Generally speaking, eating too few calories will not cause your body to stop burning fat and slow down weight loss. We typically see more issues eating more calories. Plenty of data suggests fasting and restricting calories is a good thing that has many health benefits.
What is causing weight loss to slow?
However, weight loss can slow down metabolic rate. So folks may mistake correlation for causation. When they stop losing weight, people begin to think not eating enough caused their metabolism to slow.
In this instance, we recommend focusing on your calorie quality. Are you getting enough protein?
Protein is only four calories a gram. To put that into perspective, we often recommend getting at least 90 grams of protein daily, which only equals 360 calories. It makes a big difference!
When does eating too few calories matter?
The mix-up may be from sports physiology literature looking at athletes with low caloric intake. These reports are unlikely the case for many of our patients, who often deal with obesity.
