I have talked about this a lot lately with my clients and board members. Here is a quick run down of what fat loss is.
Fat loss is the removal of stored body fat from your body. In order to achieve fat loss you need to be in a deficit of energy. Meaning what it takes to run your body for a day, you need to consume less than that. If your body needs 2,000 kcal of energy to run, and you consume 1,500 calories, you are in the negative by 500 calories.
Take away the numbers and think about what that really means. Your body, in order to function properly, needs a certain amount of energy.
One could compare this to say, a flashlight. Oh, here comes another analogy!!!
A flashlight running 100% on charged batteries shines bright, is lucid, and performs perfectly when needed for a task. What happens when those batteries start to drain of energy?
The light is less bright, performance is shaky, and the crystal clear stream of light is now muddy.
You know how it is when the batteries are almost dead, you start to bang the flashlight to get those extra jolts of connection before that moment where the fat lady has sung, and no more power.
NOW, imagine your body if that flashlight. As time goes on your batteries are running low. How are you going to feel?
- Less lucid, foggy
- easily emotional
- fatigue
- hunger
- harder to wake up in the morning
- muscle soreness
- sadness
- insomia
These are not symptoms of overtraining. These are symptoms of fat loss.
Think about it folks – you are removing a physical substance from your body. It was once there but you are trying to take it away. You might say, “well, I put it on easily. Taking it away can’t be that hard. ”
When is the last time you glued something? How easy was that to get on? How much of a pain in the ass was it to get off?
Just fat loss alone doesn’t feel good, it shouldn’t feel good. Anyone that tells you that either doesn’t know, or doesn’t want you to know. That doesn’t mean fat loss can’t be good for you in the long run. It just means what you have to endure while getting there is a real task to be undertaken.
This is why I try to get my clients to lose fat as quick as they can, but as safely as they can. So that “The Drain Effect” doesn’t turn into what we are going to talk about in part 2.
Part 2: The Drain Effect
In the last section, we talked about how even smart fat loss can leave you not feeling great. Now we are going to talk about what happens when you take this effect to another level, or allow it to go on for too long.
Some clients have come to me having been on a diet, in one form or another, for the majority of their life. They have had short bouts of breaks, but for the most part life for them has been a never-ending cycle of starve and stuff. This would be fine is they actually achieved something with it. Usually, they take one or both to the extreme,and end up worse off than they began. Combine this with aggressive training in aerobics and lifting, and we receive a ticket to overtraining.
Now before I dive right in, yes, I am mixing the two together. This is not a conversation about just overtraining. Most of the following problems can occur by eating a low caloric diet for too long if you aren’t training, AND some of these problems can present themselves if you aren’t taking good training rests even if your feeding is on point.
Good? Moving on.
If you don’t feed your body well enough for an extended period of time what do you think is going to happen?
What if you decided to drive your car with little to no oil day after day after day? Stuff would start wearing down, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be functioning right.
The concept is really pretty simple. If you dirve hard, fuel hard. YOU CAN’T CHEAT THE BODY. Go ahead though, defy the law. Here is what to look for if you do.
- Sudden inability to complete workouts
- Feeling unmotivated and lacking energy
- Increased susceptibility to colds, sore throats, and other illnesses
- Extremely hungry or not hungry at all
- Decrease in performance
- Long standing Insomnia
- Aches or pain in the muscles and/or joints for longer periods
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Elevated morning pulse
- Decreased body temperature
- Decrease lab levels in vitamins and thyroid
- Anxiety/depression
- Hair shedding
In short, you don’t feel so hot and why should you, your running on empty over and over again. Did I mention how not good for fat loss this is?
So what is the best method to assure yourself that you are training for fat loss, but not burning yourself out?
How do we gauge the middle ground that leads us to the ultimate goal we have?
http://www.fatlosstroubleshoot.com
Important information here, Leigh. Man, I’m so ready to get back on the fat loss train!
Ha it must be weird to read this stuff all the time when preggo. Just think when you jump back in you may have a whole week extra of pure excitement before the hate comes in
This is AWESOME! I don’t know why I never though of weight loss like this before but it makes so much sense. Thanks Leigh!
I do my best to think of these crappy feelings as a sign that things are going right in the way of fat loss. Just the other day I was really craving some more food, moreso than normal. I was a tough day mentally, but you move on. You could also compare this to being sick. When you are sick you feel like crap and you body is getting rid of the garbage it does not need. Same idea with fat loss, your body is getting rid of excess garbage it does not need and at times you will feel like crap.
This reminds me of, I think it is Tom Venuto’s saying, that hunger is just fat leaving the body, or something like that! My problem is discerning the feeling of losing fat vs plain not eating enough to fuel workouts. I have definitely been very unmotivated to work out, and quit very quickly if I do start. Who knows with me as I am a very complex specimen who has trouble figuring out my body signals.
Great blog post, as usual!!!
Sinead, I know you are so ready to get back in the fat loss game! Only a few more months!!
haha Leigh! Too funny!
Missy, that’s agreat point. How do you tell the difference between feeling like crap because you’re losing fat and feeling like CRAP because you’re not eating enough & over training?
The symptoms of fat loss (Less lucid, foggy , easily emotional ,fatigue , hunger , harder to wake up in the morning , muscle soreness sadness ,insomia)
are VERY similar to the symptoms of overtraining/undereating. (Sudden inability to complete workouts, Feeling unmotivated and lacking energy, Increased susceptibility to colds, sore throats, and other illnesses, Extremely hungry or not hungry at all, Decrease in performance, Long standing Insomnia, Aches or pain in the muscles and/or joints for longer periods, Fatigue, Headaches, Elevated morning pulse, Decreased body temperature,
Decrease lab levels in vitamins and thyroid, Anxiety/depression,Hair shedding)
Excellent post. I am one who has been guilty in the past of vicious cycles of undereating/overtraining and binge eating due to feeling so worn out. I have now found it much easier to lose by focusing mainly on diet and doing a less intense workout schedule because I don’t get so tired and hungry that I eat over my calorie allotment. At first I felt like I was a cop-out but my body just can’t diet and do HIIT/lifting/spin classes and be happy.
I thought that increased blood pressure could also be a sign. I record resting heart rate, blood pressure and waking basal temperature as well as some other factors several times per week. I have noticed increased blood pressure, increased heart rate and decreased body temperatures the morning after a heavy workout. The following morning everything returns to more typical levels.
This is a really awesome post and it should be a requirement for anyone attempting to burn fat to read something like this because it is the honest to God truth.
It is funny because when I read your books the first time and it mentioned something similar to this in them, it was like a light bulb went off in my head, and I thought it was brilliant because I had never viewed fat loss this way. It was like a moment of clarity…no wonder I feel like shit 24/7, have mood swings in which it appears that I have been possessed by Satan himself, and sometimes could seriously sleep through an entire weekend if I had the opportunity.
That is one of the things I really appreciate about you Leigh is that you have a very unique way of relating to your readers and helping us take a step back, look at the big picture of fat loss, and view it from a different angle that most of us are not used to because we are so invested in the “numbers game” part of it and not how we are actually physically and mentally effected by it.
The defining difference is length of time.
There is a big difference between a crabby day here or there, and being that way constantly.
Big difference between not sleeping well the first few nights, and not sleeping well, ever.
Big difference between being foggy at the end of the day, and being foggy all day, everyday and all night.
The differences lie in the extremes.
This is interesting. I used to be a chronic dieter and feel drained sometimes, but since I changed my eating habits to focus on health I am never weak or lethargic (nor do I ever get sick). Despite this I continue to lose weight and body fat, so I’m not sure it is fat loss alone that creates weakness. Personally I’m well below my goal weight at this point and feel better than ever.
Throwing training in the mix is more complicated. I workout regularly now, but much less than when I used to train for marathons. When I was training hard, it was more difficult to find the balance because I was always so hungry. Weight actually crept on easier back then. Fascinating to think about the dynamics between training, diet and body fat.
Very well put…i really appreciate this different way of looking at how fat loss can affect the body!!!!
Interesting. Does it mean fat loss if we are dreaming about food overnight and cant wait to get up to eat breakfast? That was me last night. I so badly wanted to get up to eat at night, when I woke up I had and enjoyed a nice breakfast!
I have been experiencing these things lately and wondering if I’ve been overdoing it. My weight seems to be slowly creeping up and I’ve cut down on daily calories but it’s still creeping. I’ve been sluggish at the gym. However, it’s so hard for me to pinpoint what’s going on. I find that this goes in cycles over and over and so I think it’s probably mostly hormonal. I have a few exceptional days at the gym, then I’m tired for a week or so. Then I’m hungry for a week. I muddle through. Then, suddenly, (usually right after TOM), my energy is back and I have new breakthroughs at the gym again. Anyway, just some thoughts. I think that we women sometimes underestimate the profound effect our hormones can have on training and diet.
Thanks for this! I’ve been reading over at the Brainwave Entrainment Forums, and viewing this post was the ideal confirmation for much of the info I found out.