Why Low-Calorie Foods Are Keeping You From Getting Lean & Building Muscle

If you’re eating low-calorie everything, choosing the lightest option on the menu, and still wondering why you can’t get lean, build muscle, or achieve a more defined physique, this episode is for you. We’re breaking down how constantly prioritizing low-calorie foods can lead to under-fueling, make it harder to eat enough protein and carbohydrates, and leave your strength training without the nutrition it needs to actually change your body composition. You’ll learn why eating less isn’t always the answer for fat loss and muscle growth, and how properly fueling your body can help you build muscle, improve your metabolism, and create the lean, sculpted look you’ve been working for. 

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Transcript

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The answer to getting lean is not always how little can I eat. It's how can you fuel your body and nourish it to the point to where it will actually do what you want it to do. Welcome back to the Embodiment Lab. My name is Addy, and today we are talking about low calorie foods and how they're actually holding you back from being able to build out the physique that you want. We're gonna tackle this from just a couple different angles. So obviously, when you are wanting to build a lean physique, everybody tells you the answer is eat less, move more. And to be honest, that has gone so, so far that now what I preach and what a lot of other fitness coaches preach is you need to eat more and move less because many people have taken that to the extreme where now they're eating 10, sorry, not 10, a thousand, 1100, 1200 calories, where they're eating basically close to nothing. They see labels with foods that have over 300 calories, and that's a red flag to them. They're running a whole bunch, they're doing a ton of workouts, they're doing Pilates, they're doing hit circuits, they're doing strength training, they're doing literally the absolute most, which is the problem, because your body doesn't need a whole lot of input in order to get output, as long as the input is potent and is actually aligned with what your body needs in order to transform. So my philosophy is always eat more, but not just more irresponsibly. It's more, meaning you need to actually meet what your body needs from you and move less, meaning you need to move more strategically, not just more. Anyways, long spiel. But that leads to my point of when people are wanting to eat less, they are looking to eat less. Oftentimes you opt for the lowest calorie option possible. Let's say you go to the grocery store and you're looking for a tortilla, and you might see one with 120 calories, and you might see one that's 30 calories, one that's 70 calories, you know, whatever the options are, and you're gonna opt for the 30 calorie option because it's the lowest calorie option. And in your head, the least amount of calories equals better for you, because again, eat less, move more teaches us to eat as little as possible. The problem with this is that you do this with everything that you eat throughout the day, that instead of your calories at the end of the day adding up to what you need, which might be, let's just say, for easy numbers' sake, 2,000 calories. Now you're eating 1200 calories because absolutely everything that you put into your body was low calorie, which means that your body is not getting enough food to support its basic functions, your activity, and letting go of body fat, building muscle, all of the things that you want your body to do. There is suddenly this gap between what you're giving your body and what it actually needs. And that is a very important gap. That gap will keep you stuck so hard for so long, and you'll feel like you're banging your head against a wall, trying to force your body to respond because there's only so low that you can go with food before your body just starts breaking down. You'll notice things like headaches, you're lethargic, you're exhausted, you're stressed, you're holding on to inflammation, you're bloated, your digestion is garbage. You haven't taken a crap in three days because you're not eating enough food to move it through your digestive system. All of these things, yada yada yada, right? Your body actually slows down your metabolism to compensate for the fact that it's not getting enough energy. It's trying to save energy because it's not getting energy, which means that energy is not going toward losing fat or building muscle. So that's one issue. Another issue with opting for low-calorie foods is they are oftentimes processed, more processed than if you were to just get the normal thing, the normal tortilla, the normal yogurt, the normal bagel, the normal whatever it is. It's often more processed, which means that it's harder for your digestive system to break down. It also means that you're going to be hungry in about 30 minutes, which means that all day you are going to constantly be fighting your body because your brain is telling you, hey, I'm hungry, and you're thinking I just ate 30 minutes ago, I shouldn't be hungry. And so you suppress yourself. You tell yourself, no, no, no, I just ate, so I won't eat. And then you get hungrier and hungrier, and it becomes harder and harder to fight those thoughts. And then you end up making some silly decision, like eating three cupcakes at the end of the day, because you were just hungry, and you tell yourself that, oh, I just have cravings, I just have a sweet tooth, I just can't control myself when in reality you just aren't feeding yourself enough food throughout the day, which made that decision practically impossible for you to make. Another reason why opting for the low-calorie foods is because if you do find that you actually need more food, which newsflash, you are going to need more food if you are somebody who has been dieting or even eating untracked for the last several months, years, whatever, and you feel that you are stuck. I would track your food and find out how much you're actually consuming. But you will likely find that your calories need to be probably somewhere around 2,000, give or take, just depending on what your body actually needs. If you are trying to fill your day with low calorie options throughout the entire day, to fill up all 2,000 of those calories, it's going to feel like you're eating a shit ton of food. If you're eating 200 calories for breakfast, 200 calories for lunch, 200 calories for a snack, and 200 calories for dinner, guess what? That's 800 calories for the day. And you still have about, give or take, again, like I said, 1200 calories to eat for the rest of the day. What are you going to do? That is where low calorie options are not going to be your best friend. And again, this doesn't mean we get irresponsible with it and we go and we get the burger and we get the high-fat foods and all of these things, but it just means we eat real food without putting the pressure on ourselves to look at every single label and let that be a grade as to whether or not the food should go into our systems. Right? If we look at a label and see, oh, this thing is 200 calories and we think, oh, great, perfect. That's what I need, that's the issue. But if we don't care as much, we don't put as much pressure on the number of calories that is on the label, and we just eat whole natural foods. We go throughout the day, we have maybe some toast, some eggs, some avocado, some turkey bacon, some fruit for breakfast, all of that's gonna add up to about four or five hundred calories. That multiplied four, maybe five times throughout the day, depending on how many times you eat throughout the day, is going to add up to a better number to help you actually hit your calorie goal. And then filling in the gaps is not going to be as difficult for you. You won't feel like you're stuffing your face all day long just to hit your calories at the end of the day. But you're actually going to feel satiated and satisfied from the meals that you eat throughout the day, and you'll notice that you feel fuller for longer. So you don't have those insane cravings and thoughts in your head about the foods that you're eating and about what your next meal is gonna be, and about, oh, I need to avoid this food. I need to try so hard to hold myself back. You won't feel that because your body and your brain will be satisfied because you're actually giving yourself nourishing food that's actually doing something for your body. And also, let's face it, it is so stressful when you put so much meaning on that nutrition label. It's so stressful to look at a food and think, oh my gosh, this is X amount of calories. How insane is that? Versus just where can this fit in my day? How can this help me to reach my goals? How can this help fill in the gap to make sure that I actually feel nourished? How can this help me build muscle? How can I use this food to build muscle? Because if all of you're focused on, because if all you're focused on is calories, calories, calories, how can I eat as little as possible? How can I burn as much as possible? Everything you do will feel very transactional, which is exhausting. Nobody wants to live that way. That's stressful. That's hard for your brain. That's also hard for your body. Because if you're constantly thinking about shrinking the amount of food that you're eating and burning as much food as you can through exercise, that's exhausting for your body. You're not actually focused on what does my body need from me right now? Because making sure that your body actually gets what it's because making sure that your body actually gets what it needs is way more important than restricting and paying too much attention to the calories that you're eating. What moves the needle most is making sure you're eating enough to nourish your body and support the activity that you're doing so that the activity you're doing actually transforms your body and changes your physique. Because a lot of the times people think that their workouts need to be the sole needle mover when in reality your nutrition is the biggest needle mover. And if that is dialed in, then your workouts are just what enhance your physique, add muscle, add shape, add that sculpted look, and increase your metabolism to help you to stay lean with even less effort. So that is it for today's episode. I hope that was helpful. That was like one of the biggest mindset shifts that I had was that it's not about eating as little as possible. It's about actually making sure that your body's getting what it needs. Because if it's getting what it needs, then stress is lowered and it's a lot easier for your body to focus on leaning out and building muscle. So I hope you enjoyed. I hope it was helpful, and I will chat with you in the next episode. Bye.