Are You Eating Enough? The Proven Consequences of a Low-Calorie Diet

Let’s be honest, finding the appropriate caloric need for your body can be a bit challenging. Finding the right balance of calories can feel like a frustrating game of cat and mouse. You might increase your calories, only to end up gaining unwanted weight. Then, you cut back on calories, leaving you feeling miserable, hungry, and constantly thinking about food.

Unfortunately, many have the mindset that less is more in terms of calories. We believe that as long as we eat less we are guaranteed weight loss. However, many of us have consistently restricted our consumption only to find that the scale has remained the same or has even gone up. So what’s the deal? How are we to navigate this turbulent world of caloric intake? Well first, let’s start with the basics…

What is a Calorie?

A calorie is a basic unit for measuring energy – the energy that food and drinks provide the body. There are 3 basic units of calories, called macronutrients which include carbohydrates (carbs), fats, and protein.

• Carbohydrates – 4 calories per gram
• Fats – 9 calories per gram
• Protein – 4 calories per gram

Fat and protein are essential for the body to function properly. Carbs are not essential for bodily function. The body breaks down carbohydrates into glucose, which is then used as fuel. However, the body can also convert protein into glucose which is why carbs are a nonessential macronutrient.

Proteins are made up of 9 essential amino acids that are often referred to as “chemical building blocks”. The body uses these amino acids to build and repair muscles and bones and to produce hormones and enzymes. Fats play an essential role in maintaining a healthy body. They protect important organs, regulate hormones, repair and transport cells, facilitate the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, help control cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and provide the body with consistent energy.

Not All Calories are the Same

It’s understandable to think that 1,500 calories is 1,500 calories regardless of where those calories came from. However, this mindset is wrong and can lead to poor health and unnecessary weight gain.

The impact on the body differs significantly between consuming 600 calories of steak and consuming 600 calories of cereal due to how the body processes those calories. Calories from foods such as cereal are considered “empty calories” (calories void of nutrition) meaning there is nothing in cereal that the body needs. After a brief insulin spike, the body will eliminate these calories as waste. However, meat contains essential minerals, fat, and protein that are broken down and utilized by the body to repair cells and build muscle and bone. The nutrients in meat also help in regulating hormones and providing energy.

A great way to know if you are consuming foods your body cannot use is by taking a good hard look at your stool¹. While this may not be pleasant, it is important. Signs of a nutrient-deficient diet include multiple bowel movements per day, excessively large stool, and/or “floaters” (stool that floats rather than sinks). These signs indicate that most of what you’re consuming is being turned into waste, essentially a collection of substances your body had no use for. The goal is to have small to medium, good consistency (not too hard and not too soft) bowel movements every one to three days.

How Many Calories?

According to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans², adults between the ages of 19-59 require between 1,600-3,000 kcal per day. For women, the recommended daily caloric consumption is between 1,600-2,400 kcal. The recommendation for men is 2,000-3,000 kcal daily. While these estimates are helpful they are also very vague and still leave a lot of room for error. The issue is that several variables affect our daily caloric needs. Height, weight, activity level, muscle density, age, sex, overall health, and many other factors play a role in determining our body’s personal caloric needs.

What Happens When You Don’t Eat Enough

A common misconception is that calorie restriction always results in weight loss. However, many of us have “crash dieted” before only to find that the results were not what we had hoped for. Why is this? It all boils down to our metabolism…as well as our ancestry as human beings.

Throughout history, the human species has experienced many periods of feast or famine. In her book, Sick Enough, The Medical Complications of Under-Eating, Dr Gaudiani describes how the cavemen portion of our brain works. This portion of the brain controls our physiologic functions such as metabolism, heart rate, temperature regulation, digestion, and hormone production/regulation³. When the body is underfed, the brain resorts to the caveman tactics that allowed our ancestors to survive long periods with minimal nutrition. During periods of famine, the body slows down the digestive process and other “unnecessary” bodily functions to survive. Our body has evolved to handle these periods, and these evolutionary aspects remain in the body’s basic DNA today.

What is Famine?

Famine can come in two forms.

1. A famine in terms of total calories consumed (undereating)
2. A famine in terms of nutrition – minerals, proteins, and fats (eating primarily empty calories)
   
   If the bulk of your caloric intake is coming from empty calories your body assumes there is a famine and will slow down your metabolism and dysregulate other bodily functions in an attempt to survive. When the body is in famine mode, it is under a great deal of stress as it tries to save itself. It is not unreasonable to say that the body essentially has PTSD from long periods of trying to survive famines.

During this period, you will experience an inability to stay warm, poor sleep, unhealthy skin, slowed heart rate, dizziness, slowed metabolism, digestive pains, reduction in essential hormone production, irritation, and “cloudiness” or an inability to focus⁴. Due to the slowed metabolism, disruption in hormone production, and overall poor health, you may experience weight gain in times of caloric restriction. This is because during a famine your body stores calories as fat to survive longer.

How Do I Know If I’m Eating Enough?

The good news is it is very easy to tell if you are eating enough when you are eating properly. The body requires food, real, nutrient-dense, food. The body can regulate itself if it is fed properly. A proper human diet consists of whole foods, primarily meats, and animal products (eggs, dairy, etc.) and some fruits and vegetables. When you consume a diet of only whole foods (typically one-ingredient foods or foods without nutrition labels – such as meats) your body does an excellent job of telling you when it has had enough nutrition and when it needs more.

The trouble comes when the body is filled with fake foods that disrupt the signals going back and forth from the brain to the stomach. It is hard to know if you are full if your diet consists of processed foods as they are scientifically manufactured to chemically disrupt the brain’s ability to tell the body it’s full. Processed foods are also manufactured to trigger the body’s pleasure receptors, making them highly addictive and easy to overeat. The fact is, if you eliminate or greatly reduce the consumption of processed foods, there is almost no need for calorie counting.

The Solution

Try consuming a diet of only whole foods, very quickly you will realize that they are very hard to overeat. This is because they are not filled with addictive, brain-disrupting chemicals. Instead, they are filled with minerals, proteins, and fats that will lead to the release of leptin. A hormone that works by telling the hypothalamus (the portion of your brain that controls appetite) that you are full⁴.

The key is to restore your metabolism’s ability to function properly. Allow your body to realize that it is not in a period of famine and does not need to store calories for survival. Basically, you have to regain trust with your body by eating whole foods until you feel satiated. With time (and this will take time) your body will gradually alleviate the stress induced by famine, restoring proper functionality. This facilitates your body’s ability to regulate itself, attain a healthy weight, and thus eliminate the need for meticulous calorie counting.

Just eat whole foods, it’s as simple as that!

Supporting Research