This fitness blogger proves that under-eating is NOT the way to go if you want to be fit
It seems like every other month a diet regime is being touted as the it way of being healthy. Australian fitness blogger Madalin Frodsham was no stranger to this craze, and for years tried various methods of restricting food intake to stay “fit.”
And then she had a revelation: under-eating is not the way to be fit!
Her super-thoughtful caption gave some serious insight into what a lot of people put themselves through in order to be “fit.”
She wrote, “Let’s just preface this by saying no, I did not have an ED. When I was eating 800 calories a day, I thought I was healthy. I was eating healthy food, but hardly any macronutrients…I was quiet astonished to see how little protein and carbs I was eating. 800 calories seems absurdly low as now I need minimum 1500 calories to be full, but at the time 800 calories was keeping me full because that’s what my body was used to. After a while though, salad simply wasn’t cutting it, and for all the restrictions I was placing on my diet, I simply wasn’t seeing the results I had anticipated. So I got in touch with a [personal trainer] and nutritional coach and got my macro[nutrient]s sorted.”
According to SELF, “Macronutrients—carbohydrates, proteins, and fats—are major dietary components that the human body needs to thrive.” Madalin’s nutritional coach assessed her diet and immediately gave Madalin two key pieces of advice: 1) She would have to increase her calorie intake. 2) She would have to make sure that 50% of her calories came from healthy carbohydrates.
That’s right. Carbohydrates can be healthy.
Madalin was, of course, dubious:
“When he first told me to eat 50 percent carbs I nearly died. I was eating about 10 percent carbs before and could not fathom how 50 percent carbs would not make me fat.”
Instead, Madalin’s energy increased and she got visible abs and toned arms. As she further explained:
“If you’re under feeding yourself in an effort to lose weight, don’t do what I did for so long… Don’t waste your time eating salad when you could be eating sweet potatoes and banana pancakes. Eat more and get fit. It actually works.”
As Nikita Kapur, R.D., told SELF:
“Over-restricting calories to lose weight can sometimes backfire. “If your body gets less calories then it needs to function, it can go into a conservation mode where it tries to hold on to as much energy as it can.”
Getting a proper amount of nutrients is key to optimal body function.
“Carbohydrates are the body’s main source of energy,” Robin Kaiden, R.D., nutritionist and personal trainer at Robin Barrie, also told SELF. “If we don’t get sufficient carbs, our bodies will eventually use the protein in our muscles as an energy source.”
Still, it’s important to remember that everyone’s body is different. Kapur emphatically told SELF that “each person’s diet should be individualized, based on things like basic metabolic rate and average level of activity:”
“Bottom line? Each person is so different with varying calorie, macronutrient, and micronutrient needs.”
Basically, everybody is different and we should all respect our bodies and fill them with healthy nutrients that make him happy. Thatis a message we can totally get behind.
