Calorie Deficit and Low Calorie Snack Ideas
…low-calorie diets and calorie deficits are a surefire way to ensure you slow your metabolism over time and destroy your relationship with food, and view your body as a threat.
Food is a main source of nourishment for humans, and when you begin labeling it as good or bad, and disregard your body’s queues for hunger (or other symptoms and signs), food becomes a threat and source of anxiety.
Put differently, calorie deficits and low-calorie diets are harmful to mental health, deprive your body of nutrients, and do not address the underlying root-causes of symptoms.
is calorie deficit really the best way to lose weight?
The short answer is no.
In fact, low-calorie diets and calorie deficits are a surefire way to ensure you slow your metabolism over time and destroy your relationship with food, and view your body as a threat.
Food is a main source of nourishment for humans, and when you begin labeling it as good or bad, and disregard your body’s queues for hunger (or other symptoms and signs), food becomes a threat and source of anxiety.
Put differently, calorie deficits and low-calorie diets are harmful to mental health, deprive your body of nutrients, and do not address the underlying root-causes of symptoms.
Hi friends. I’m Hilary Beckwith, ex-dieter and holistic nutrition expert. Clients come to see me with signs of adrenal stress and inflammatory conditions, and my job is to find the root causes so we can address their symptoms more effectively, and fill in the gaps between what their doctor is saying, and what their body is saying.
Weight management is commonly listed on my clients’ list of health concerns or goals, but as a holistic practitioner, we focus on non-scale victories, although most begin to shed weight after addressing root causes.
In this article, you’ll learn:
why calories in vs. calories out isn’t working for you
harmful effects of dieting
how to know if you’re eating enough calories
reasons for weight gain that do not involve calories
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calories in vs. calories out
For decades, we’ve heard you must burn more calories than you eat in order to lose weight. And as much as I hate to say that is technically true, it’s not as simple as making sure the number on your Pelaton screen is higher than the number on your calorie deficit calculator.
Here’s why.
First off, your body burns calories in ways that you do not have control over, and are not easy to measure. Additionally, your body preserves calories during chronic stress. The complexity of calculating if what you are consuming is less than what your body is burning or holding onto is far too dependent on each individual for calorie deficit techniques to work in most people.
Here are some things to consider before you download a calorie deficit calculator:
calorie restriction slows metabolism over time (1, 2) - The human body is great at adapting! Research shows that the body adapts to long-term calorie restriction, rapid weight loss, and frequent high-intensity workouts, by significantly decreasing RMR (resting metabolic rate).
weight gain and weight loss are modulated by hormones, not calories (3, 4) - hormones that modulate hunger and satiety (ghrelin and leptin, respectively) have an impact on what and when you eat, but more importantly, studies have shown that the main hormone involved in metabolism, insulin, is a driver of belly weight gain, and is further affected by cortisol levels (another hormone).
Put differently, stress, sleep, and blood sugar handling have far more to do with weight gain and weight loss than calories.
the liver is responsible for clearing excess hormones - the liver is responsible for finding and neutralizing toxins for elimination. In addition to many other types of toxins, excess hormones are considered toxins that must be cleared from the body so as not to cause imbalance. If your liver is congested, produces poor-quality bile, or is struggling with detoxification efforts, your body is holding on to toxins, which are stored in fat tissue, and your body will make more fat tissue to accommodate that storage need. Supporting your liver is essential to weight loss attempts.
harmful effects of using calorie deficit calculators for weight loss
The harmful, long-term impacts of dieting are what should concern you most about tracking calories. But as humans, we tend to react the most strongly when a strong emotion is attached, as is often the case with your body.
Feelings of inadequacy, brokenness, and above all, fear, are all common reasons we turn to dieting. Those are all real emotions and should be approached with gentleness, compassion, and curiosity, not deprivation.
COMMON REASONS FOR DIETING:
you’re afraid of others seeing you as unhealthy or ugly
you judge yourself for how you look in photos and in the mirror
you’re afraid that gaining weight means you are unhealthy or have done something wrong
you or others have placed a responsibility on you to be and stay attractive to your partner (as in high-control religion)
you’ve been told by years of reality television, magazines, social media, and pornography, that thin is beautiful (and fat is not)
you’ve learned from growing up in a home that negatively talked about food or bodies, that food is and enemy or a problem to be resolved
HARMFUL EFFECTS OF DIETING AND CALORIE DEFICIT
metabolism slows with calorie restriction
chronic stress due to self-judgement
loss of intuition, ignoring hunger signals, and signs of dysfunction
judgment of others - the belief that certain foods are inherently “good” or “bad” causes us to inevitably judge others as well as ourselves
negative self-talk activates the Sympathetic Nervous System and is a threat to the brain
over-exercising is a form of stress
carbs have fewer calories than protein or fat - low-calorie snacks and low-calorie foods are generally higher in carbohydrates, contributing to insulin resistance and further impacting your ability to lose weight
signs you’re not eating enough calories
you feel peck-ish or hungry at the end of the day
it becomes more difficult to lose weight
you feel cold easily
your periods are changing
constipation
increased anxiety or depression symptoms (or both)
non-calorie causes for weight gain
As we discussed earlier in the article, calorie deficits are not effective for weight loss for many people, but especially perimenopausal women, because too many other factors are at play.
Addressing hormone imbalance, chronic stress, blood sugar levels, and liver health is essential, and should be a priority over calorie deficit calculators, when trying to lose weight.
HERE ARE SOME NON-CALORIE CAUSES OF WEIGHT GAIN:
UNADDRESSED GUT PATHOGENS - Common pathogens that infiltrate the gut include candida albicans, parasites, overgrown bacteria, helicobacter pylori, and mold toxins. These pathogens and stimulate a chronic stress response that negatively impacts hormone balance, in addition to leaving behind toxic byproducts that further instigate a stress response and overwork the liver.
CHRONIC EXTERNAL STRESS - Having a highly stressful and busy life is not what our bodies were meant to do. Your body has not yet evolved to understand the difference between the danger of a tiger or lion, and the stress from trying to meet a work deadline. According to your brain, it’s all tigers. And not evaluating and addressing external stressors is causing harm to your health and preventing you from meeting your weight loss goals. YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE:
when, what, and how you eat
who you spend your time with
whether or not you say ‘no’ or communicate boundaries
whether or not you seek help for past traumas, anxiety, or depression
how you approach sleep
LIVER HEALTH - The liver takes on a lot, and it is heavily impacted by the toxins you take in with food, medications, drugs, air, and water. But it is also impacted by blood sugar levels. The liver is responsible for dealing with your roller-coaster energy levels all day, by converting glucose into fat, and fat into glucose (read more about it here). This constant conversion throughout the day causes fatty liver deposits that impair your liver’s ability to neutralize and clear toxins, even excess hormones!
BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS - Regulating blood sugar levels is more than eating several small meals a day (I would argue that if you are getting enough protein, fat, and veg, you would not need to eat several small meals a day to regulate blood sugar levels). Blood sugar levels are modulated by the adrenal glands (your stress responders) and in doing so, stimulate the Sympathetic Nervous response (fight or flight). Those who eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, eat a lot of processed foods (even foods marketed as “healthy” can be heavily processed), or track calories, are more susceptible to insulin resistance issues, and will have trouble with weight loss, sleep, and anxiety.
TOXIC OVERLOAD - Toxins come from many different sources, including processed foods, medications, recreational drugs, air, water, pesticides, and the byproducts of pathogens that get into the gut. Toxins that cannot be eliminated due to poor hydration, constipation, or inactivity, will get reabsorbed into the body. And toxins love fat - many of them have an affinity for fat tissue, and in order to create enough storage for your toxic load, your body will create or hold onto fat tissue.
IMBALANCED HORMONES - I’m not just talking about periods or PMS symptoms. Hormones aren’t only for reproduction. They modulate stress, sleep, hunger, periods, blood sugar, and digestion. When liver and adrenal health are struggling, hormones will become out of balance, and when left unaddressed, the problem just gets worse.
so, what?
Wipe your tears, friend. Your body is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do, and the scale numbers are telling you that.
But before you download that calorie deficit calculator app, let’s figure out what the REAL cause of your weight gain is, so you can feel good about food, and your body again.
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Knuth ND;Johannsen DL;Tamboli RA;Marks-Shulman PA;Huizenga R;Chen KY;Abumrad NN;Ravussin E;Hall KD; (n.d.-b). Metabolic adaptation following massive weight loss is related to the degree of energy imbalance and changes in circulating leptin. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25236175/
Johannsen, D. L., Knuth, N. D., Huizenga, R., Rood, J. C., Ravussin, E., & Hall, K. D. (2012, July). Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass. The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3387402/#:~:text=Despite%20relative%20preservation%20of%20FFM,or%20caloric%20restriction%20are%20maintained.
Ludwig, D. S., & Ebbeling, C. B. (2018, August 1). The carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity: Beyond “Calories in, calories out.” JAMA internal medicine. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6082688/#:~:text=Insulin%20injection%20into%20the%20central,hunger%20and%20causes%20weight%20gain.
Janssen J. A. M. J. L. (2022). New Insights into the Role of Insulin and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis in the Metabolic Syndrome. International journal of molecular sciences, 23(15), 8178. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23158178