Eat To Lose Weight - Cycle Your Eating For Rapid Fat Loss

Now, I know a lot of people are thinking "I've tried everything to lose weight, and I've heard of the 'eat to lose weight' approach. So why can't I eat what I want and lose weight following this method?" What you need to understand is that there is actually a complex mechanism at work that allows you to lose weight when following this system; it is however not about gorging yourself and expecting to lose excess pounds.

First, we need to understand what happens when we eat excessively as well as when when don't eat enough calories to sustain our basic body functions. On one side, the result of overeating, meaning taking in more calories than we burn, is weight gain because the body can only process so many calories in any given day not to mention, in any given meal. What many people don't realize, is that when we don't eat enough calories to sustain basic functions, our bodies think that we are starving; a defense mechanism kicks in, and our bodies take every expendable calorie and turn it into fat because the body thinks that it is going to starve.

The difference between the two aforementioned situations can actually be manipulated to increase your results in your journey to permanent weight loss. Let's say that you need 2000 calories to maintain your present body weight; in order to lose one pound of weight in 1 week, you need to eat to lose weight, 3500 less calories per month than you need to maintain your present weight.

The problem with this, is that our bodies are very adaptive. When your body 'realizes' what is going on, it will begin to hold onto calories, and the weight loss will plateau, much like with building muscle. On the opposite side of the spectrum we have the scenario where we don't eat enough and the body goes into starvation mode, saving every calorie as fat.

So you're thinking, "eat, don't eat, either way I'm screwed". Well, actually no. The idea is to "trick" the body. When we talk about how to eat to lose weight, we are actually also talking about curbing our caloric intake as well to confuse the body. One day, your body gets plenty of calories, and after a period, will become accustomed to getting that amount. On the next day you eat less than what your body needs; the result will be that your body never knows how many calories it is going to get, but it is not starving so to speak.

The result is an environment where your body is in constant flux; never fully able to adapt, and therefore doesn't store calories but rather makes more efficient use of the calories that you eat, whether you eat more or less; the idea is to cycle your intakes. This is where the term "eat to lose weight" comes into play.