Are You Eating Too Much? Probably Not

Everything needs energy to move: cars need gas, your appliances need electricity, trains need coal, and planes need jet fuel. Your body is no exception, it needs energy to be able to move, dance or even breathe; its simple physics. Our energy comes from what we eat. Food is a recipient of stored energy in form of calories and then it is metabolized and converted into energy and fat.

When your body needs energy, it takes it either from food of from itself, so if you don't eat enough to satisfy the demand of energy your body either starts to "eat" your stored fat or your muscles. Many diets fail because they are based in lowering you calories by eating less. If you are morbidly obese it might be a good strategy because all you have is fat anyways, but for most people this is a very wrong approach.

Our body is very wise; it adapts to the conditions of our environment extremely fast. We sweat or shiver to regulate our body temperature and we release natural anesthetics to ignore pain in extreme conditions. The same happens with our diet. By not eating enough, you body goes into something commonly called "starvation mode."

When this happens, your body will start consuming muscle tissue before your fat storage. This serves a dual purpose: The most immediate purpose is that your body will be producing energy for your most essential functions. The second is, by lowering your muscular mass your body slows down the metabolism in order to go more energy-efficient and will burn fewer calories.

This is where the importance of exercise comes in. If you don't exercise you might get into a catch-22. If you eat well, you won't burn enough calories and the extra energy will be stored as fat, but if you don't eat enough, your body will go into starvation mode and will eat your muscles, lower your metabolism and it will be even harder for you to lose weight.

You can easily avoid this situation. First you need to take action and start an exercise regime. Working out will help you to build muscle, and the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. You must balance this workout by eating regularly. It is best to eat smaller meals 5 or 6 times a day instead of heavy meals 2 or 3 times. Your body will have a constant supply of energy and it won't need to eat your muscles. You will also avoid going into starvation mode and your body will finally start using your stored fat as a source of energy because you will no longer need it.