Eating less doesn’t always mean doing more for yourself

Dieting is not primarily what this site is about. But in the course of eating less fat, salt and sugar, it seems you inevitably will eat less and lose weight. I know I did. Cutting out processed foods and restaurant foods with too much salt, fat and sugar meant I was eating less since there aren’t many substitutes for such offerings.

I loved this sign — I eat a lot of lettuce these days but that doesn’t mean I’m trying to lose weight.

But does eating less help you? In the long run, it can impact your metabolism and actually make it harder to drop pounds when you want to. Former Biggest Loser trainer Jillian Michaels makes that point in a recent posting on her website.

“It is absolutely 100 percent essential to eat enough calories! If you don’t, it will destroy your metabolism. It’s like telling your body that you’re starving. If your body thinks it’s starving, your metabolism will shut down,” she writes.

“Not eating enough calories will also force the body to cannibalize muscle and hold on to fat. The body considers muscle to be expendable during periods of starvation, and it considers fat to be necessary to insulate your organs for survival.

“Finally, a deficit of daily calories will lead to a horrible cycle of yo-yo dieting. You’ll starve yourself and end up losing muscle, and when you begin to eat the right amount of calories, your body will pack on the pounds in anticipation of another ‘famine, ‘” she concludes.

Our bodies crave fat, salt and sugar to survive in tough times, fighting those urges takes constant vigilance, but not drastic dieting.

John