Can you elaborate on how a calorie-restricted diet can result in "increased energy and stamina"? Specifically, if your energy intake is minimal, how do you end up with more energy than you had in your previous diet?
back
6 comments
More calories doesn't translate straight into more energy or stamina, or athletes would just consume big blocks of lard.
Your statement strikes me as patently false. Athletes eat a ton of food while training. Michael Phelps, for example, eats over 10,000 calories per day.
And Phelps is all athletes? And what is he eating? I'd bet it's not optimized for caloric density.
The point was not that Phelps is a representation of all athletes, but rather that athletes do eat a ton of calories a day in order to build muscle mass and have enough stamina for their rigorous training. There are certain exceptions, but generally speaking, if you are training for a sport then you should have a solid diet.
It's probably physically impossible to eat 10,000 calories a day unless some of it is calorie dense.
"Energy" in the sense of "I have a lot of energy today" is only tangentially related to "energy" in the sense of "the energy content of this candy bar is 250 calories".
Most of the other replies here got the gist of what I wrote, but for me, it's about apparent energy levels. That is, because I don't feel weighed down and sluggish because of a huge, greasy meal, I'm more apt to get outside and play basketball with my son or go for a walk, etc.
Your body is probably spending less time and energy digesting the food.
Presumably, there is a peak efficiency of the digestive system where it is using the least energy in metabolism compared to the intake, which when combined with weighing less, so needing less energy to move, could mean that people eating relatively little in general could feel more energetic than someone eating far more. This becomes really obvious if you look at the upper end of the spectrum.
Overeating causes hibernation like effects. like a bear, sleeping after eating.