Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 2037: How Eating Too Little Can Make You Fatter

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover six reasons why eating too little can actually make you put on body fat. Fatter doesn’t necessarily mean heavier. (3:06) Six ways that eating too little can make you fatter.  #1 - You lose muscle, and it's harder to build. (13:10) #2 - Slower metabolism. (15:39) #3 - You have less energy to move or exercise. (22:20) #4 - Hormones shift to fat storage. (27:30) #5 - Tends to result in binging. (29:44) #6 - Tends to result in nutrient deficiencies. (33:05) Related Links/Products Mentioned For a very limited time Equi.life is offering the first 500 Mind Pump Listeners your Inflammation Score Test completely FREE! (Just pay shipping & handling)  March Promotion: “Time-crunch Bundle” (MAPS 15 Minutes, MAPS Anywhere, MAPS Prime + Eat for Performance eBook ALL for only $99.99!! Diet, exercise or diet with exercise: comparing the effectiveness of treatment options for weight-loss and changes in fitness for adults (18-65 years old) who are overfat, or obese; systematic review and meta-analysis Why You Should Stop Looking at the Scale if You Lift Weights – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1915: How To Re-Ignite Your Metabolism Energy expenditure and activity among Hadza hunter-gatherers Sitting risks: How harmful is too much sitting? - Mayo Clinic Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Layne Norton, Ph.D. (@biolayne) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the most downloaded fitness health and entertainment podcast in the world. This is Mind Pump, right? In today's episode, we talk about how eating too little can actually make you fatter. I promise you, we know what we're talking about. Listen to the episode before you pass judgment, we've been working with people for over two and a half decades.

Look, this episode was brought to you by some sponsors. Dr. Steven Cabral has an inflammation test that you can get. By the way, the first 500 mind pump listeners will get the score, this inflammation score test completely free. So what does this test do? It tests inflammation markers to see if your inflammatory markers are ideally balanced. Remember too much inflammation or the wrong balance

of inflammation could cause things like brain fog, pain, depression, anxiety, sleep issues, hormone imbalances, I mean, it can cause a whole host of issues. And again, right now, if you go to the link, I'm about to give you, and you're one of the first 500 people, you'll get this test for free. So go to stevencobrawl.com, that's STEPH, EN, C-A-B-R-A-L.com, Ford slash inflammation.

Again, it's free. Are you gonna do this paper shipping and handling? Also, we're running a workout program bundle sale this month. It's called the time crunch bundle. So we put together the programs that are best for people who don't have access to a lot of equipment or want great results without spending a lot of time working out. Here's what's included in this bundle. Maps, 15 minutes, maps anywhere, maps prime,

and our ebook eat for performance. All of those in the time crunch bundle discounted, we took the whole price over $200 off, so you only pay $99.99 for the whole thing. This is only happening this month in March, so if you're interested, you should act now. Go to mapsmarch.com. All right, here comes the show. Did you know eating too little can actually make you

fatter? No, totally true. There's many reasons why eating too little will actually cause you to be fatter than you are now. That's what we're going to talk about today. I can't wait to see the TikTok clip of that. I know. Add a contact. This is a whole podcast, by the way. Let's listen to it. Yeah, exactly. Please listen. Yeah. But we're going to we're going to break this down as to why this can happen and how this happens. And by the way, for anybody who's watching who's been training people for 10 years or more, you've seen this happen inevitably. You've seen people in this situation. Either that or you're still stuck in the phase that I think I was in for a long time where

you just think like 10 years. I've been sitting here. Yeah. Well, your class lied to you. I swear to God, everybody lies to you. Yeah, big totally. So there's some interesting phenomena that happens when you eat too little for too long. And then there's some behavioral things that happen.

So we're going to kind of address all of those. But, you know, the most, the first thing to understand with this is, fatter doesn't necessarily mean heavier. And I want to say that because you can lose weight and actually become fatter as a percentage of your body weight, right? So, if you were a 200 pound male and you were 10 your body weight, right? So if you were a 200 pound male and you were 10% body fat, that means that you have 20 pounds of body fat on your body,

but let's say you lost 20 pounds of muscle, but you lost no body fat. So you still have 20 pounds of body fat on your body, but now you weigh 180 pounds. Your body fat percentage is now higher because 20 pounds is a higher percentage of 180 pounds and is of 200 pounds and you'll look fatter. In extreme cases obviously 20 pounds of body fat and a 100 pound individual would be would look very different than on a 200 pound individual. So

this is a big one and we've seen this ourselves. I experienced this as somebody who's a fitness fanatic. I remember losing weight and actually having my body fat percentage go up and how confusing that was. Oh, and it's like you got angry. How can this be possible? I know this is always a tough one for clients, the tough pill to swallow,

especially when they've been working so hard at losing weight and overall weight. And then to find out that their body now comprised mainly of body fat and they've actually lost muscle in this process was a frustrating thing. But this is where that whole term like skinny fat and all that kind of came out of. Exactly. Did you have a story about this? Well, I have a couple stories, but the one that I'm thinking about right now, that where

I realized how much of a problem this was, not just with our clients, but actually with my coaches and trainers that were teaching my clients. So I ran this competition, and I can't remember if Justin was, you were part of it. Who are you part of the first one? I couldn't remember if you were with me

with the first one or not. So we ran this competition where I used to do this, where I had a friend who owned the fitness wave, the dunk tank, so hydrostatic wave. Yeah, there was a mobile one in the Bay Area. In fact, they had the rights to all in California and we became friends. And when I found out that that was one of the most

accurate ways to find body fat percentage. And so I ran this competition amongst my trainers. And this was an annual thing that I would do every year. So I did this for many years, but I remember the first year I did this, how shocking it was for all of my trainers. I mean, I had more than half of my trainers get fatter according to the body fat professionals

that know how to diet and know how to train that came back. And so, and I, at the moment, to remember seeing that many go in like, oh, shit, is this thing broken? Is it not working? Like, look, they were doing the most extreme workouts you can think of the most extreme eating, like their nutrition was just like super restrictive. And so they thought, man, we're going to kill this. Yeah.

And so it blew my mind. And then, but without really opened my eyes that, wow, if a bunch of professionals that understand nutrients, understand building muscle, understand fat loss, understand exercise science failed at this when there was money behind it and a competition for three months. And it wasn't a lack of discipline or hard work towards the goal. It was a lack of knowledge and understanding on how to approach it. And the best way to go about it. And it really opened my eyes to like, wow, if this is happening to my staff who's then teaching my clients, how much is this permeating the entire industry of clientele that are trying to lose body fat. And so that was a very pivotal point in my career.

It's probably like year six or so and to be an manager and managing trainers. It really shifted the way I looked at, caloric balance, training intensity, diet intensity, like how hard you cut, like all these things is more muscle building and from the very beginning. Yes. And this happened to me too, by the way. building and from the very beginning. Yes. And this happened to me too, by the way.

So I'm including myself in the game. I was like, I got fatter. I was pissed. I was like, how is that possible? I lost 10 pounds. Yeah, I was so baffled by it. And what it was was I had lost an equal amount of muscle as I did fat.

And because I'm now a smaller version of myself and I lost exactly five pounds of fat and five pounds of muscle, technically the body fat percentage went up because now it's a smaller percentage of me because of smaller version. So I learned this both ways. I did the same thing where I lost weight and I did the same thing over trained,

cut my calories too aggressively. Body fat percentage went up a little bit and I was like, what the hell's going on? I did the math and I'm like, oh my God, I lost muscle. Then I had an experience in the opposite where I went on a bulk and I tested my body fat just for the hell of it within the beginning stages of the bulk.

You got leaner. Got leaner. Yeah, same here. And I did the math. I remember doing the math and I said, how is this possible? It's just crazy. I did the math and it's like, oh, I have the same amount of body fat on my body. Because when you do your percentage, you could figure out loosely how much like pounds of body fat you have versus lean body mass. Lean body mass is everything. That's not body fat. And I remember I gained, I don't

remember what a four pounds of lean body mass, let's just say my body fat went down though because I didn't gain any body fat. So it wasn't that I didn't gain body fat. I don't remember what a four pounds of lean body mass let's just say, my body fat went down though because I didn't gain any body fat. So it wasn't that I didn't gain body fat, I didn't lose body fat either. It just went down as a percentage of my overall body weight. So gaining lean body mass, pure muscle is actually one effective way

of lowering your body fat percentage. Not only that, but then you also in turn just sped up your metabolism. And then all the positive stuff that's there. Yeah. I mean, the exact same thing happened to me as I remember going on a bulk after that. And it was just like, what the hell? I'm eating to gain.

Yet now I'm leaning out. And the opposite was what it was going on before. And I failed that. I mean, I was, there was a lot of trainers I had that were in denial. I mean, for the longest time, they just swore it was broken. Oh, it doesn't work. It's not. But they had, they just swore, it was broken. Oh, it doesn't work. It's not. But they had the breakdown, which was so great to what you're talking about.

Like, we didn't even have to do the math. Like, and I had it tells you water, tells you water, lean body mass, fat mass, everything. So it was clear. You could see exactly what happened. Like, okay, I lost 15 to 20 pounds on the scale, but a higher percentage of it was muscle. Why? Well, because I over-trained and under eight at high intensity for six to eight weeks

and six to eight weeks of low calorie and punishing my body, well, it resulted in my body pairing down muscle at as fast of a rate that I was burning body fat. And there you go, I got a higher body fat percentage. Even though you, and that's why it's deceiving, is you look smaller and leaner. I look, because I lost some fat. So my belly fat had gone down a little bit and my waist was smaller. Also, you lose water because you're probably cutting carbs and stuff like that. But then you're, then when you actually are honest with yourself, because we play games with ourselves, right?

How often is the reflection of the mirror, do you look at it objectively versus subjectively? Well, for a lot of people who are struggling with weight loss, if they just lose weight on the scale, they'll look in the mirror and be like, oh, I'm smaller, I must be leaner. But it's like, no, you're actually flabbyer because you lost muscle.

Yeah, I was just kind of laughing myself because I remember even my meat going into that dunk tank, I was like, it must be the technique. It must not be like, like, getting rid of enough ice. I'm too buoyant, you know? Like, I'm like, like, basically drowning myself at that point, trying to get better numbers.

Yeah. And it's just, I couldn't like deal with the fact that I remember what I had. I think the same thing. Yeah, I remember asking him, right? Cause we were friends. I'm like, his name was Aaron. Aaron, I was like, if I'm really good at letting air out

and someone's really bad at it, like what, I mean, can you make a huge difference? And he's like, well, huge in the comparison this, but like, you know, 0.25. No, I know. I think he's like, yeah, he's like, the most you could possibly do of the worst and the best person would be a discrepancy of like,

0.25. I'm like, okay, so if it's off at 8,000, no, I did the same thing. 4% of it. I'm trying to drown myself in you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You do that when you went underneath it. Yes.

Yeah. That was like wretching. Yeah, you can get all out of your air out. You'll see. It saves you. And you know, it's funny about this is one of my later on when I became good at what I was doing. One of my hallmark successful, wonderful techniques

at getting someone who would come to me who struggled with weight loss, who struggled with fat loss. They'd been going low calorie forever and excessive cardio forever. One of my favorite things to do was have them bump their calories, bump their protein, stop the cardio lift weights,

and then show them getting leaner. And it would blow their muscles. This was the beginning of the philosophy that you heard me talk about in the show of time, of I began to stop ever putting people on restrictive diets and I began adding to the diet. That became my, no matter how much weight you had to lose, I don't care how big you were,

I looked at an assessor diet and I added food into the diet. And there's a behavioral aspect to it as well. Right, and that was what I learned afterwards. But the original reason why I did it was because what I learned from the show, my mind blowing. Yeah, and then also nice off. Then I saw what happens with the behavioral stuff and it was just like, oh my God, this is the answer.

Which by the way, it's interesting to me that this is not the industry norm. Yeah, it's not. It's still like we still have this far behind. We still have this cut calories and burn like crazy mentality to lose body weight. And it's not the best strategy. You know, energy management and having good workouts

and like there's just so many benefits to having this approach versus the other. The behavioral aspects are the most important but the data is clear on this. If you, when they do studies on people who just cut calories, they lose a significant amount of muscle, oftentimes as much muscle as body fat. When they add cardio to it, it gets worse.

When they add cardio plus other exercise, it's still not good. Resisting's training plus diet seems to be the best approach, where you tend to hold on to the most muscle. Sometimes you can even lose muscle like that though, because the signal to build muscle can still be overcome with too low of calorie. So that brings us to the first point, which is this. If you eat too little, you'll lose muscle. And when you lose muscle, you slow down your metabolism. You're

actually getting rid of or reducing your capacity to burn calories on your own. You're actually making it harder for yourself down the line. So even if you do lose more body fat than muscle, but you still lost a significant amount of muscle, now you set yourself up so that in the future, it's gonna be harder for you to continue and to maintain. So, and by the way, losing muscle, again, if you lose muscle and you don't lose body fat, and you lose weight on the scale, you're fatter now.

You're fatter, you have a higher body fat percentage. People get so hung up with the scale, I think it really screws people up. The example I used to tell people, I used to love using this example, someone would come to me and say, I just want to lose 30 pounds on scale. I said, well, do you want to lose fat or muscle? And they said, well, I don't care. How much, I don't care, I just want to lose weight. Like, well, we can cut your leg off

and they always look at me laugh. Because it's true, right? It's not just about weight. It's the body fat that you want to get rid of. I mean, your body has these natural mechanisms in place for survival. And if we just always, I don't know, we always try and go against that fact.

Like the fact is, our body's trying to preserve itself, trying to provide it with adequate energy to keep doing what it needs to do. But, you know, us trying to basically restrict our calories and not feed it, but then still give it all this work demand and load. It's like, it's, it's, it's, especially when muscle is an expensive tissue and it's not necessary, not necessary to have. And so your body's gonna be like, that's the first to go. It's like, we don't need this. That's right.

Why am I gonna keep it around? You're not feeding me what it takes to keep it. You're not stimulating it the way you're supposed to. So I'm getting rid of it. That's right. And then the example I gave of how you could actually build muscle, gain no body fat, but get a little heavier on the scale,

but still be leaner. Because now that body fat, that body fat that you have a smaller percentage, when your calories are too low, good luck, trying to build muscle, your body could have all the muscle building signal in the world, but if your calories are too low, if your proteins are too low, if your essential fats are not where they need to be,

building muscles impossible. It's like giving a bunch of construction workers plans to build a house. It's like they show up, you got 50 workers. We're here to build a house. Here's your plan. No wood. No wood. No bricks. No concrete. No nothing. Build it. It's like we can't. We don't have the building blocks. So eating too little makes this impossible. And then the second part, which is I already kind of mentioned, is you've slowed your metabolism down. One of the fastest ways to get your body to learn how to burn less calories is to eat way less than you need or eat too low of calories and then simultaneously not strength train. You lose that muscle, even if you don't lose the muscle by the way, your body actually

starts to adapt a little bit. And I've said this so many times on the podcast, there's a range of calories that your body can burn with the same lean body mass that you have. Your body can learn to be more or less efficient with calorie storage, calorie burning, and just getting your body to think it needs to lose muscle. Even before it loses muscle, you'll start to see metabolic adaptation. Now, if you lose muscle, now you've lost physical capacity to burn calories. And a slower metabolism makes it much harder in a modern society where you're surrounded by food and so on, right? So, I mean, it makes sense. I could use this as an example.

I could snap my fingers and increase everybody's metabolism. Right now, listening to this by 50%, everybody would lose weight, everybody would get leaner as a result. You don't want a slower metabolism unless you're living in the wilderness and you're hunting and foraging for your own food, in which case the slow metabolism is beneficial. But if you live anywhere in any kind of modern society, a slow metabolism is not an asset, it's a liability. You want a body that burns lots of calories on its own,

because you're probably gonna be sitting a lot. You're probably not gonna be moving a lot. You're probably not going to be moving a lot. You're probably going to eat more than you should. There's tasty food. It's very convenient. Fastened talism is a wonderful buffer against all of that stuff. Needing too little for too long, especially in combination with losing muscle. Lots of cardio or not strength training. You're going to get a slower metabolism.

There's a study that I referred to a hundred million times, and I'll do it again. And it was a groundbreaking study where they went to modern hunter gatherer tribe called the Hodza tribe. And they lived the way that we lived, you know, 50,000, 100,000 years ago, presumably, which is they don't have modern agriculture, they don't have technology, they hunt, and they gather. gather and they move a lot in comparison to the average Westerner. They move a lot and yet when scientists went down and through sophisticated testing tested their metabolic rates, what they found was these hodza tribes people, they burned generally the same amount of calories as the average Westerner and they moved way more and you think, well, how's that possible? Well, the kind of movement that they did

wasn't like this crazy muscle building movement. It was a lot of cardio, lots of running, lots of walking. And in your, our bodies evolved. Very efficient at it now. It has to be. It doesn't make sense for a hunter gather to burn 7,000 calories a day. You can't find 7,000 calories.

Well, and if that, if it didn't happen that way, all of our athletes would disappear. Yeah. Because anybody who's ever seen a professional athlete, their training volume is unbelievable. And if just training more cardio, burning more calories was an effective method to continue to lose,

then every athlete would be 60 pounds and just a bag of bones. They didn't feed like 20,000 calories. Yeah, or they'd have to eat 20,000, 30,000 calories to maintain that, which is not the case. And under the assumption, like, food's always been that readily available. Yeah didn't feed like 20,000 calories. Yeah, or they'd have to eat, you know, 20, 30,000 calories to maintain that, which is not the case. And under the assumption, like, foods always been that readily available. Yeah. I feel like we have to address to the fitness dorks that, that glom onto the studies that

talk about that, you know, three pounds of muscle, metabolically, is insignificant. And so you shouldn't worry about losing it. It's it's you're gonna have, when you go in it, because this is part, this is messaging, right, in our space. You know, you shouldn't worry about losing a couple pounds. If you got to lose 50 pounds of fat, you need to reduce calories, you need to move more, and it doesn't matter if you lose five or six pounds of muscle along the way of losing your 20 pounds of body fat.

And I don't think that's a good message at all. And I think that the studies that they attach themselves to are very narrow. They're narrow. Yeah, very narrow in comparison to what we know is happening with the body. I mean, I can't explain to you how I was able to get somebody to have five more pounds of muscle,

but yet eating eight, 900 calories more a day, but I've seen it. I've seen it so many times happen before. Now, with the studies show is that, oh, the muscle is only needing an extra six to 20 calories more a day. So mathematically, that doesn't make sense. But then you have to factor in the behavioral change

that happens for that person because they're fitter than what they were before. Also, what the behavioral change around in order to maintain and keep that muscle around that. Also, the behaviors around nutrition in order to maintain that muscle. It's more than that, Adam. There's a lot of unexplained. The metabolism, mammalian metabolism, is super, super complex, except they're with the universe. Yeah, it's like, it's like the brain is more complex. Everything else is easier to understand.

We become more or less efficient with our currently in body mass. So, I mean, there's studies on POWs, people who are prisoners of war who are surviving on 300 calories a day for years and years and years. How's that possible, right? The human body has this incredible capacity

to become extremely thrifty and efficient with calories or much less efficient. This is why you have people with, you know, we all know those people, the skinny guy or girl that eats like crazy, doesn't gain any weight, the person eats way less, gains tons of body fat, houses possible. It's obviously not one to one.

It's obviously not a pound of muscle equals this, a pound of muscle equals that. But if you trend towards building and you do build, you will trend towards a less efficient metabolism, meaning burn more calories. You want less efficiency with the problems that we have in modern society. We don't want a metabolism that is super efficient

like a super advanced efficient car that burns barely. Absolutely, we can be delivered to you. Yeah, exactly. Not necessarily like that. Right, right. So it could be delivered to you. Yeah, exactly. You're not necessarily like that. Right, right. So it's not, it's true. It's not, you know, one pound of muscle equals this, but if you send this signal to build

muscle, feed it to do so, and you build a little bit, you see this trend towards the faster metabolism. There are individual variances, but I have similar example. Adam, we have people on the show who call in all the time and ask this question, who are like, I always started out eating 1200 calories. Similar example Adam, we have people on the show who call in all the time and ask this questions who are like I always started out eating 1200 calories now eating 2500 calories and I'm not gaining any body fat It's like well how did that happen? I can only gain like four pounds a month right that happened their bodies less efficient It's burning more of these calories. You want to do that you want to move in that direction

Well one of the strongest signals you can send your body to slow its metabolism down it's the super low calorie and do it for a long period of time. Even with strength training, you tend to see a metabolism slow down if you do this for too long. So eating too little for too long can definitely result in a metabolism that decides or a body that adapts to become more efficient. You know, the other thing that it does in your third point is you're less motivated

to move more because you have less energy. And this is actually hitting home for me currently right now. So I've been back on my kick now for, this is I think week three or four of really dialed in nutritionally and training. And one of the things I needed to do was I had, like Justin, I was skipping breakfast. I wasn't moving very much.

So I was like, you know what, I need to cut out some calories because I'm not moving very much. And so that was my way of, you know, combating the additional calories and making sure it looked okay. If I'm not training a lot, I better not put on a bunch of extra body fat, one of the easiest ways. I'll skip breakfast, have my coffee or caffeine in the morning. I'm fine.

Don't eat till one or two o'clock. Okay, well, that was fine to mitigate, not putting on an extra weight, but boy, it made it difficult to motivate myself to train at noon or one. I just, I just felt tired after podcasting was a motivate. So if you haven't noticed, like I've been eating again, like at least a meal or two, like I said, and like I've said on this podcast many times,

my best workouts, the best time, like the best I ever feel is when I've got a meal or two in me, then my body feels geared up and ready to use that fuel and a more motivated go do it versus me being so fasted and low calorie, I just don't have the gas or the drive to wanna do that. Yeah, I remember years ago,

I know you guys saw this at 24th of the, I wasn't there at the time, but I, this became a big thing and I actually used it. In my wellness studio, it was a device called the Body Bug. It was one of the first of the year. I wasn't there at the time, but I, this became a big thing and I actually used it. In my wellness studio, it was a device called the Body Bug. It was one of the first of its kind. Now, there's lots of devices that do this, but it was groundbreaking when it first came out. One of those accurate ones that ever came out.

Yeah. So, you do is you'd wear this, and with relative accuracy, compared to anything else that was out there, very accurate, would tell you how many cows you're burning. And it did this through sophisticated metrics. You would wear it, it was on your arm, it would measure things like movement, you know, skin temperature, you know, like there was lots of different heart rate, lots of different things that measured and it was able to within I think 10% error was 96%. It was not okay, so even better. So 96% accurate would tell you how many calories you're burning. And I remember I would have clients put these on and we would see their days, how many calories

are you burning. And I never forget, because it was such, this is one of those moments as a trainer where you're like, you know, like light bulb. Ground breaking, right? Yeah, they would, I would look at their calories and they would, and these were people that were working out every day Monday through Friday, okay?

So Monday through Friday, they were in the gym for an hour. And they'd look at their body bug and they'd be like, what did you do Saturday and Sunday? You burned so many calories. I put dishes away. Yeah. Oh, I was doing housework all day. I went to the mall, sweeping, I was, yeah,

I washed cars. Raking outside. And I'm like, what? I'm like, you work out at the gym, Monday through Friday, and then it dawned on me. Oh, yeah. Monday through Friday, you work out for an hour, then you go out to work and you sit down

the rest of the day. Saturday and Sunday, I mean, it wasn't intense, but you were up and moving for like seven hours. So, it dawned on me like, okay, all of this like non-specific exercise calorie burn is really important. And so, eating too little, even if you force yourself to work out,

what they find in studies when people cut their calories, is the rest of the day, they sit more, they stand less, they walk less, they play less, they do less of anything that requires any physical movement, and therefore, they actually burn less calories. Eating too low of calories will affect you behaviorally without you even noticing.

Everything from tapping your foot to standing up, to taking extra stuff. It's subtle. Yes. And I think that too, because you are going to the gym and you're going to do your workout for the day and like that's a check box for you for movement for that entire day. And that's like the majority of my clients was like, okay, I did my bit on Monday through Friday and like I had my hour where I just really powered it out.

But they're literally sitting on their butt the entire day otherwise. And it was like so revealing that on the weekends there was just just being up and like moving around and you got some errands. And yeah, it was like, it was so many. It was like hundreds, like almost a thousand more calories each. Well, not long after that body book came out,

they actually did a study, because I used to tell it to study all the time, or it showed that a person who trained five to six days a week, was it five to six days, or was it four to five days? It was either four to five days or five to six days a week for an hour at a time, and today's time was still considered sedentary. Which nobody, okay, in the gym,

we used to have this survey, right? That was, you'd ask, like, would you, yeah, are you active, very active, not active this survey, right? You'd ask, like, would you, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, not act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act,

do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do you act, do're sedentary. Like, I'm sorry, but you're one hour of activity

of 400 calorie burning is not enough to make you consider you're an active person. And think about this way, it's like, there's definitely structured exercise, but think about the days that you feel energized, that you feel good. You move more. You get up more, you play with your kids more,

you do more things, and eating too low of calorie does affect your behaviors to make you more sedentary even if you work out, even if you have scheduled workouts. And we've seen this time and time again. The next thing is that eating too low of calorie because of the muscle loss, because you're eating too little, your hormones actually start to shift towards fat storage. All right, why is that? Eating too little is a stress on the body. It's actually probably one of the first stresses besides being hunted by predators

that our bodies learn to adapt to because food is hard to come by. And your hormones can shift and move to less body fat, more body fat, more muscle, less muscle. If you don't believe me, look at the studies on men with low testosterone who then take testosterone replacement therapy. They're not taking steroids like bodybuilders.

They're just getting their testosterone levels up to high normal from where they were, which is below low. What do they find? They gain muscle and lose body fat. You can see studies on growth hormone. Growth hormone will do the same thing. You give growth hormone to somebody who's deficient or who's older and they don't have to work out. They don't have to do anything.

They end up building a little muscle, bring a little bit of body fat, even if they don't change their diet. What's going on? Hormones, hormones, signal the body to do lots of different things. And a couple of things that your hormones tell your body to do is build muscle or burn body fat. Well, if you eat too little for too long, your body tries to protect itself. And one of the ways that one of the best ways your body protects itself is to store calories.

Like it's like you're in a recession, the economy's going to crap. What do you do? Honey, stop spending money. We need to save as much money as possible because we don't know what's going to happen. Your body does this with calories. If it feels too much stress, and this is all stresses, but we're talking about too low calories, it'll shift its hormones to fat storage. Reserve.

To preserve, but not muscle gain, but fat. By the way, that becomes a louder signal when you also increase the activity and intensity. Yes. So not only do you eat extremely low calories, then you go punish yourself with gym, which tends to be the person to, very few people I know decide they're going to go on extreme low calorie diet and they go, oh, I'm just gonna do yoga and walk. Those same people that go extreme diet tend to also go extreme training.

And they do the high intensity, the endurance, the circuit training, the everyday, the 75 hard. This is those same mentality, those people, and then you're not even even louder signal for your body to preserve. That's right. And then, okay, so this next one, I I think is one of the biggest, most important ones. This is a behavioral one, which is this tends to result in a behavior where when you do

eat more, you tend to binge. So let me paint the picture. You eat too little for a long period of time. You end up losing muscle, slowing the metabolism down, hormones shift to fat storage, promotion and less muscle. You've got this like perfect storm. And then you go off. Why?

Because you've been restricting for so long, your appetite's high, maybe you go on vacation, hey, this is what I can do now. So your body's prime to store body fat. You've been eating low calories for a long time. Then you go binge, which almost always is the behavior that follows. Now you store a ton of body fat, and I've seen this time and time again where a client goes on vacation for two weeks and gains like seven pounds of body fat, mathematically, you know, difficult that is to do when you do the math, and yet you see stuff like this,

it's pretty wild. Well, when we were trainers, we didn't know this, because I think the studies came out later, but we now know too, when you go from that hardcore restricting to hardcore binging like that, you actually increase your fat cells. The number of fat cells, which that doesn't happen in any normal case, right? No.

Typically what happens to us when we gain weight, lose weight is our fat cells grow, and then they shrink, and that's how we, yeah, this is recent, probably. Probably. We have an extreme environment. Yeah, this is recently, Lane Norton brought this up because of competitors when they extreme diet, and then they shrink and that's how we... Yeah, this is recent, probably... You have an extreme environment. Yeah, this is recently, Norton brought this up because of competitors when they extreme diet and then they, you know,

bodybuilders and physique competitors and figure competitors post-show, well, just like eat like crazy, right? For like a month or two and gain like 20 pounds, 15 pounds, 30 pounds. And what they found is that they actually added fat cells to their body. And the theory is that the body,

because they went so restricted and then they went excess, it tried to adapt by increasing or improving its ability to capture calories. So it actually added fat cells, which then don't go away. Typically they don't go away. Once you add the fat cells, they don't go away. Which I saw this firsthand with all the competitors, which they had this formula of exactly what you said.

They restrict hardcore for the show, after show, they gain like crazy, they're not really worried about body fat, they go again. And for some reason, every time, every show, every show, they had a harder time doing the same thing. Yeah, they're like, this is my formula, this is my body time. I had the same amount of muscle.

I should be able to do ex calories, ex amount of cardio, ex amount of training to result in that same body muscle, I should be able to do excalories, ex-amount of cardio, ex-amount of training to result in that same body, but I'm not able to. And they had some term for it that they would call it, like they were, they were a foot to effort get what they used to, they all called it fatigue and they need to reset, they'd have to stop doing shows for a while, and it's like, no, it's the way you're extreme dieting.

That's causing you to add fat cells, which is making it that much more difficult every time you don't cut for another show. Yeah, it's the most important thing to manage to add fat cells, which is making it that much more difficult every time you cut for another show. Yeah, it's the most important thing to manage or to pay attention to whenever you're, you know, when you're trying to be healthy, fit, long term, lean, long term are your behaviors because that's what's going to stick. And if you go, you eat too little for too long and then you find yourself binging occasionally

where you, you know, it's like you just go off your diet a little bit. You say, you go way so off that you're uncomfortable that you eat to the point where you can't breathe type of deal. Like that behavior is, it's going to be impossible for you to maintain a good lean healthy physique long term with that. And going too hard and extreme of one direction, it tends to lead to a opposite reaction on the other end, which is this binging type behavior. Lastly, people who eat too little for too long, they are at a higher risk of nutrient deficiencies. Nutrients are what obviously food contains nutrients.

Well, if you're eating a thousand calories a day and you've been doing it for a long time, you're only getting a thousand calories with the food, with the nutrients that comes in that food. And unless you're eating like super hyper nutrient dense food, plus you're taking multivitamins, you're probably gonna result or see some nutrient deficiencies. This was very common. When I started working with practitioners who would do nutrient testing,

and I would get clients who were, and they were typically women where they eat real, real little for long periods of time, and I'd say, Hey, let's test your nutrient levels. They would do hair tests and other tests to see blood tests to see where the nutrients are at. I could almost always predict,

Oh, this woman eats barely anything. She's been here for a long time. She's skinny fat. She's been dieting for half her life. She's gonna come back with two or three nutrient deficiencies always, almost always, they'd come back with some kind of nutrient vitamin D or zinc or some B vitamin nutrient deficiency was always, almost always, they come back with some kind of nutrient vitamin D or zinc

or some B vitamin nutrient deficiency was always... Well, I think this is super common because already, I think I forget what the research is around this, but I believe like the average woman gains weight on like 1500 or 1600 calories, it's really, really low. And so I think chronically the society, especially females, have under eight, and I think just because of what's been promoted to them for so long. So you take that same female client who's already only eating 1,500 to 1,800 calories

and is unhappy with their weight, and they want to lose, say, 20 or 30 pounds, and then you cut and restrict that. You can't possibly get, there's not a nutrient dense enough food to get enough without... You're not gonna varied up that much either. Yeah. When you're in a calorie deficit,

that's extreme a lot of times too. The one thing you have to control is that I can limit and reduce the amount of options so that way I can be consistent because it's all about being consistent for that type of a mentality staying in that lean and low of a deficit. So to be able to vary the amount of food that you're bringing into your diet,

which is gonna produce those micronutrients or just any macronutrients in general, like there's gonna be a lot of opportunity to be deficient. Yeah, you typically don't see a thousand calorie a day diet and it's like this wide variety of different colors and fruits and vegetables and whatever. It's usually the same way, actually, to be honest,

most people eat the same thing every single day. By the way, nutrients, not just micro nutrients, macro nutrients, macro nutrient deficiencies or close to deficiencies were quite high. You see somebody in low calories all the time. They almost always are too low a protein. And oftentimes, yeah, the fats, you know,

and if you're in a deficient, if you're deficient in something that's essential, your rate of anxieties higher, potential anxiety, depression, other mental issues, and then your body is just not functioning, not functioning optimally. And it's going to lower its nutrient thirsty tissues, muscle, muscle requires lots of nutrients to maintain muscle and vitamins and proteins.

Even healthy fats for your hormones, if your fats are not high enough, your hormones are going to be off. And that, you know, one of the points I made about hormones shifting towards fat storage. So if you eat too low for too long, you're probably lacking something. And when you lack something that you need, your body cannot operate the way it should. And that makes fat loss very, very difficult.

It's really hard to lose body fat when you're unhealthy, or at least do it in any sustainable way. So I hope we made the case that if you eat too little, you could definitely make yourself fatter. Look, if you like the show, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal.

You can also find all of us on Instagram. So Justin is on Instagram at MindPumpJust, and you can find me on Instagram at MindPumpJust. And you can find Adam on Instagram at MindPumpAdmin. Thank you for listening to MindPump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam, and Justin to systematically transform The RGB Superbundle is like having Sal and the Justin as your own personal trainer's but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.

If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes, and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump! You've seen Mind Pump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support. And until next time, this is Mind Pump.