Human Body Adaptation To Overeating

The human body seems to easily adapt to changes in our lives, and the reason for this is simply down to survival. The fact is our body must adapt in order to stand any chance of surviving sudden changes to the environment. What many dieters don't realise is that our body also adapts to changes in eating, both overeating and under eating causes the body to adjust.

The reason why we adapt to changes in eating is again for survival reasons. For example, if we struggled to find food our metabolism gradually lowers so we no longer require as much energy for growth and maintenance. The result is we can still survive on low food intakes.

For most people living in the western world food is in ample supply, the problem now is having too much. Some people become overweight by eating too much and one good aspect is that a majority of overweight people would have been a lot heavier if it wasn't for our body's adaptation to overeating.

How does the body adapt to overeating?

The human body adaptation to overeating is basically the reverse to under eating. As we overeat and slowly gain weight it forces the body to change, we could say the changes are a by-product of an increasing body weight. This is because all weight gained will NOT be composed entirely of fat, some of the weight will be made up from extra protein deposited in cells, and this is basically a gain in lean tissue. Extra lean weight will increase the metabolism and cause us to burn more calories than we did before the weight gain. Also, a heavier body requires more energy to move, thus we burn more energy during any movement that involves shifting bodyweight. Every time we walk around at home, work, go upstairs or perform many other general, physical duties we burn more energy than we did before the weight gain.

Another basic change is that the more food eaten, the more energy required to digest and absorb all the nutrients. It means if we eat more then more energy will be lost through this thermic effect.

But why don't the calories add up?

The basic adaptations above mean that after a weight gain if you continued to consume the same number of calories then gains in weight will slow. For example, if you require 2000 calories per day to maintain body weight but you eat 3000 calories for years you will obviously gain weight. However most of the gain will be within the first few months and eventually it will stop. It stops because the physiological changes help balance the energy in with energy out, thus soon your body will require 3000 calories per day to maintain that heavier weight.

The reason why people keep gaining further weight year after year is usually because they either consume even more calories or they become progressively less active, or both. In other words, as one pound is gained it requires even more excess calories to gain another pound. Scientists believe this is a natural adaptation we have to help maintain a steady body weight.

These facts are the reason why calories don't seem to add up when trying to lose a certain amount of weight. For instance there are 3500 calories in one pound of fat, so if you were to cut daily intake by 500 then theoretically you should lose one pound of fat over a week. However if you continue you'll find that weight loss slows then eventually stops, you reach a weight loss plateau. This is because eventually the low calorie energy intake balances with our energy output, thus there is no longer an energy deficit.

How to lose fat weight

As the human body can adapt so well to changes in food intake there needs to be a regular adjustment to the diet when attempting to lose weight. The obvious thing to remember is never severely cut food intake in order to lose weight as this will lead to a huge loss of lean muscle as the body adapts, instead lower calorie intake a little each week. This will give the body time to burn some stored fat without the negative effect of losing too much lean muscle. By saving as much lean muscle as possible you'll keep the metabolism sufficiently high enough to maintain continuous FAT loss for several months.

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