This genetic programming is still in us. When you restrict your calories for fat-loss purposes, your body reduces its total fat stores to stay alive, but it also slows down its basal metabolic rate to conserve energy.1 If you restrict your calories too severely or for too long, this metabolic downregulation, or “metabolic adaptation,” as it’s often called, can become quite severe, and the basal metabolic rate can plunge to surprisingly low levels.2 This mechanism is why “calorie counting” seems to not work for some people. It has nothing to do with hormone problems or eating too many carbs or
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