Undereating can make you fat.

[Warpath]

For about the past week I havent been eating as much as normal for a variety of reasons and I noticed some weird stuff going on with my body. Although my weight had been going down slowly, my body fat, especially around the abdomen has been growing significantly. The contents of my diet hadnt changed, just the amount. It was like WTF? You are at least supposed to lose some bf if you reduce your calories. Then, the other night I was feeling pretty hungry and ate a large, clean meal (chicken breasts, veggies and some rice) and felt pretty good. The next day I woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed I had swollen up (in a good way) and my gut had shrunken noticably and has continued to do so for the past day. So what happened? I had continued to lift hard even though I hadnt been eating as much and basically put my body in a catabolic state. In this catabolic state, my body was digesting my muscles for energy and was secreting cortisol. Cortisol causes simultaneous depostion of fat (especially around the abdomen) and muscle wasting, which is exactly what was happening to me. Ever see skinny/fat people? You get the picture. So if you want to grow, make sure to eat just enough to keep you in that anabolic zone.

 

[t3c]

yea man, also not eating as much probably caused your metabolism to slow down

 

[Lord_Suston]

fat bastard....

cortisol=the devil

need to keep the body in an anabolic state by eating low GI carbs and different kinds of protein due to absorbtion time. negative calories will not help lose fat if the cortisol levels increase.

 

[guldukat]

So what happened? I had continued to lift hard even though I hadnt been eating as much and basically put my body in a catabolic state. In this catabolic state, my body was digesting my muscles for energy and was secreting cortisol.

No. You're overreacting. It's not catabolism. A week's entirely too fast to notice the things you describe unless you weren't eating anything.

You were expending energy training hard but not putting it back in, so it's natural that your glycogen levels were depleted.

Thus, your muscles flattened out, giving the appearance of softness. At the same time, you could've been a bit bloated. It's rather easy to hold water under the skin even in an energy deficit.

 

[kentucky]

So what exactly causes this 'flattened out' appearence you speak of?

b/c I think I have a chronic case

 

[Zander1983]

cortisol=the devil

Tell me about it. The last couple of days I feel like I've been constantly shrinking.

 

[Warpath]

Re: Re: Undereating can make you fat.

No. You're overreacting. It's not catabolism. A week's entirely too fast to notice the things you describe unless you weren't eating anything.

You were expending energy training hard but not putting it back in, so it's natural that your glycogen levels were depleted.

Thus, your muscles flattened out, giving the appearance of softness. At the same time, you could've been a bit bloated. It's rather easy to hold water under the skin even in an energy deficit.

Thats BS. Cortisol is released daily with variances in amounts, with the highest amount being released in the morning around 5-6 a.m. Cortisol increases are observed post meal ingestion after several hours as a mechanism to mobilize nutrients. Dont eat as much, you release more cortisol or else you wouldnt have enough glucose to keep your brain functioning. A week isnt entirely too fast to notice the effects of cortisol because cortisol fluctuates hourly.

 

[Parabellum]

I've been trying to explain that undereating makes you fat to my wife for 3 years now. In one ear out the other.

 

[Stryc-9]

So what exactly causes this 'flattened out' appearence you speak of?

b/c I think I have a chronic case

A loss of muscle glycogen (most directly correlated to dropping CHO calories) will make your muscles appear "flat".

 

[rettoforever]

Moral of the story-- eat and be merry!

And don't forget either of the two!