9 Signs You’re Under-Nourishing Your Body
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Serious question: Are you being healthy or are you depriving yourself? Most people get these two confused, or they think they are the same thing. But the truth is, the two are not synonymous. If you do feel deprived when trying to be “healthy”,then sis, I have some news to break to you: You’re doing it wrong. There is absolutely no reason to feel deprived when nourishing your body with what it needs. So for those of you who may think you’re being “healthy”, I want to chat about a 9 signs that you’re in fact, under-nourishing yourself.
If this episode empowered you, be sure to check out Episode 18: What Happens When You Don't Eat Enough.
In this episode, I break down why overly restricting your calories is not an effective or healthy way to create lasting weight loss. I dive into why you should never live in a caloric deficit, how it’s damaging your metabolism, as well as the entire functioning of your body, and signs you aren’t eating enough calories.
If you are under-nourishing yourself, I highly recommend learning about reverse dieting in Episode 46: Why You Should Consider a Reverse Diet (The Only Diet I Support!) to help you start nourishing your body correctly without gaining weight.
Plus, be sure to check out Episode 16: 3 Things Your Food Cravings Are Trying to Tell You.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there beautiful human, you're listening to Embrace Your Real with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in and let's go.
Hello and welcome back to the Embrace Your Real podcast. I am so grateful that you are here spending some time with me today, wherever you are tuning in. We have listeners all over the world. Whether you're walking, you're jogging, you're cooking, you're cleaning, you're dancing, you're working out, you're driving, you are doing the dang thing, girl. You are choosing to show up to prioritize yourself to become the best version of yourself so that you can serve others in your best capacity.
Today we're diving into nine signs that you may be undernourishing your body. This is a topic that I wanted to talk about because as many women that I see on the internet, that I talk to, it's very, very common to think that we're being healthy, but in reality we're actually undernourishing our bodies. We follow someone else's diet plan, or a day in the life of, or full day of eating or macro plan, and we think that if it works for them then it works for us as well. But most often this is not the case.
So I wanted to kind of put together this episode to make it easy for you to know whether or not your body needs more food. Maybe these signs are things that you didn't even recognize to be correlated with undereating, so I'm going to be sharing nine signs that you may be undereating in this episode.
So if you're experiencing any of these symptoms it could possibly mean that your body needs more food. As always, I want to make this disclaimer, that I am not a physician, so please if you feel like you need to go to a doctor, a physician, please by all means go. I am a huge, firm believer in getting a baseline blood testing, all of those things, to make sure that everything is functioning properly in your body.
Before I dive in, I have to share this super sweet review. It comes from [inaudible 00:02:11]. She says, "This podcast came to me during my freshman year of college in a pandemic, when much of my usual hope and joy was dwindling. This podcast is full of realness and positivity all at the same time. The podcast is something I look forward to and it has changed the way that I see myself and my flaws and how I honor my body. For the first time in my life I am not working out to look good, but to feel good, and wow, that feels good. Thank you, Julie. Keep shining your light. God bless you."
Oh, thank you so much. First and foremost, I just want to say thank you for being vulnerable and honest. I know that this past year has looked so incredibly different, and I cannot even imagine what it would be like going through this pandemic as a freshman in college, as a senior in high school, even going to school at all. There has been so many things that have shifted virtually, and like you said, your joy and your hope that was once found in something else is now dwindling.
So if you're listening to this right now and you are just feeling lonely, I want to encourage you to reach out. Reach out to your friends, your family. Open up and talk about this, because I think oftentimes we don't want to burden other people or we don't want to be the one that people feel bad for us, like opening up and talking about our struggles, but it is so, so important.
Our mental health is decreasing every single day in this pandemic, so I just want to make sure that you are plugging in, and know that you always have a community online. Even though it may look different, the human connection portion, even through talking through Zoom or through a FaceTime, it is still there. So if you're struggling in any way please reach out. Do not be afraid to reach out, and know that we are all here for you, and we love you, and we are all going to get through this together.
All right, let's dive into these nine signs that you may not be eating enough. Number one, you don't have energy. Now I know we live in this world where we're constantly relying on energy drinks, but it is not normal to never have energy. Of course it's normal to have some days where you feel rundown, but if day in and day out you're constantly feeling like you don't have enough energy to get through your workout or even get through your day, something may need to be reconsidered, and I'm guessing maybe that might be how much you're eating.
Even increasing your caloric intake by 100, 200 or 300 calories, that can start to make a huge difference in your energy levels. Life is so short, so I don't want you to waste it by never having energy and just thinking that that's normal. Trust me when I say it's not worth it to live in this constant state of feeling lack of energy, because you deserve to show up to your life in your best self, feeling your best.
Number two, brain fog. Oh, girl, do I know about brain fog. Back in college I remember when I was eating next to nothing I experienced the worst brain fog. I told this story before, but if you haven't heard it, I will never forget the time that my professor asked us to take a pen and paper and I couldn't even find my backpack. It was like I was staring at him, trying to process what he was telling me.
Then I was thinking I don't even know where my backpack is, and it was right next to me. That's how bad my brain fog was. And this was not just one instance. This happened all the time, and it was because I was undernourishing my body. The truth is if we're nourishing our body with what it needs, our mind should feel sharper than ever before, and our body isn't the only one who needs nutrients to thrive. You have to remember that our body is not the only one that needs nutrients to thrive. Our brain needs it as well.
Number three, you lose your period. Now I want to tread lightly here because, again, I am not qualified to talk hormones and all in-depth things, so please go to a registered dietician, please go to a hormone expert. But for me this is typically a telltale sign you're undernourishing your body, or something is not right, and it's definitely not something to celebrate.
You are a woman who is meant to have periods, so when you don't it typically means that something is drastically off within your body that you need to get looked at. As women, our hormones are extremely sensitive to undernourishing our body and it can throw our hormones all out of whack.
Throughout high school and college I lost my period on and off, and it wasn't truly until I started finally eating more that I was able to get it back consistently. But, again, I need to say this as a disclaimer, it didn't come back overnight. It actually took more than a year for me to get my period back.
I don't want to scare you or seem harsh, but this is a big deal, so if you've lost your period please, please, please I recommend talking to your doctor, a nutritionist, and really looking into hormone health to ensure that you're body is in a place where it can function properly, getting those regular periods back.
Number four, you feel cold all the time. I know that this is a weird sign, but it's typically a sign that you're undernourishing your body, or at least it can be a sign that you're undernourishing your body, because the calories that we eat are not just used for energy in our workouts, but they're obviously used for energy for basic functioning daily.
To get a little more specific, your body needs to burn a certain number of calories in order to create heat and maintain a healthy, comfortable body temperature, so if you're not giving your body enough calories, then you're not able to burn enough calories to keep you warm. It's that simple.
I want to kind of talk about this in another sense too, because I have Reynards. I don't know if you know what that is, but essentially it's like my hands and my feet don't get the blood circulation that it needs, so my hands and my feet are constantly always cold. So if you're feeling cold all the time, yes, undernourishing your body can be a sign.
But, again, going to a doctor or going to a specialist can really help you diagnose this further if this is something that you're struggling with and you feel like you're not undernourishing your body. So, as always, take all of these with a grain of salt, and I just really want to make sure that you are prioritizing that communication with a physician, with a specialist, so that you're understanding your body on a deeper level.
I think that that's something that I took for granted for a long time in my life. I said, "I only need to go to a doctor if I'm not feeling right." The fact is it's so important to go on a regular basis to make sure that your body is functioning at its optimum so that you know where your blood work is at and where you're at in so may different levels, so I am a huge advocate for going to those regular doctor's appointments and checking up on your body.
Number five, you struggle to lose weight. Think about this. Your body is kind of like a bank account. Imagine you only make withdrawals from your account without ever depositing anything into it. That kind of sounds scary, because soon or later you're going to run out of money in your account and you're going to be facing some serious issues.
Your body works in the same way. If you keep making withdrawals, aka burning energy without making deposits, aka eating, your body will do its very best to protect itself. Your body is smart with its money. It's not going to make more withdrawals than it does deposits. It knows when it's not getting enough calories, so it adapts to make sure it doesn't burn more calories than it's getting.
In order to reduce its overall caloric output, it can slow down your metabolism, and when your metabolism slows down it likely doesn't burn as much fat. It will likely cling onto fat because it thinks that it needs to save it, aka, for lack of a better term, in starvation mode and conserving every ounce of energy and fat that it can.
I've seen many women slowly increase their caloric intake through reverse dieting, which is actually something that I talked about on this podcast episode. I believe it was in episode 46, why you should consider a reverse diet, the only diet that I support. So I'll go ahead and link that in the show notes below.
Reverse dieting is so important and it's typically... I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but as you increase your caloric intake... Your metabolism is adaptive, which is so beautiful. And because it's adaptive, like I said, it will adapt in whatever way that it sees it's going.
So if you're going to constantly restrict yourself, restrict your caloric intake, your metabolism is going to say okay, I need to slow down to make sure that I'm preserving as much as I can. But if you're slowly showing your metabolism that you're increasing your caloric intake in a very methodical way, your metabolism is going to slowly adapt to that and say okay, since I'm getting more I'm able to become more efficient. So be sure to tune in to episode 46 if you haven't already. I will, again, link that in the show notes below.
Number six, you have crazy cravings. I've actually chattered about this in episode 16, three things that your cravings are trying to tell you, which I will link in the show notes as well. But cravings typically happen when we aren't giving our body enough of what it needs.
You'll notice that the more that you nourish your body the less control your cravings actually have over you. Why is this? Because your body feels satisfied, because after you've eaten you've actually given it what it needs and it doesn't feel like it needs more, aka whatever you're craving. So your food cravings may be telling you it needs more nourishment.
That's really important, and this something that I want to talk about along with food cravings, is sometimes we want a pizza and we try to make the lower calorie version of the pizza, and it just doesn't taste the same. Sometimes it's great and our minds are just playing tricks on us, and other times our bodies are like give me a dang slice of pizza. Eat the real pizza, and I promise you you will see that you will no longer have that craving control you.
This is something that I've also recently implemented too. I was finding that my body was just craving more chocolate and I was like I'm going to make a chocolate protein shake. Well, that's great, but that's actually not really curbing my chocolate fix. So for me, I decided okay, I'm going to fit in an actual chocolate dessert treat into my daily intake first and then I'm going to plan around it.
So what I've been making pretty much nightly if you've been following me on Instagram is I've been making these delicious peanut butter/honey fluff... I don't even know what to call... I was calling them wontons, but that's not actually the right term for it. But they're so good. I actually posted the recipe on my IGTV, so go check it out on my Instagram, juliealedbetter, and then on my Instagram TV you'll see the recipe video.
But it's actual chocolate chips, peanut butter, fluff, which is like the marshmallow... I don't know what it's made of, deliciousness, and honey. Then I stick it in the air fryer, and it's so good. And I'm telling you, my craving for chocolate is satisfied and it's not controlling me. It's just a matter of being smart and learning when to... Obviously if you need to make a lesser calorie option of a craving try it out and see if it curbs your craving. If not, don't be afraid to eat the real foods. It's so, so, so important.
Number seven, your hair and nails won't grow. When you don't give your body enough nutrients it has to use them sparingly, and since hair and nail growth isn't the most essential it's likely one of the places that your body will cut corners to conserve the minimal nutrients that it has.
I remember back in college I struggled for years to get my hair to grow out. I really took all the hair supplements, I was trying all the tricks, and it still wouldn't grow. I remember, looking back on it, once I started to fuel my body optimally my hair started to grow. My hair started to actually be shiny, and my nails started to grow, and my skin totally changed, like the texture of my skin.
I remember talking to my hair stylist at the time and she was telling me how directly correlated our nutrition is with our hair growth and how so many people don't understand that, but if you're undernourishing your body it's very likely that your hair stylist will see it in your hair, in your hair growth and all of those things.
So keep that in mind. Again, tons of other different things that it could possibly be, but if you are undernourishing you may likely see that your hair and nails aren't growing as fast as you would like.
Number eight, sleep issues. Now there's many different things that could cause sleep issues. So, again, I'm not just saying undereating is the only thing, but undereating is definitely one of them. The science here is a little bit complex, but ultimately being too much in a caloric deficit can impair your ability to fall into a deep REM sleep, so not eating enough can make it difficult to fall asleep, and even you can wake up in the middle of the night multiple times, which is obviously not fun.
So getting enough sleep is very, very important for mental and physical health. I talked about this on numerous different podcasts, about finding that happy medium. For some people that's seven hours. For other people it's nine hours. I know for me my happy medium is like right around eight hours. I feel like if I get nine it's too much, if I get six or six and a half that is not enough sleep for me.
So really prioritizing that sleep, that is also really essential when it comes to reaching your health and fitness goals, because sleep can really help lower the likelihood that your body is in a state of stress, which obviously can retain water weight. It can be harder for you to reach your goals because you're not getting enough sleep.
Number nine, constantly hungry. Now this is kind of an obvious one, but it still needs to be said. I think many people say that they're frustrated by still feeling hungry after a meal. They think they're eating a balanced meal, but if you're always feeling hungry afterwards something needs to be considered.
Sure, maybe it's balanced, but is it enough? Your body doesn't just feel hungry to feel hungry. It's trying to tell you something, and that something is that it might need more food. I know for me prior to counting macros and really learning the foundational pieces of like what foods have higher protein and moderate fat and moderate carbs, what foods are mainly fat sources... I remember I used to think peanut butter was a protein source.
News flash, peanut butter, yes, has some protein, but the peanut butter that I eat, it has for two tablespoons, which is one serving, 14 grams of fat, I think it's about seven grams of carbs, and five grams of protein. So of the three major macro nutrients the peanut butter is actually a fat dominant food.
I think learning the foundational pieces of food is so important, because that's going to help you understand how to put together a balanced meal in direct correlation with how much your body needs in terms of proteins, carbs and fats.
Some other signs that you may be undernourishing your body that I'm not going to dive deep into on this episode but are important to mention are bloating, constipation, acne, inability to get pregnant, getting sick often, depression, irritable mood, you stand up and get dizzy and you lack productivity.
Again, I am not saying that if you have any of these you are for sure undereating. There are so many different factors. You have a history of things, maybe you don't have a history of things, but maybe your body is going through something that really needs to be looked at by a professional, so please by all means be proactive in advocating for yourself, and if you believe something is wrong then please go to a physician, go to a doctor or specialist to make sure that everything is good or that you have at least a game plan to get back on track.
To recap the nine signs that I kind of shared in today's episode, number one, you have low energy. Number two, you've had bad brain fog. Number three, you've lost your menstrual cycle. Number four, you feel cold all the time. Number five, you struggle to lose weight. Number six, you have crazy cravings. Number seven, your hair and nails won't grow. Number eight, you have sleep issues. Number nine, you're constantly hungry.
Now if you're listening to this and you're like I feel like this might be me, I feel like I might be undernourishing my body but I don't really know, it's difficult because you don't just want to start eating more right away without educating yourself. That's why I'm a huge, firm believer in learning how to properly fuel your body, learning how much protein, how much carbs and fats that your body needs based on where you're at and what your goals are.
So please feel free to click the link in the show notes or go to juliealedbetter.com/freeebook. This eBook is going to teach you the basic foundational principles of macro counting and how important it can be on your journey. So be sure to either check that in the show notes, you can click there, or go to juliealedbetter.com/freeebook, and that will give you a 30 plus page free eBook that we've put together to just kind of educate you on my story, but also on how much your body needs to function properly.
Also the episodes that I mentioned in this episode was episode 46, why you should consider a reverse diet, and episode 16, three things your food cravings are trying to tell you. Also an episode to check out is episode 18, what happens when you don't eat enough. In this episode I actually break down why overly restricting your calories is not an effective or healthy way to create lasting weight loss. I dive into why you should never live in a caloric deficit for long periods of time and how it can be damaging to metabolism as well as the entire function of your body, and the signs that you may not be eating enough calories. I have linked all those episodes in the show notes below, so be sure to go tune in there.
I hope that you found this episode eye-opening. I hope that you found it maybe encouraging. Just learning how to properly feel your body is the name of the game for 2021, is really honoring our body with nutrition, honoring our body with the foods that we eat and the amount of food that we eat.
If you have somebody in your life that you feel like would benefit from this, I would love for you to copy this link. You can send it to them in a text message. Also if you found an ah-ha moment or if you really connected to this episode I would love for you to screenshot this, post it up on your story, say, "Hey, I'm listening to this episode. I would love for you to tune in."
You can tag me, juliealedbetter@embracerealacount. I love you so, so much. Thank you for tuning in, and I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. The first thing, if you're not already me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter... Yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real pod, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode.
Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface, so go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.