28/07/2026
Unpopular opinion (backed by a lot of research): under-eating might be sabotaging your fat loss, not helping it.
When calorie intake drops too low for too long, your body responds by slowing metabolic rate and breaking down muscle tissue for energy — a process called metabolic adaptation. The irony is that muscle is exactly what keeps your resting metabolism higher. Lose enough of it, and you end up burning fewer calories doing absolutely nothing, making fat loss harder, not easier, over time.
This is a huge reason why the "just eat less" approach so often stops working, especially as women move through perimenopause and menopause, when muscle is already harder to hold onto.
The better long-term strategy: eat enough to fuel your training, prioritise protein, and lift weights to build and protect muscle. It's a completely different mental model from "restrict diet" — and it tends to actually work.
Have you noticed diets getting harder to stick to (or work) as you've gotten older?
