Calorie deficit isn’t an ideal option when it comes to losing weight now, or maintenance in the future. I’m assuming this is what you are intending to do by restricting calories. The problem lies in the constant restriction plus the increased rate of activity levels needed in order to even lose some kind of body fat. It’s like going around and around in circles and banging your head against a wall. Eventually, your head will crack under the pressure.

The real issue with weight loss lies on a hormonal level. When your levels are not working in union, and optimally, you leave yourself open to having a very unsuccessful journey and a frustrating one for that matter.

Why calorie restriction does not work.

When restricting calories, you are actually allowing your basal metabolic rate to fall down below the most suitable levels for weight loss to occur. Caloric reduction has forced the body has shut down in order to match the lowered caloric intake. Once expenditure drops below intake, you start the even more familiar weight regain. I’m sure we’ve all been at this point in our weight loss journey. The problem is, we don’t seem to learn our lesson – so I’m going to give you a better alternative.

Intermittent fasting – A restricted timeframe of eating – not an indefinite restriction

The beauty of this method is we deliberately train our bodies to be a lot more metabolically flexible. Fasting triggers numerous hormonal adaptations that do NOT happen with simple caloric reduction. Insulin drops precipitously, helping prevent insulin resistance. Noradrenalin rises, keeping metabolism high. Growth hormone rises, maintaining lean mass. This is the perfect environment to enhance your fat burning potential. Over four days of continuous fasting, basal metabolism does not drop. Instead, it increased by 12%. Neither did exercise capacity, as measured by the VO2, decrease, but is instead maintained. In another study, twenty-two days of alternate daily fasting also does not result in any decrease in RMR.

During fasting, the body opens up its ample supply of stored food – body fat! Basal metabolism stays high, and instead we change fuel sources from food, to stored food (or body fat). We first burn glycogen stored in the liver. When that is finished, we use body fat. Since there is plenty of fuel, there is no reason for basal metabolism to drop. And that’s the difference between long-term weight loss, and a lifetime of despair. That’s the knife edge between success and failure.

Fasting is effective where simple caloric reduction is not. What is the difference? Fat accumulation is a hormonal, not a caloric imbalance. Fasting provides beneficial hormonal changes that happen during fasting are entirely prevented by the constant intake of food. It is the intermittency of the fasting that makes it so much more effective.

Much of this research is from IDM the fasting method.

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