Eat More To Weigh Less? | Nourished With Tish

I’m going to tell you something, that I’m sure, on some level you already know: dieting doesn’t work. Diets don’t provide long-term success (meaning any weight you lose, you’ll likely regain—and then some), and 95% of all diets fail.

And yet, we’re in this cycle where we always go back to it. Even though we know they don’t work. Even though we know they make us feel tired and irritable. We go back.

That’s the power of diet culture. It draws you in. It makes you feel that the only way to lose weight is to follow a restrictive dieting plan. And when that plan inevitably fails, diet culture makes you feel like it was your fault: that you weren’t compliant enough, you didn’t give up enough, that your body is broken.

And this is a toxic attitude. If you’ve ever been a dieter, or if you struggle to lose weight, you know the guilt, shame and defeat that comes with pursuing this.

Which is why I want you to consider ditching the diet and focus on eating more: more nourishing foods, more calories, more protein. If the thought of that makes you feel nervous, read on! This post is for you.

The Problem With Calories In, Calories Out Model

Calories In, Calories Out (CICO) is your basic diet framework. You’ve probably heard this before: you need to eat less and exercise more. But this is a big oversimplification of energy balance in the body. It’s not as simple as eat less and then burn it off after.

Energy In, Energy Out

For starters, what you eat is influenced by a lot more than your drive to diet. Your appetite is regulated by hormones, and these hormones have the sole job of making sure you won’t starve. So when you start reducing your calories and increasing your exercise (which tells the body that food is limited and we’re on the hunt for more), certain hunger hormones are released in an effort to increase appetite:

Ghrelin, a hunger hormone produced in the stomach, is responsible for increasing appetite and encouraging fat-storage.

Leptin, a satiety hormone produced by fat cells, tells the brain there’s enough fat on your body to stay safe. As you diet, and lose weight, leptin levels go down, and hunger increases. (source)

Your body will do everything it can (against your wishes) to encourage food consumption. No wonder diets are hard to stick to!

Long-Term Low Calorie Diets Slow Down Weight Loss

If you’re able to ignore these hunger hormones that are increasing your hunger, what happens? Your body thinks there’s no food out there. So it begins to slow everything down in an effort to conserve energy. (source)

Metabolism slows—your resting metabolic rate slows. (This is the rate at which you burn calories just to simply exist. In fact, most of our calorie expenditure, up to 60%, comes from this!) Chronic dieters often require less calories to maintain their body weight than people of the same weight who don’t diet. (source) (source)
Calorie absorption increases. Meaning you absorb more calories from your food than you did before you were dieting.
Energy levels go down (we’re trying to conserve energy here!)
Immune function goes down
Reproduction, fertility and sex hormones take a back seat

Again, this might not be new to you. But when you reduce calories, your body doesn’t feel safe. So it will put aside functions it doesn’t deem necessary (immune health, reproduction, digestion), and it will slow down your metabolism in an effort to keep you safe. Fat storage, then becomes a form of safety.

This Advice Assumes You Aren’t Already Eating Low Calorie

While this is the advice found in the media, enforced by diet culture, it’s also the advice given from medical professionals. It’s not unusual for a doctor to give this advice to someone who is overweight. The problem, aside from being a gross oversimplification, is that it also assumes you aren’t already following it.

In fact, we seem to think that if we’re already eating less calories and not seeing a difference on the scale, the solution is to further decrease our intake. But that only perpetuates some of the problems we talked about earlier: your body doesn’t feel safe, so it fights even hard to not only keep the weight that you currently have, but to add on weight for any future periods of famine.

So then, the answer, isn’t to eat less. It’s to create a place of safety, so your body doesn’t feel the need to hold on to weight.

The Problem With Low-Carb Diets

What To Do Instead

Nourish Your Body

Instead of restricting, focus on eating more by adding nourishing foods to your diet.

Eat Enough Calories. You can use a BMR calculator to get an idea of how many calories you should be eating as a baseline. Again, if we’re looking to create a place of safety, we need to let go of this idea of eating less, and focus on nourishing the body.
Quality Matters. It becomes really hard to overeat (and then gain weight) when you opt for whole foods. The caveat of course is that you need to eat enough (enough calories, enough protein, enough fat, enough fibre) to feel satiated. Eating enough of these macronutrients will turn off the hunger hormones that make you want to eat, while also providing you with necessary nutrition.
Get Enough Protein. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, so it keeps us full. It also has the highest TEE (thermic effect of eating) meaning we burn more calories simply to digest it. And if that weren’t enough, protein turns off hunger hormones like ghrelin. (source) One small study found that eating more protein decreased overall calorie intake while increasing metabolic rate and satiety. (source)
Forget About Weight Loss. I know this seems counterintuitive, but if you’re a chronic dieter, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with underlying adrenal issues (high stress, low energy) and low metabolic function. The best thing you can do, is focus on nourishing and take a break from chasing the numbers on the scale. Reestablish a healthy relationship with food and then work with a professional to lose weight in a sustainable, nourishing way.

Increase Your RMR

This second part is a sneaky way to change your energy balance without going into starvation mode! Focus on increasing your resting metabolic rate so you burn more calories without having to “eat less, move more”.

Get Enough Sleep. Lack of sleep has been shown to increase insulin resistance and increase blood sugar levels (which can lead to weight gain). (source) People who don’t get enough sleep also tend to eat more calories the next day (300-400 extra calories!), so if you want an easy to decrease your overall calorie intake, get some shut eye! (source)
Add More Lean Muscle Mass. Another way to increase your RMR is to add more muscle: muscle is more expensive to keep on the body, meaning it burns more calories just to have it. Try incorporating resistance training (either from body weight or weight lifting) once or twice a week. (source)
Move Your Body. Simply moving around more (walking, taking the stairs, etc) and including moderate workouts is great for increasing your RMR.(source) You don’t have to go to the gym for an hour everyday doing intense workouts. In fact, 2 1/2 hours a week of moderate exercise (think walking, bicycling, dancing, gardening, yoga) is all you need. Add in some resistance training to build muscle, and you’re all set!