National Bariatric leptitox The usual weight loss scenario looks something like this – when a person sets out to lose weight, they are motivated and determined. This person diligently counts calories, follows a structured program or just cuts back on food consumption on their own, often skipping meals. They think by reducing calories the dieter is addressing the most obvious part of the weight equation – calories consumed. (weight equation is CALORIES CONSUMED – CALORIES BURNED = CURRENT WEIGHT). There are many problems with this plan but let’s just focus on muscle. When a person suddenly reduces calories consumed, the body responds by switching into what’s called the famine response. In nature, there are cycles to the food supply with seasons of abundance followed by times of scarcity. The body is “programmed” to switch it’s caloric needs to allow survival even in times of famine. This “famine Insta Keto response” causes the metabolism (the rate at which the body “burns” food -calories) to slow down, and at the same time the rate at which the body stores the calories as fat speeds up. In other words, food eaten is more likely to be stored as fat than burned up. At the same time during this “famine response”, the body ‘burns up’ existing muscle! Why? Muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat. If indeed a person is experiencing a famine, less muscle requiring less food to maintain it might be a good evolutionary survival strategy. But if a person is simply overweight and trying to loose fat this is NOT a good situation. This person is now more likely to store food as fat and less likely to burn it as energy, and they now have declining levels of muscle mass. As a person tries to lose weight by reducing his or her calories without following a balanced plan or supplementing without attention to a good protein source (protein supplements are .
