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How Your Caloric Intake Affects Your Weight

Have you ever tried to go on a crash diet in order to lose 10 or 20 pounds in a seriously short period of time just to find yourself feeling drained, irritable and you never do get those 10 to 20 pounds off? Or do you find yourself on a continual yo-yo diet trend where you lose 10 pounds simply to gain 12 in the end? At first it seems that things are going great, perhaps the first few pounds seem to melt off. Chances are however that those few pounds that have "melted" off tend to be water weight.

The reason why these types of diets do not work is that your caloric intake is directly linked to your metabolism. While many people are "blessed" with a high metabolism most of us are not. The problem with crash diets and lowering your caloric intake below the recommended daily amount is that your body is designed to fend off starvation. Faced with starvation your body will slow its metabolism, so you burn fewer calories.

Slower metabolisms will be more prone to store the energy from the foods you consume and instead it burns muscle tissue and potentially damaging vital organs! With a very low calorie intake you're not getting the vitamins and nutrition your body needs in order to lose weight in a healthy way. You may find you're feeling sick, tired, and irritable and in most cases not able to continue with it. Once you finally give up on your low calorie diet your body continues to store the calories until you have not only gained the weight back but actually have more weight as a precautionary measure in case of another instance of "starvation."

The average man burns roughly 2700 calories a day and an average woman burns roughly 2000. It is recommended that a man should not dip lower than 2000 calories when on a diet. Women should not go below 1200 calories per day. If you decide to partake in a diet that lowers you further then that chances are the end result will not be what you are hoping on. If anything you will simply be jeopardizing your overall health and not even achieving your goals.

When starting a low calorie diet it is best to consult with your doctor or dietitian. While there are average low calorie limits you can follow there are a number of factors that contribute to that lower intake number. Lean muscle mass, activity level, height, current weight is only a few factors. Somebody that spends an hour a day at the gym weight training and performing cardiovascular exercises will require a higher calorie intake. The key is to remember is that if you are looking to lose weight and keep it off you need to ensure you are doing it in a healthy way. Your body needs enough calories in order to function so when you go off the diet you won't be back to the weight you started with and more.

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