5 Costs of a Calorie-Restricted Diet to Watch Out For.

And 4 Ways to Sidestep them.

⬆️⬆️ Prefer voice? Listen to the end to rest in a prayer for you.

Your body is designed to sustain life.

So any threat to adequate energy for your body triggers changes to how you use energy.

This is a significant advantage when food is scarce. But for many in developed countries, it isn’t. A more energy-efficient car is great, but an energy-efficient body may not be.

The diet industry entices you with every scroll. And many conflict with each other. Shame surfaces too when in-your-face ads guilt you into believing what you ‘should’ be eating.

Instead of only listening to the touted benefits, consider their claims alongside the costs to your metabolism and biology when following a calorie-restricted diet—before you reach for your credit card.

5 Costs of Following a Calorie-Restricted Diet:

1. Your body requires less energy than before.

• For every 2 lbs/1 kg of weight lost, your Resting Energy Expenditure (REE)¹ is reduced by 20 calories a day².

2. You burn less energy when physically active than before.

• The greater the weight loss, the more your body adapts to be more energy-efficient when you are active.³

3. You use less energy to process the food you eat.

• The Thermogenic Effect of Food⁴ is relative to the energy you eat.

• When you eat less, you burn less.

4. You want more food.

• Hunger increases 2 fold after ~8 weeks of dieting.⁵

• Appetite increases by 100 calories a day for every 2 lb/1 kg of lost weight.⁶

• Appetite is higher than before when you return to your original weight.

5. Food is even more appealing.

• The pleasantness of food is increased.

• Your senses are heightened to food aroma and taste in the context of being more hungry.⁷

This list doesn’t even touch on the impact restrictive diets have on mental health, or the nutritional sacrifice. You can read more in my post, Intermittent Fasting.

Your body becomes more energy efficient and you are hungrier with each calorie-restricted diet.

Is There a Way to Achieve Your Best Weight that is both Beneficial and Restful?

Yes. A thousand times, yes. That is why the Contented Table exists. To give you an alternative.

The key is not to trigger your body’s starvation response by, well, not starving.

If you are hungry daily, it is not sustainable anyway. And there is no peace and rest in daily hunger, never mind, joy.

Allow weight change to be the outcome or side effect of focusing on healthier habits.

Rather than the goal.

Work with how your body is uniquely designed, not against it.

4 Strategies to Avoid Diet-Harm and Choose Body Benefits Instead.

To achieve your best weight:

• Aim for the lower end of what you can eat without feeling hungry⁸,

  • See Your Best Diet is Right Here

  • And, Balance Your Hunger and Fullness with Snacks (& Save Your Willpower for Something Else)

• With adequate nutrition,

  • See 2 Easy Tweaks to Balance Eating (and Tone Down Cravings)

• Still include foods you enjoy,

  • See 4 Steps to Restful, Healthier Eating

• At an effort level, you can sustain for life.

  • See New Year, New Diet, Please No.

Pick one and act on one attainable and sustainable goal at a time.

Why listen to me?

There are countless nutrition voices.

One. Critical. Difference.

I listen to you.

You determine what I recommend at the Contented Table.

And I have been listening to people’s stories like yours for over 20 years.

Witnessed the trends, successes, and unfortunate harm caused by (often well-meaning) popular diets.

Rather than trying to ignite an impulse decision, I wait for you to ask questions and then provide the evidence that is relevant to you.

There isn’t a megaphone here shouting above the others. Trying to convince you to squeeze into a miraculous, one-size-fits-all diet. The information, though less flashy (dare I say, Plain Jane), resonates because you find realistic suggestions that fit into your life.

You can also marvel here at how nutritional science illuminates your Creator.

Find rest, by fortifying your awe as you look up in gratefulness to the One who made you.

Incredibly so.

Brimming your contentment.

Rather than, looking around and not help but compare.

Or end up looking down in defeat.

Either one settles in discontentment and lack of peace.

When you steer away from popular quick-fix diets and work with how God made you, you will have more Peace and rest at your table.

Has this helped you? Perhaps encourage another? Share this post with someone you know who is considering a calorie-restricted diet. So they can make a more informed choice and consider an alternative that leads to more Peace and rest.

Happy New Year to you! Thank you for the privilege of cheering you on in your journey.

As 2025 begins, a little reminder, God wants you to know,

He sees you, He hears you, He loves you.

Jane

1. Resting Energy Expenditure is the energy your body uses at rest. Loosely referred to as metabolism.

2. Schwartz, A. and Doucet, E. (2010). Obesity Reviews. 11: 531-547

3. Leibel et al. N Engl J Med (1995). 332: 621-8.

4. The Thermogenic Effect of Food is the energy used by your body after you eat to process, digest, absorb, and store nutrients.

5. Doucet, E and Cameron, J.D. (2007). Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 32: 523-32

6. Polidori, D. et al. (2016). Obesity 24: 2289-2295

7. Cameron, J.D. et al. Physiol Behav. (2008). 94:474-80; Cameron, J.D. et al. Appetite (2012) 58: 978-981

8. It keeps tugging at me as I write, that when in ketosis, on a keto diet, most people are not hungry. Keto is still a restrictive diet since your body has to become ketotic to sustain life. It is your body’s response to a starvation state. A very low-carb diet is very difficult for you to sustain for life. This topic deserves its own post but honestly, I don’t want to potentially prompt a debate that will not promote the Peace and rest that you are looking for here.