Burning fat snacks from our fatty deposits

We have an internal survival system, much like we prepare externally for a time of famine or drought, and when something happens that scares our insides, such as staying hungry for too long or dehydration, it will prepare itself to protect the body against future stress of this kind.

For example, when we fear a coming food shortage, we may start buying a few extra cans of food beyond what we normally need before our next grocery trip. These will simply go into our storage closet or pantry and will be stored there until we have a famine. However, if we keep adding to this storage for too long and never have a food shortage or famine to use it up, our stored food can get out of hand.

When our storage area fills up, we have to start looking for new places to store the food as it comes in. It’s at this point that we start to realize that all this extra food is making our house less functional than it used to be, making it harder to move around. And when food is stored too long, it begins to spoil and age, creating a really bad environment inside our home.

Our body’s reserve energy storage system works in much the same way. It will store the extra food we eat beyond what we need in our fat cells for use in case we cannot eat. One pound of fat is approximately 3,500 calories, and our body goes to this storage area and extracts needed calories when we skip a meal or two.

Fat is often seen as something we don’t like, but it’s our body’s calorie pantry, designed by our Creator to sustain us through lean times when we need extra calories and cannot access food. This extra fat we have is a prior investment in excess food intake, so we don’t necessarily have to pay for a bottle of fat burners to burn it off.

We can look at the cost of a meal and the number of calories it provides. Divide and multiply that by the amount of fat we need to lose to measure the investment we have in stored food in our bodies.

For example, if we normally eat a meal that provides 700 calories at a cost of $6.00 (there are approximately 3,500 calories per pound of fat), it would mean that each extra pound of fat on our body should be worth $30 in the 5 meals it could provide.

Each of us has a certain number of calories we need on average per day to support digestion, body temperature regulation, vital organs, skeletal muscle, and changes in activity throughout the day. Our body simply seeks fuel to meet these needs. If we suddenly drop our calorie intake very low for one or two days, or skip one or two meals, it forces the body to tap into its storage pantry and extract calories.

If your daily need is 2,000 calories and you consume only 1,000, your body will try to make up the 1,000-calorie deficit by drawing on stored energy.

You do not want to do calorie restriction like this for too long, or the body will think this is the amount of food it has to get used to every day, and it will simply start burning some muscle to lower its metabolism and become more efficient, burning calories more slowly.

Usually, if someone skips eating for only 18-24 hours or goes low-calorie for 2-3 days and then gets their calorie intake back up to a regular level, there should be no muscle loss, and they will only burn fat for energy!

Note: Keeping blood sugar levels low is key to unlocking stored body fat and enabling your body to convert it into usable energy. Anytime we get a sharp spike in blood sugar, the energy from fat storage is shut down, which stops the fat-burning process.