially lost)
When the weight comes back, its fat percentage will be significantly higher and the result will be a heavier person with a decreased ability to burn fat effectively.
NOT GOOD.
Therefore, make sure that you are keeping your meals no more than 4 hours apart. As long as you do this, you will be supporting the healthy metabolism that you'll need to lose the kind of weight that you've committed to.
To YourBestBody,
Lawrence ColeYour Lifestyle and Fitness Coach
About the Author
Lawrence Cole is a Lifestyle and Fitness Consultant based out of Los Angeles, CA and the owner of http://www.yourbestbodynow.com . He has over 10 years of health and fitness experience and designing simple, effective nutritional strategies to help individuals achieve their personal best internal health and physical conditioning