Can Not Eating Enough Make You Gain Weight?
CAN NOT EATING ENOUGH MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT?
Written by Jonathan Fletcher
If you save too much money, you’ll end up broke.
If you take your foot off the gas, you’ll speed up.
Sounds kinda backward right?
How about when you hear that eating too little can make you gain weight?
That sounds backward too.
How can eating too little make you gain weight?
Well, it really can’t. But it kinda can.
Let’s get into this.
First off, no one is immune to the science of energy balance.
This is the whole “calories in vs. calories out” thing.
If you eat more calories over the next month than you burn, you will gain weight.
If you eat less calories over the next month than you burn, you will lose weight.
These are the facts.
With that out of the way, how do we deal with the contradiction that eating too little can make you gain weight?
Is it “starvation mode”? Nope. That’s not a thing either.
Look at people across history who haven’t had access to food, or just watch a season of the reality show Alone.
If you don’t eat food, you shrink. Quickly.
Here’s exactly how eating too little can make you gain weight, in a real-life example.
Michael is due for a physical. He’s turning 40 soon, and he’s been putting it off.
He feels ashamed that he’s let his health take a back seat lately, and he’s been avoiding the reality of finding out just how bad it’s gotten.
As he sits on the impossibly thin paper cover on the examining table, he’s embarrassed to take his shirt off for the doctor. The last time he was in the same office, he didn’t think twice about doing it.
Sweat runs down his forehead as the blood pressure cuff tightens around his arm. He can feel his heart beginning to race.
Time stops as the doctor moves the cold stethoscope around his chest and back.
A week later Michael’s phone rings. It’s the doctor with the results.
It’s not good.
Pre-diabetes, high LDL (the bad one), and his resting heart rate is way outside of the range of healthy.
Michael has to lose weight. 50lbs to be exact. The reality of the news hits him like a body blow from Tyson in his prime.
He’s terrified to tell his wife, but he does.
Michael is the top salesperson in his company, but his training in sales didn’t exactly come with any education on healthy weight loss.
So he does what most of us do. Asks Google.
He reads about energy balance, tracking calories, and he’s ready to do this.
Michael feels the pressure to get the fat off his stomach ASAP, so he uses an online calorie calculator, set to the “aggressive” option.
The number 1,400 pops up on the screen when he hits the “GIVE ME MY CALORIES” button.
He rubs his eyes a few times and looks again.
Confirmed, 1,400.
He thinks it sounds kinda low, but again… He needs to lose this fat right now. His health is at risk.
Monday comes (that’s the only day you are allowed start a diet FYI 👀), and off he goes.
Day 1 goes pretty well. Michael’s stomach growled 3 times before lunch, and once before bed, but he manages by staying full of water, and by chewing half a pack of sugar-free gum.
Tuesday was about the same as Monday. Small portions, a few stomach growls, no snacking, and lots of gum.
Wednesday actually felt a little better than Tuesday, and he hit 1400 calories with ease, thank God. This is going to be a breeze.
Thursday was a different story. It’s like Wednesday’s hunger had been on vacation, and returned with 10 of her friends. 27 stomach growls (why is he counting anyway?).
It didn’t help that one of the accounts he visited that day had box after box of donuts laid out like they were competing for the “most decadent donut” award.
Michael managed to keep his wits, and only went over his calories by about 50. He went to bed hungry, lulled to sleep by the low rumbling sounds of an empty stomach.
Friday comes, and Michael is nervous that it’ll be a repeat of yesterday’s brutal hunger. He simply cannot endure that again. By now he knows what 1400 calories feels like, and it makes him more than a little depressed.
The weekly Friday sales meeting ends at 3:00 PM sharp and Michael gets invited to happy hour, but he declines. He’s almost out of calories, so he heads home to enjoy a tall glass of ice water, celery, and some spearmint-flavored Extra with his bride.
What a way to start the weekend.
The good news is that over the last 5 days Michael’s consistency has paid off. He only went over his 1400-calorie budget one day. And gritting his way through his hunger has been rewarded with 4 pounds of weight loss.
He’s proud of his work so far. Tired, but proud.
Saturday starts off normally, but Michael’s getting anxious. His wife wants to go out for Mexican, and frankly, so does he.
On the way to the restaurant the inner dialogue starts.
“I’ve done really well this week. I’ve been starving, and I’ve lost a lot of weight. I deserve a little reward.”
The bottomless basket of warm, salty chips and salsa hits the table the moment their butts hit the booth.
He pauses for exactly 3 seconds, thinks about logging the calories in the meal, and the rest is history.
2 baskets of chips and an order of guac are gone before the meal comes out.
That’s 780 Calories
It’s illegal to have Mexican food in Texas without a margarita, so why not have 2?
That’s 619 Calories
Fajitas sounded good tonight, and since he’s already “ruined the day”, Michael, eats all of it, including the 4 tortillas, oil-soaked peppers, refried beans, and rice they came with.
That’s 2,190 Calories - Yes, you read that right.
Nothing tastes better after a salty meal, and 2 drinks than Frozen Yogurt topped with chocolate chips.
That’s 430 Calories
The night is over, and between dinner, drinks, and dessert, Michael had over 4,000 calories in less than 2 hours.
Oh yeah, let’s not forget the 1,300 calories he had for breakfast, lunch, and snacks before dinner.
All in all, Michael ate over 5,000 calories on Saturday.
He knew it seemed like a lot of food, and he had a stomach ache when he went to bed, but he figured it couldn’t have been that bad.
Maybe it was like 1,500 calories? 2,000 tops? Nope!
Sunday morning he feels like death as he steps on the scale.
“HOLY CRAP!”
He gets off, and back on three more times in disbelief, but the story doesn’t change.
He gained 7lbs since yesterday, which is even more than before he started the diet last Monday!
An entire week of starving and suffering was for nothing.
Even though most of that extra 7lbs was water weight and undigested fajita, Michael is sunk.
Sunday turns into an anger and depression-fueled eating binge.
Chips, pizza, ice cream, and IPA’s. No telling how many calories Michael had.
Our hero isn’t a quitter though. The memory of that phone call with the doctor still cuts deep.
He vows to “buckle down”, and do better this week.
But alas, a similar cycle repeats for 6 of the next 8 weeks until Michael just gives up on getting healthy altogether.
He’s not weak-willed, lacking discipline, or a bad person.
Michael gained weight because he ate too little.
A lack of education, and his desire to drop weight quickly led him to take an aggressive approach. Really low calories.
Again, Michael did need to eat less calories to lose weight, but not that few. Not 1,400.
His body was smart. It knew he was trying to starve it.
So it ramped up the hormones that make him feel hungry, and it made him play tricks about his progress in his mind.
It slowed his body down to try and conserve energy, which zapped his motivation.
Eating only 1,400 calories a day Monday through Friday (7,000 calories) is what ultimately led to him eating another 7,000+ on Saturday and Sunday alone.
If Michael had hired us, or at least researched a more sustainable approach, he’d have been given a range between 2,000 and 2,200 calories to eat per day.
That’s an extra 600-800 calories per day, or an extra 4,000-5,000 per week.
And while he wouldn’t have lost 4 pounds in 5 days with our approach, he wouldn’t have felt the need to go face first into 7,000 calories on the weekend.
He wouldn’t have felt those frequent hunger pangs, and would actually have been able to have a drink and dessert within his calories without losing his mind.
And ultimately that means he could be consistent, which means he could keep losing pounds, which means both he and his doctor would be happy.
If Michael had done it differently, eating more could have made him lose more.
If you’ve ever tried extremely low-calorie diets, cleanses, or programs that were really just ways to make you starve, you get it.
It’s not sustainable.
Eating too little is making you gain weight.
If you want to do it differently this time, we can help.
Set up a free call with me by clicking the button below.
P.S. If you want to see what a realistic number of calories might be for you based on your goals, you can download our free calorie and macronutrient guide below.
