Eating Like a Bird, Training Like an Animal

By Ryan Miller; B.S. Biochemistry, NASM Certified Trainer

I’m willing to bet that if you’ve ever set out to lose weight, you’ve thought about simply eating very little and working out more. This sounds like a great plan, and if you’re not working out and eating with no control at the time you set your plan into motion, its going to help you lose some weight in the beginning. But this method will end up working poorly in the long run.
What if you’re already working out and eating healthy and consistently? What if you’re doing those things but you’re not losing weight? What if you’re doing those things and actually gaining weight?
I want to share with you a scenario that I recently came across with a dedicated client. This client had been consistently training with me for over a year. She initially came to me with the goal of “looking like I workout.” At the time, she wasn’t eating properly and wasn’t working out properly. She was under eating and overworking, which is a terrible combination, and her physique matched her habits. She had nearly no muscle and her strength levels were low. You need to keep in mind that this client wasn’t new to the gym. She had 20 years of gym experience under her belt, and still, she wanted to look like she worked out!
How does that happen!? She was working out and eating consistently for years, but unfortunately, she was doing it wrong! When we sat down and really looked at her eating habits, it was discovered that she was consistently eating approximately 800 calories per day. Now, if you read that number and didn’t think twice about it, you’re about to learn a lesson in calorie levels that will improve your life and results in the gym. If you read that number and felt shocked that someone could eat so little while working out, then you can relate with me through the rest of this article.
How did we make it right? To start, I explained to her what I’m going to explain to you; under eating will get you nowhere fast! If you’ve read my article, Real World Metabolic Rate and Why You Need Resistance Training then you’ll understand this explanation better. If you haven’t read that article, I suggest reading it, and then coming back to finish this article with a better understanding of the subject.
Why does eating too little hurt your progress in the gym? My client’s maintenance level with activity factored in was 1400 calories per day. In one day, her body burns 1400 calories in order to keep her alive, well, and able to perform her daily activities. In order for her to gain weight, she needed to eat above 1400 calories per day. In order for her to maintain weight, she needed to eat 1400 calories per day. In order for her to lose weight, she needed to eat under 1400 calories per day. I told her that she should be setting her calories around 1200 and we would adjust accordingly based on her body’s response. Her body responded well and she dropped in weight, was happy with where she was headed, and everything seemed fine. Unfortunately, a couple of months later we ran into trouble.
She had stalled her metabolism out and was actually gaining fat! I knew that the first place to look was her diet and that she probably changed her habits. Her workouts were consistent and were based on the same concepts that had provided her with strong results since the beginning of our training relationship, so this wasn’t the problem area. Upon request, she listed out her daily food intake for me and sure enough, she was back to eating less than 1000 calories per day! She had it so ingrained in her mind from the past that eating less would get her farther, that she abandoned our plan and dropped an additional 300 calories from her daily intake on her own! When your total calorie intake is 1200, and you drop 300 calories, that’s 25% of your daily calorie intake! That is a significant percentage and is much too large of a drop to be made suddenly. She had made a classic mistake and was eating like a bird while she was working out like an animal!
The numbers don’t lie! Her maintenance calories were 1400, her intake was 900, she was digging herself deeper and deeper into a hole of undereating. This was causing her body to slow down its metabolism and hang onto fat to accommodate her new calorie intake. The body stores fat, as it is the most useful energy source in a time of bodily stress. She told me that she was only eating because “she knew she should be, not because she was hungry.” She was basically never hungry! This was a red flag for me that her body had come to a halt. She said she could “miss meals for half of a day and not feel hungry.” When you’re running in a fat burning mode, you should be feeling hungry every 2-4 hours, definitely not every 8-12 hours.
Resetting her metabolism was the only way to dig out of the hole, and it had to be done properly to avoid anymore fat gain. After an hour of consulting, we determined the best way for her to reset her metabolism. I explained to her that if she didn’t work on eating the proper amount of calories, she would only hurt herself more. As she began to follow the plan to reset her metabolism, her strength levels increased, her physique improved, and her motivation in her workouts increased. She was no longer feeling run down, stalled out, and unmotivated.
Nutrition is powerful, and you can’t expect results if you aren’t paying attention to what you’re putting into your body. I always say that you can’t outwork a garbage diet, and my client was a prime example of that statement. She was performing proven workouts, completing effective cardio, and eating healthy foods. That sounds like a recipe for success, but she was eating the wrong amounts of those foods, and that was her missing link.
Once a person finds all the links and completes the chain, they can’t be stopped in their goals. Many people workout consistently and see no results. If you think you’re missing a link to your chain, do something about it. You’ll be stronger, more energetic, and you’ll feel good about your time spent in the gym!