It may seem hard to believe, but if you want to burn fat, you are going to
have to eat more often! Of course, that’s a general statement, but the basic
idea is that starvation diets and fasting will actually make it harder for
your body to burn fats in the long run.
When you don’t eat for too long a period of time, your body begins to
think it is starving. Rather than burn your body fat, it will hold on to
fat, thinking it is in a famine situation. Now of course, you can’t simply
eat whatever you like all day and expect to burn body fat.
You will gain weight if you eat too many calories. But there is also a
minimum amount of food energy (calories) that you need to ensure that your
body is able to burn excess fat efficiently. As a general rule of thumb,
that number is no less than 1200 calories.
Proponents of low carbohydrate diets also suggest that another way to
burn body fat with food is to eat mostly protein and fat and to avoid carbohydrates. The idea here is that your body’s metabolism will be
“tricked” into burning its fat when there are few carbohydrates from food to
burn for energy.
