2:03am August 23, 2014

“So, how is the body supposed to tell between starvation and a diet? It can’t.”

“for 40,000 years the primary threat to the majority of humans tended to be not getting enough to eat. In fact, this was true until the end of World War II in the United States and is still true in many Third World countries (and for some in the West as well) today. Since starvation was common, our bodies learned to hold onto weight at all costs. Any time our bodies experience lack, they learn to be more efficient in holding weight: i.e. the body that experiences lack increases the set point. Children who experience famine have very efficient bodies – bodies designed to hold onto fat. People who experience starvation repeatedly will have bodies that get better and better at holding on to fat.

So, how is the body supposed to tell between starvation and a diet? It can’t. All the body knows is that the signals (signals of hunger or craving) it is sending are being ignored. And the only way it knows to respond is as if there is a famine. It holds onto weight and creates a demand for high calorie foods. And so the diet fails for the majority of us.”

~Talking Fat, by Lonie McMichael, PhD (via loniemc)

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