Calorie counting fails for weight loss and usually leads to long-term weight gain. This pattern of yo-yo dieting is a well-recognized danger of calorie-restricted diets.
Long-term calorie-restriction diets result in two key adaptations that stymie further weight loss:- Decreased metabolic rate.
- Increased hunger.
A key to the scientific understanding of calorie restriction for weight loss is that a number of the key assumptions underlying this theory are false. When we lose weight through calorie restriction, the basal metabolic rate usually falls, too. It’s partially this resulting lowered basal metabolic rate (BMR) that ultimately dooms weight loss efforts. We hope that over time, the BMR will go back up toward “normal,” but unfortunately, studies show that it does not. BMR falls with calorie-restricted diets and hunger increases, but worse, over time, these changes do not revert back to baseline but continue to worsen. This is proven by many of the scientific studies done over the years. Let’s take a look.
