When you want to lose weight, a very low-calorie diet can seem attractive. After all, the sooner you lose weight the better, right?

Well…no, that’s not right. Eating fewer than 1000 calories a day can, at best be a short-lived attempt at dieting, at worst it could be a recipe for long term health problems.

Your body is not designed to function well on a very low calorie diet. In fact, it goes into starvation or famine mode and tries to preserve essential functions at the expense of the less essential ones.

To avoid the dangers of a very low calorie diet, it is best to follow such a diet under medical supervision.

Metabolism and Low Calorie Diets

In recent years, researchers have reported that very low calorie diets can promote body chemistry and metabolism changes that lead to improved health and longer life. The findings of their study supported the theory that eating less prolongs life in laboratory mice and rats and could possibly do the same for people by slowing the aging process and preventing:

• Heart Disease
• Cancer
• Diabetes

However, due to the expense of such an expansive study, no proof exists that calorie restriction really works in people. In fact, the body is designed to burn calories for fuel and severely restricting calories prevents our bodies from burning body fat efficiently. As a result, weight loss slows down because your body is designed to survive. The dangers of a very low calorie diet are that your body goes into starvation mode. Instead of burning the stores of body fat, it works to protect them and instead uses lean muscle for energy. Loss of muscle equals a lower ability to burn calories and a lower metabolic rate. The end result is that your body needs less calories to function and in the long run you don’t lose weight. In fact, many people gain weight and wonder why because they are eating less!

Metabolic Rate

How does metabolism work? Our metabolic rate is the rate at which our bodies burn calories. Everyone is different because the more muscle you have the higher your metabolic rate will be. So, building muscle helps burn calories, while less muscle brings about a lower metabolic rate. This is why young people burn calories faster than older people. The dangers of a very low calorie diet drawing energy by using lean muscle for energy is like a catch 22. When you eat too few calories, you burn fewer calories, lose muscle and require even less as your body thinks it is surviving starvation and our metabolic rate falls.

Dangers of a Very Low Calorie Diet

Many diets limit calories, but diets that limit calorie intake to as little as 500 to 800

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