THE TRUTH-

During the period in which I worked as an NHS health trainer I would deliver weight management groups each week in various places, which meant I got to work with a lot of people from different backgrounds, receiving insight into all of the obstacles and barriers that they encountered due to the beliefs they held.

One of those beliefs that I heard frequently was the belief that the reason they felt they were gaining weight was due to not eating enough.
This concept suggests that when the body receives insufficient calories and goes into ‘starvation mode’ it slows down metabolism to conserve energy, potentially leading to weight gain.

This is a huge misconception in weight loss as research shows that unless you have a medical condition that prevents it, eating fewer calories than the body burns typically results in weight loss, not gain. However, temporary water retention is also extremely common when not eating enough, which can cause weight gain on the scales, but isn’t actually a true indication of weight/fat gained.

The most common reality of people believing that they are gaining weight through not eating enough is usually that they have either inaccurately calculated their calorie allowance, or they are inaccurately tracking their calories, and eating mindlessly.

A perfect example of this was one of my previous group members that was adamant that she was eating the correct amount of calories, but it transpired (from her being called out by her daughter who was also a member) that she wasn’t fully tracking her alcohol intake.

She would still be eating healthy, but was consuming A LOT of empty calories in alcohol, and would only track them at the beginning of the night, and lose track as the night went on.

This meant that she was unintentionally taking herself out of a calorie deficit, and was gaining weight.

I had another client that was practicing intuitive eating, however was actually mindlessly consuming excess calories as she cleared the plates from her children’s plates, or finished off their sweets or snacks.

It can be so easy when you have a busy life to not always pay full attention to the exact amount of calories you are consuming, but this is often where the confusion comes in with people thinking they aren’t eating enough but gaining weight. Due to the fact that they are actually consuming more calories then they realise.

So if you are gaining weight then it’s either due to a medical issue, or you are not tracking accurately, not because you aren’t eating enough.