The Biggest Danger of Reducing Calories is NOT a Slowed Metabolism (it’s way worse)

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the number one danger of caloric restriction is not just a slowed metabolism it gets a lot more granular than that now I am not saying caloric restriction is bad okay if you recount my videos I'm a huge proponent of caloric restriction but caloric restriction takes a lot of responsibility if you just reduce calories willy-nilly yeah you do slow down your metabolism but other things are affected too things that truly affect how you feel and your life in general so let's go ahead and break down some interesting research on what aggressive caloric restriction can do and I also have not just the number one danger that comes with too much caloric restriction but possibly what could arguably be number two as well after today's video I popped the link down below for a free variety pack of element lmnt electrolytes stuff is amazing if you are reducing calories or you're intermittent fasting you've got to try this stuff okay seriously so the link down below at drinklmnt.com Thomas gets you a free variety pack with any purchase so a free sample pack that has all the different flavors with your purchase of regular electrolytes definitely have to check them out so a lot of people when they end up getting that sample pack they give it to their friends or something like that so they can try it out too this stuff is zero calorie or very minimal calories like five in some of the flavors right but you have lemon lime like a citrus salt you have lemon habanero you have mango chili you have chocolate Salt so these things taste good and make it so that when you are reducing calories you feel like you're getting something that's actually helping you and it tastes good and satisfies you so that link is down below again it gets you that free sample pack with purchase so use that link drink lmnt.com Thomas so there is an interesting study that found that caloric restriction in people that were also training hard led to a decrease in what's called mucosal immunity essentially in this case now it doesn't just apply to athletes but in this particular study they looked at taekwondo athletes that were reducing calories to cut weight okay so in fighting athletes yeah they have to cut weight so they do often reduce calories but this often coincides with intense training leading up to fights right so it's a perfect example of reducing calories and increasing activity well they find that there ends up being a pretty significant increase in upper respiratory infections and oftentimes taking longer to recover now what's interesting about this is I noticed this firsthand okay I do a lot of experimentation on my body and I'm known to take it to a little bit of an extreme sometimes okay A lot of times so what that means is yeah I will reduce calories aggressively if I'm trying to get very very lean and a lot of times that also includes me training hard so sometimes do as I say not as I do right but anyway point is when that happens I end up getting sick a lot okay and it's very very noticeable my calories go down my workouts go up the instance of me getting sick goes up to there's no denying that it's clear as day and my aura and my whoop will tell me that exactly but what's happening is there seems to be an epigenetic effect on severe caloric restriction with gene expression of immune cells so what this means is at an epigenetic level when we're reducing calories the body sort of reallocates Interest into where it expresses genes what that means is we're no longer creating new immune cells at the rate that we would be if we're not in extreme caloric restriction in tandem with extreme activity so it does quite literally suppress our immune system so this is a very problematic thing now I promise that I'd talk about the number two thing but it happens to go hand in hand with this there is a study that was published in the journal aging cell and this is fascinating because this study took a look at people that were on a regular American diet with minimal activity compared to people that were doing a caloric restriction diet compared to people that were endurance athletes but still eating an adequate amount but they were ultimately still in a deficit just via exercise versus caloric restriction diet the results were really interesting both the caloric restriction group and the endurance Runner group were very lean had very low body fat but only the caloric restriction group had suppression of testosterone and suppression of estrogen quite significantly what this tells us the endurance group was lean because they were exercising a lot but their calories were also quite High the caloric restriction group was not exercising a lot but they were kind of starving themselves what this tells us is that it's not necessarily the deficit itself that matters caloric restriction in extreme Fashions suppresses not only our immune system but our sex hormones so this affects your lifestyle obviously how you feel it affects your libido it probably affects your marriage probably affects all kinds of relationships it affects your motivational drive it affects everything okay but what we don't often realize is the role that estrogen plays and how we feel too so the suppression of estrogen can lead to joint pain can lead to stiffness can lead to Serious mood issues can lead to neurodegenerative conditions it's not good it can actually like atrophy your brain but another thing is estrogen also seems to be correlated with the immune system so now I'm seeing some dots connected not only is there an epigenetic change in our gene expression of immune cells but perhaps the suppression of estrogen as a secondary problem is influencing our immune system too so what are you supposed to do not reduce calories like you got to do something right the bottom line here is and I don't want to be like biased by giving this as a solution but it's what's worked for me when I'm not getting crazy aggressive and making myself sick half the time well what I do is I practice periods of high calorie with periods of low calorie in the form of time restricted feeding now you might click off this video because this is stuff I've talked about before but still hear me out what I'll do is you know three or four days out of the week I might take an aggressive Dip in My caloric intake by fasting okay I'll fast for 18 or 20 hours and then the days that I'm not fasting I keep my calories high so what I do is I look at my calories over the course of a seven day period versus a daily period so at the end of seven days I'm at net neutral right where I need to be at maintenance right or maybe a little bit more a little bit less depending on what my goal is but I'm not counting my calories in a caloric restriction phase every day slowly going down what this allows me to do is allows me to keep my calories high when I need to keep them high and keep them low at relatively short intervals another thing that you can do is you can take diet breaks if you're into caloric restriction just generally then every four to eight weeks take two weeks off of your diet and just eat normal healthy food with high amounts of protein and then go back to your diet this is going to ensure that you're not overdoing it now another thing that you want to do is you want to balance your energy levels right so you want to balance your energy intake with your activity if you're reducing calories too much it's probably not a good idea to increase your activity too much are you an athlete are you a fighting athlete are you a UFC fighter a Taekwondo athlete kickboxer you might be in that small category where you have no choice but if you just want to live your life be there for your kids be there for your family be functioning at work if you reduce your calories you should also reduce your activity if you increase your calories you should also increase your activity it's that simple but for some reason we always want to complicate it so much that we forget that so utilizing fasting utilizing diet breaks and utilizing proper energy balance I'll see you tomorrow