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Obesity seems to be a curse. Yet the worst part is not the obesity but the feverishness with which people attempt to lose their extra fat. People adopt certain extreme measures to cut down the body mass. One needs to understand the body, its functioning and diet accordingly. One of the commonly misunderstood advices is that you need to eat fewer calories than how much you burn. So people begin to starve themselves to lose weight and what logic does the ‘starvation mode” provide?

By not taking in sufficient calories in a day your metabolism will slow down and will store what you eat as fat. Or

When you consume very little calories for too long, and you go back to eating ‘normally’ you will store more fat than before.

Hence you should starve yourself. But this is utterly absurd way of thinking. Let me make myself clearer.

Firstly , I found no research available to support the above statement of how consumption of calories affect the metabolism.

Secondly; It is your body weight that mainly affects your metabolism. The quantity of food you consume per day has a very little to do with your metabolic rate and does not effect greatly on your weight loss or gain.

However if you do lose your muscle mass in your diet regime then your metabolism will reduce. This doesn’t mean that you will store more fat in your body each time you eat. Now you merely need to eat less to sustain your new lighter bodyweight.

Thirdly : People say “When you get back to eating ‘normal’ it will bounce back and stock up more fat”. I would like to know what is eating normal mean? Suppose for instance you weigh 200 pounds and you eat 3500 calories per day…is this eating normal?

And now you reduce your eating to 2000 calorie per day for 10 weeks, and weigh 180 pounds (a good minus of 20 pounds! Yay!)

And your returning to normal eating that is 3500 calories per day, would mean you will gain extra body mass and weigh 200 pounds again.

This is not some boomerang. Your body is not suddenly producing extra fat or storing it. it is just the amount of calories that you eat to keep you at that weight.

The phrase ‘starvation mode’ I find is not a scientific term, it is a hype fashioned by the diet and fitness industry. Such a term does not exist within the terminology of nutrition or human physiology research. However this leads to a lot of misconception among the youth that starving yourself is the only way to lose weight.

The new in thing and what most nutritionist suggests is fasting, short term fasting. This is a simple way to reduce your food intake without affecting your metabolism. Research shows that fasting has some other useful benefits too. So you can reduce your calorie intake for few days and get back to your usual diet. This in no way has any effect over your metabolism. Also with thus you can eat your hearts content, whenever you like without any regret (of course not at the time when you are fasting!) so enjoy your food and lose weight as well. No more regrets and misgiving!