Starvation Diets - Do They Work? Articles | Weight Loss

Many people find it difficult to understand how starvation doesn't help you lose weight all the time...or how it can even make you gain.

The truth is, though... starvation is simply not effective when it comes to weight loss.

The reason for this is because when you restrict the number of calories that you take in, your body literally goes into a "starvation mode".

Your mind thinks that you're doing the logical thing - burning more calories than you're taking in - and so that you should naturally lose weight.

Your body, however, "outsmarts" your mind. It believes that it is not going to be fed any more calories, so it will do everything it can to hold on to whatever calories/fat/etc. that it can get access to.

That means that even if you don't eat any more food now, your body will cling to everything that it was holding before. Food that is in your body will not be burnt as normal... and your weight loss efforts will actually be stagnated.

This would work well if you were in some sort of famine, but not in a situation in which you're trying to lose weight.

Besides this, starvation mode leads to a direct loss of muscle. When this happens, your metabolism is forced to slow down even more (as if the normal consequences weren't enough). When your metabolism slows down, it becomes even more difficult to lose weight.

In addition to all of this, you will likely feel very tired and find it difficult to concentrate.