What Your Low Calorie Diet is Doing to Your Body
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Low calorie diet is a well-known strategy for achieving one’s dream body, but the process is much more complex than it appears at first glance.
The Embrace Your Real podcast is thrilled to present an episode that delves deeply into the subject, listing five reasons why living in a caloric deficit is an ineffective approach for attaining the body you desire, change your body composition, or help you feel confident in your body.
By exploring these five reasons in greater detail, you'll have a better understanding of why calorie restriction is not a sustainable solution and what alternative strategies you can adopt to achieve your fitness goals. Don't miss out on this informative and enlightening episode that will help you unlock the secrets to a healthier, happier, and more confident you!
What I discussed:
Caloric Deficits Can Lead to Muscle Loss
Caloric Deficits Can Slow Down Your Metabolism
Caloric Deficits Can Negatively Impact Your Hormones
Caloric Deficits Can Lead to Weight Gain.
Caloric Deficits Can Lead to a Poor Relationship With Food and Your Body.
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Episode 46 - Why You Should Consider A Reverse Diet (The Only Diet I Support!)
Macro Counting Made Simple Academy - macrocountingmadesimple.com
Free e-book - www.juliealedbetter.com/free-ebook
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
Instagram: @embraceyourreal | @movementwithjulie
Movement With Julie | App: https://sale.movementwithjulie.com/
Website: www.juliealedbetter.com
Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/influencer-6bda1ca8?ref=cm_sw_em_r_inf_pub_influencer-6bda1ca8_dp_DgsIam9salgfi
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 issue 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 it, let's go.
Hello and welcome back to another episode on the Embrace Your Real podcast. Low calorie. Is this what you need to build the body that you want? I think that we have as a society and then just more so in general with women. There's a constant obsession with this concept of caloric deficit when it comes to wanting to build the body that you want with weight loss and having a body transformation. And I think, you know, so many people are consumed with this idea that consuming fewer calories than your body burns is the only way and the ultimate way to lose weight and achieve the body of your dreams. Now, I will give a caveat here. Of course, a caloric deficit is going to help you. With that being said, is a lot more complex. And I kind of want to go into like the nitty gritty of just more that you might not know when it comes to having a low calorie diet and how that could be affecting the way that you are approaching your health and fitness goals. And I want to kind of explore in particular five reasons why living in a severe caloric deficit will not help you build the body that you want. It will not help you change your body composition or help you feel confident in your body.
But before we dive in to this episode, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Freedom Reign. Love that username, she said Great inspiring podcast and gave a 5-star review:
I love, love, love your podcasts. A friend shared with me one of your podcasts on macro accounting and now I am hooked. I love your mix of topics from nutrition to workouts and faith. I was a quote, fat kid, so I have been dieting and working out my whole life. Now that I'm almost 50, the weight has crept back on and my usual diet changes are not working. I just started macro counting and lifting weights more, as you suggested. I will keep you updated, keep the podcasts coming. We will keep listening. I love this so much.
I am so grateful that you found this podcast and thank you for sharing that. You like the mix of nutrition and fitness and faith in life in general. I just feel grateful and honored to have this platform to be able to speak with you guys on a weekly basis. It is something that I never want to take for granted, and I am so incredibly grateful that you keep listening to them that you guys, you know, tune in, whether it's a nine minute episode or a 30 minute episode. I'm just grateful that you are here. Thank you so much. If you have a friend or a coworker or someone in your life that you feel like would benefit from this podcast or a specific episode in general, I just ask that you share that with them. You can copy the link and send it to them in a text message. You can also screenshot those imposed upon your story and tag some people that you think might benefit from this podcast.
Also, if you haven't left a rating interview, that would mean the absolute world to me. They really do help in terms of just reaching more women, and that is our ultimate goal on this podcast. It's completely free content. This is an outlet for me to be able to speak with you and kind of really go deep into specific topics that so many people have questions about on a regular basis. And, you know, just talking with people in direct messages and in my Facebook group and on my social platforms, it's hard to really get deep and nitty gritty with certain topics. And so that's why I love this podcast that I'm able to kind of hear from you how you are liking the episodes, what episodes are resonating with you. And then I'm able to then go in depth and really talk about specific topics so you can switch over to Apple Podcasts and do that. That would really bless me and our team. Thank you in advance.
Okay, so let's dive into what your low calorie diet is doing to your body. Before we dive into kind of the five reasons that I want to go in-depth with in today's episode, I want to note that when you are in a class deficit, you should only be, you know, cutting 3 to 500 calories for a brief period of time and brief period of time, depending on how slow or fast you go to your macro sets and how consistent you're being to adhering to them, as well as what your ultimate goals are. It's going to range from person to person. But when I'm talking about the specific topics, I am talking about a severe caloric deficit. So five, six, 700 calories from your maintenance, that is when you're really kind of in the danger zone when you are doing this for long periods of time. So let's dive into kind of the five reasons you, in fact, do not want to be in a severe caloric deficit long term.
Number one, caloric deficits. And when I say Clark, deficits, again, talking specifically about severe caloric deficits can lead to muscle loss over time. So one thing that's really important to keep in mind when you're trying to lose weight or change your body composition is that living in this severe caloric deficit can actually cause you muscle loss. I know it kind of sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out. When you consume fewer calories than your body burns, your body will start to look for other sources of energy to make up for that deficit. Right. So, unfortunately, one of those sources it can turn to is your muscle tissue. And this is because. His muscle tissue is actually pretty energy intensive to maintain. Your body will break it down to use as fuel if it needs to.
Well, the problem with this is that it can actually have a big impact on your body composition. Right. You might lose weight, but if you're losing a lot of muscle in the process, you're not going to achieve the desired effects that you are wanting. Right? You might be thinner, you might be smaller, but you don't have much muscle definition and you don't have that lean, toned look that many women, at least women that contact me and that I'm in conversation with on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. That's kind of what they're looking for. When I say like, what are your goals? And they say, you know, I want to weight loss. Like that's their first thing. And then I'm like, okay, well, tell me like a little bit more. Often times people, they want this lean, toned, they like muscle definition. A lot of women don't like tons and tons and tons of muscle definition. This is obviously going to vary from person to person. But just in general, this is what a lot of women, at least, and I'm in contact with are kind of after in terms of their health and fitness goals. And this is something that I talk, you know, a lot about. Like people really confuse weight loss with changing their body composition. And I talked about that in previous episodes. I will link them in the show notes below. But just talking more in particular about exercise and nutrition, which one's more important for body composition changes and kind of what body composition change actually looks like and what it takes to achieve a body composition change. Because I think many people, they just think weight loss is what they're looking for when in actuality it's not essentially weight loss. And that's when they get discouraged because the number on the scale is not going down. And yet they're staying consistent with their nutrition, they're staying consistent with their workouts, and it's because they have the wrong lens going into their goals and they're not recognizing that body composition changes. Huge body composition changes can happen without the weight scale even budging at all. And that's why I talk in great detail about many different other ways to monitor your progress, which is a whole nother topic. And I do have some episodes on that specific topic in general on just, you know, other ways to monitor your body progress other than the scale, but just know in general, a lean and toned body cannot be achieved when you're living in this constant state of drastic caloric deficit.
Number two, a severe caloric deficit can actually slow down your metabolism. Now, I know this sucks. Like you're like, Well, that really sucks. Okay, I don't want to be in a class deficit at all. That's not what I'm talking about. Again, I'm talking about long periods of time, prolonged periods of time of being in a severe caloric deficit. But our bodies are really good at adapting to changes in our environment, including changes in our diet. Right? When you start eating fewer calories than your body's used to, your body is thinking, oh, no, we're not getting enough food. We better conserve energy. So it starts to essentially slow down your metabolism for lack of a better term, which is basically the rate at which your body burns calories at rest. And this means your body is going to burn far less calories at rest than it would otherwise. But the problem with this is that it can make it hard to lose weight and keep it off in the long run. Right. If your metabolism is slower, you're burning fewer calories at rest. This means that you need to eat fewer calories to keep losing weight. And this can lead to this cycle of yo yo dieting where you're losing weight only to regain it once you're off your diet and then you continue to cut more and more calories in order to see, you know, more weight loss results. So to sum up, living in this constant state of a caloric deficit that can do damage to our metabolism, which can make it harder to lose weight and keep it off in the long term when we take measures to lose weight that trigger, you know, a slower metabolism or a metabolism that is not optimal, we are working against ourselves. It's much more effective to take measures that will speed up your metabolism or make your metabolism more efficient, like resistance training, like fueling your body for muscle growth through eating enough daily. I know it might seem counterintuitive, but eating more than you think will actually give you better results because you are fueling your metabolism what it needs to burn while you're at rest and keep it optimal. There's so much in this specific topic when it comes to metabolism, but I do want to note something. If you have not tuned in to episode 46, the only diet that I support it is all talking about reverse dieting and the importance of reverse dieting. If you don't know what that is, or if maybe you've heard that term a few times, but you don't really know in depth what that topic is really all about. I go in depth, I talk about my story. I personally have reversed diet dieted four times throughout the last about decade, like ten or so years, and I can tell you that it has singlehandedly changed my life. It has changed my metabolism. And I know that if you have been living in this constant state of a severe caloric deficit and you just feel like, you know, I eat 1200 calories and I still can't lose weight, it could potentially be. That you are. Your metabolism is not where it needs to be. And the coolest thing about our metabolism is that they are adaptable. So if you are fueling your body optimally, if you are taking it in steps and you are going through a very precise reverse diet and you are reversing back into almost a maintenance mode, but doing it slow and methodically, your metabolism can adapt and become more efficient, which is so cool. So I will link episode 46 in the show notes below that talks all about that. But just know that if you are living in a severe Clark deficit, it can affect your metabolism.
Number three, severe caloric deficits can negatively impact your hormones. So basically, our bodies rely on a delicate balance of hormones to keep everything running smoothly, right from our metabolism to our energy levels or even how we store fat. When I say a delicate balance, I mean it. Like women's hormones are extremely sensitive. When we don't eat enough calories to fuel our bodies needs, our hormones can get thrown out of whack and we can cause all kinds of issues in our body. For example, when you are not getting enough calories, your body can start to produce more of a hormone called cortisol, which I've talked about a lot in this podcast. You might know cortisol as the stress hormone, and it's responsible for helping our bodies deal with stress. But when cortisol levels are too high for too long, it can actually lead to things like low energy, poor sleep, and even mood disorders like anxiety or depression. But more importantly, cortisol can actually trigger weight gain, especially around the abdominal area. Low calorie intake, like having a severe low calorie intake, can also cause imbalances with other hormones like leptin and ghrelin, which regulate our appetite and our hunger signals. Again, those are two hormones that I've talked about a lot in previous episodes. When these hormones are thrown off, it can actually make us feel hungrier than we should be and even lead to cravings for just eating more than our body needs in general or foods that are not going to be as nutritious to properly fueling our body long term. A low, severe caloric diet can really impact your sex hormones as well. And this may mean that you might lose your period or even potentially suffer from infertility. This is a very serious matter and it's not something to mess around with if you lose your period. It is very, very important that you seek a medical practitioner as soon as possible, really, to get your blood work done and evaluate how your overall bodily functions are working and how also recognizing that your daily intake and what you're doing and what you're eating or what you're not doing and what you're not eating could be impacting it. So I will always tell you and refer you to a medical practitioner, someone that is very proficient in this specific area. That is not my area of expertise. I am not specifically giving you nutrition advice, but I am just saying in general, this is something that I don't think a lot of women recognize. The things and the way that you are fueling your body does directly impact all of these things, especially as women are hormones, you know, with cortisol and leptin and ghrelin. And all of these things are very, very interconnected. So it's important that you are recognizing that when you are making the decision to go in a caloric deficit or stay in a deficit for a long period of time.
Number four. Clark Deficits can lead to weight gain. So I know I touched on this in other points, but it's really important to reiterate this. Most women go into a caloric deficit and then they live there due to wanting to constantly lose more and more weight. You know, they're living in a collect deficit because they're not seeing the results that they want. Maybe they saw, you know, someone say, you know, I'm I'm eating 1500 calories and so they start eating 1500 calories or they saw this what I eat in a day. And so they just copy that, not understanding that every single body is different and every single person does require a different number of protein, carbs and fats, depending on where you're at and what your goals are. And a lot of women think that, you know, the longer that they stay there, eventually they'll get to where they want to be. But what you don't understand is that the longer that you live there, the less likely you are to actually see the results that you want. And I know, again, that sounds counterintuitive. I'm just putting myself in, you know, 23 year old Julie thinking that, okay, well, if I just, you know, eat less, that's actually going to bring me the results. And that couldn't be further from the truth. And this is really due to everything that we've talked about thus far, leading to weight gain, muscle burns, fat. So when you dip into your muscle for energy, your muscles start breaking down and you're going to get more fat in its place. When you slow down your metabolism, you're going to become more sensitive to the food that you eat, which can trigger weight gain. Your metabolism is not functioning at its optimum. Then your metabolism is going to adapt in a negative way. Hormone imbalances, those can, you know, due to a severe caloric deficit, those can mess with your hormones that deal with your metabolism and your fat storage. And once those become. Out of whack that can trigger fat storage. Lastly, something I haven't mentioned yet in this episode is that once you start eating normal again, you're likely going to gain all that way back again because you're going from such a low amount of calories. And then you're jumping to, let's say, maintenance mode, which is why it is so, so important that you recognize the phase of macro counting called reverse dieting. Because when you are living in that caloric deficit that results in metabolic inflexibility essentially means that your body has adjusted to the drastic caloric deficit. So anything that you put in your body is going to stores fat. Just like I mentioned, our metabolisms are adaptable. They can adapt in a positive way. When you are slowly and methodically going through a reverse diet or they can adapt negatively. If you are jumping from a severe caloric deficit strain into maintenance or you are living in the severe caloric deficit for a long period of time, right? So you might get a nice quick fix result from a low calorie food intake, but in the long term you're actually setting yourself up for weight gain and years of a not optimally functioned metabolism or a damaged metabolism, again, for lack of a better term. It's so cool how our metabolisms are adaptable, but I think that we need to recognize that in both ways that you can damage your metabolism, but you can also repair your metabolism.
And lastly, number five, caloric deficits can lead to a poor relationship with food in your body. This is very, very important when you're constantly focusing on restricting your calories and monitoring your food intake, it can start to feel like food is the enemy. You start to feel guilty, you start to feel ashamed when you're eating something that you're not allowed to eat or that you've labeled as good or bad or healthier unhealthy. You might feel like you're constantly depriving yourself, especially if you're eating in a severe caloric deficit over time. This can really lead to an unhealthy relationship with food. You might feel like you know, certain foods that maybe you didn't even have any sort of feeling towards in the past. You're now looking at them as good or bad. You might start obsessing over the low amount of calories to the point where it's hindering you in social situations or eating food in general. On top of that, constantly striving for this severe caloric deficit can also make you super hyper focused on your body and your appearance. You might start feeling like you're worth as a person is tied to your size, your shape, and this can be really damaging to your mental health and just overall self-esteem. The food that you're eating should be enjoyed and should be fueling you in a way that is making you feel energized and confident in your body. Trust me, I am speaking 100% from experience that you can eat in a way where you develop a healthy relationship with food and your body. And this is truly what the tool of macro counting has given me.
Personally, I'm just speaking from my personal experience. It has taught me to properly feel my body with what it needs and actually what it wants so that I can build the body that I want long term and maintain it and not experience these negative effects from living in this severe caloric deficit. I personally, I can eat the foods that I want when I want it. I am not feeling hungry all the time to the point where I get to this breaking point where I just see everything and anything to the point where you get sick. I know that that was me For a decade of my life in particular, there was a good 4 to 5 years of my life where I would do that and it was a regular on a regular basis. I would restrict or restrict, restrict. I would tell myself, I can't eat this. I would go for one week, two weeks, three weeks. Sometimes I would even go a few months. And then I get to this breaking point where I was like, I cannot do this any longer. And then I would just go crazy. And it was this toxic yo yo cycle and man, it affected every aspect of my life. And I talk about nutrition and I talk about properly feeling your body so much on this podcast because it is so important. It is a part of life that every single one of us has to do on a daily basis, right? We have to eat food in order to live the social situations. We constantly revolve around food. And so if you are not educated and empowered around food, it is going to take up so much mental space and it is likely going to take you down a path that you feel like you just cannot control. You feel like you are in this toxic cycle.
And so that's why I just personally have I say this a lot, but I'm going to continue to say it because it's important when you educate yourself on how to properly feel your body, it gives you empowerment like nothing else. When you know my body is optimally fueled at this number of protein, this number of carbs this summer, fats. Or in general, You know, I feel good when I'm eating these types of food. I feel good when I am drinking this much water, when I'm moving my body this way, like it can be life changing in not only the way that you feel around food, but also in your energy levels, in your confidence. So many areas of your life can be positively impacted when you properly fuel your body and you educate yourself about this. So I kind of have two things that I want to leave you with on this particular topic.
Number one, if you want to stop depriving your body of calories and start setting yourself up for success, I need you to do one of two things. Number one, if you have not already downloaded my free e-book, you can go to Julie A Ledbetter dot com forward slash free dash e-book. I will link it in the show notes below. Or if you are just like I am ready to get started. I don't want to try to do this on my own. We do have a macro accounting made simple online academy that will teach you step by step how to properly feel your body when you join the program. We give you an extensive questionnaire form that says, okay, what are your goals? Where are you at? What's your activity level in your workouts, out of your workouts? And then we take that information and we create a customized nutrition program for you. Now, it's important to know we do not tell you you need to eat. You know this for breakfast and you need to eat this for lunch and you need to eat this for dinner. We don't tell people that because everybody's preferences when it comes to eating is totally different. And that's the beautiful thing about macro accounting, is that you personally get to pick and choose whatever foods you want and you get to navigate that and fit it into your daily allotment of calories, your protein, your carbs, your fats. And it's just a beautiful thing because it is completely custom to you and you no longer have to live from diet to diet. Like, okay, you know, I need two eggs and I need one piece of toast and I need, you know, some avocado, like whatever it is that you've been eating for breakfast or you've been eating for lunch. I'm not saying that you can't have certain things that you've been eating previously, but you have the freedom and flexibility to literally eat whatever you want, which is amazing. And the second thing that I want to leave you with is that if you have been living in a Clark deficit for years, and when I say again Clark deficit, you know your maintenance calories, and then you are looking at what you're you're eating now and you're like, man, it has been, you know, four, five, six, 700 calories less than my maintenance. That's a severe caloric deficit. Just know, again, like I mentioned earlier, you can't just start eating in maintenance mode and just think that everything's going to go away, that you're just now going to start to reach your health and fitness goals. I would encourage you to look into the podcast episode that I mentioned earlier, Episode 46 The only diet that I support. It's talking all about reverse dieting and how you should approach your reverse diet in a methodical way so that it can set you up to win long term. So I will link that in the show notes below. I want you to tune into that episode if you haven't yet, and then know that if you decide to join the micro counting meet simple online academy, we can actually help you through your oversight. So you can, you know, you can pick on the questionnaire form like, I think, you know, after listening to this episode, I think I want to go on to Riverside or you can just say, I want to leave it up to you guys. I want to tell you where I'm at and I want to get your opinion. And we can absolutely look at that and we can give you some guidance there in terms of the best approach that we think you should take based on where you're at and what your goals are. So those are the two things that I want to leave you with. Again, I will link both of those things. The free e-book that I mentioned, as well as my macro accounting meets simple online academy. And then the other link that I owe you in the shownotes is episode 46. Why you should consider a reverse diet so that you can go to an into that.
I hope that this episode was helpful for you. I hope that this gave you some food for thought. I know for me, you know, I lived in a decade of my life thinking that the lowest calorie diet, oh, that's going to lead me through to see the results that I want. And I just felt like I was hitting a dead wall every single time. And it was because I was just not educated in this. I wasn't recognizing, you know, it sounds so easy when you say like, oh, don't live in a caloric deficit, it's going to negatively impact your body. I think that I wasn't really thinking about that. Like, I wasn't thinking that our bodies are so interconnected with so many different areas that it can be, you know, negatively or positively impacted based on what we're doing or what we're eating. And so if you found this episode helpful and you feel like you have a girlfriend or someone in your life that would benefit from this specific episode, I just ask that you share it out with them. You can also again copy the link, send it to them in a text message or you can screenshot this and post it up on your story. I would love to also hear your aha moments so be sure to tag me. I'm on Instagram. Embrace Serial. I'm also on my movement with Julie, Instagram and also Julie a lot better so whatever way you. Want to contact me on Instagram. I love connect with you guys. That is all that I have for today's episode. I love you so much. I mean it. And I'll talk to you in the next one.
All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you're not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so. Julie, a lot better. Yes. It's with an eye in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, Healthy tips and tricks and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts 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.