When it comes to production and working out, there is a point of diminishing returns.

The law of diminishing returns summed up is the point where doing what was working before begins to yield less results, while all other factors remain constant. Continuing to do more leads to less results or negative results.

Working out is a signal of change. Whether you get better or not depends on having the proper balance of activity/signals of change, rest and fuel. You can’t send more signals and expect it to always result in more change. More signals of change doesn’t mean more change, it means more signals.

Most people have a “more is better” mentality and believe more of what works or what they believe works is always better. Unfortunately, without the proper balance of rest and food, working out is bad for you and can negatively affect your health.



The fat fuel tank

At first, working out may have caused you to lose weight and feel better. For the most part, the more weight you need to lose, the easier it is to lose weight. When you are extremely fat, no matter what you do, practicing any health, diet or fitness advice will most likely result in you getting better or closer to the goal.

If you are fat due to overeating, you have a fat “fuel tank.” Whenever you do too much activity or eat too little, your body can easily respond to the stress with the “fuel tank.” Not only will you lose weight, but when you go overboard, the fuel tank makes up for what you were lacking and protects you from the additional stress.

When your fuel tank becomes too small or your fuel tank already was too small, you no longer have this layer of protection. Once you do too much activity or eat too little for too long, not only do your results stop or become harder to obtain, your body goes through more stress, becomes worse and can result in permanent damage.

At this moment, it is incredibly important to balance your activity with the appropriate amount of rest and food to continually get better or progress. If you don’t, your workouts and attempts to eat healthier will hurt your health more than it will help because the stress will outweigh the recovery and nutrients.



Without the proper balance, working out is bad for you.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you increase the amount of activity you do, you must supplement the activity with either more fuel or more rest or a combination of the both to offset the additional activity. If you don’t get the proper balance of fuel and rest for how much activity you do, you eventually will break down somewhere and not only will results stop, the more stress that was caused, the more negative outcomes are possible.

Below are 4 areas you can become deficient in from working out.

Rest deficiency

During and after a workout, your body is flooded with hormones from the stress of working out. Afterwards, if you properly recover, you will adapt to the type of signals that were sent. If you don’t allow your body to recover and continue to stress it, your body will begin to break down. This process is called the principle of general adaption syndrome.

A rest deficiency or “break down overload” can result in a lack of energy, insomnia, injuries, metabolic and hormonal issues, sickness and, taken too far, even death.



Calorie deficiency

Many people believe they are getting enough calories, but never take the time to know exactly how many. When someone decides to eat healthier, they tend to under eat because nutritious food isn’t often calorie dense or they end up cutting all carbs but never replace the calories. If you want to eat nutritious and eat enough, you’ll quickly realize if you track your food consumption, that to supplement a large amount activity with great whole foods, fruits and vegetables, it must be A LOT of food consumption!

At first working out most likely will yield a nice synergistic effect with your diet, even without paying attention to it. Over time though, if you keep increasing your output and you don’t eat enough calories, a whole host of problems will follow.

As stated before, the principle of general adaption syndrome states that the working out portion is the signal to change and with the proper recovery and nutrition, you can adapt and become better. Your body is always trying to be efficient and becomes efficient at everything you do, whether it’s a good thing or bad. If you are consistently working out hard and consuming too few of calories, your body will adapt and slow its metabolism down.

Body composition effects

The slowing of your metabolism will make you more prone to store fat, and, at a point, will completely halt all weight and fat loss. If calories are too low and you need energy for a given task, your body will break down muscle because muscle requires more calories to maintain than fat and as I mentioned, your body is trying to be efficient, not effective.

Let’s pretend your body is a manufacturing machine. If the goal is to become better, stronger, faster, more efficient, or produce more, would it make sense to increase production and decrease fuel?

NO! The machine would begin to break down rapidly. Luckily for you, your body automatically becomes efficient and slows down all production due to the low amount of fuel.



Other negative health effects of too few calories

The forced slowing of metabolism due to a lack of calories is an extremely stressful response and doesn’t only affect fat loss but also the rate you metabolize food.

The stress from eating too little and working out too much will result in directly or indirectly: slowed hormone production, decreased brain function, decreased organ function, cancer, disease, problems, sickness, injury, mental issues, decreased energy, sleep issues and so much more.

Eating too little indirectly leads to macro- and micro-nutrient deficiencies as well that also will cause these problems.

Macronutrient deficiency

Macronutrients are the nutrients that contain calories, i.e. protein, carbs and fat. Often, when someone goes on a diet that cuts calories, they also end up becoming deficient in a certain macro-nutrient. The deficiency may come intentionally or unintentionally.



Intentional macronutrient cut

When someone goes on a keto diet and cuts carbs or goes on a low-fat diet, the macronutrient is intentionally cut. The negative effects of such macronutrients are argued tooth and nail to this day because our bodies are so efficient that it’s hard to tell exactly what will happen.

I personally don’t believe in cutting out whole macro-nutrients because each one has its purpose and benefit and I believe to be your best, you need to utilize them all. Also, most often people don’t follow the diet to the “T” so they have carbs and fat competing to give them energy and it causes undue stress.

You have a glycogen powered energy production system for a reason. Your brain is made of mostly saturated fat and fat directly influences hormone production. For these reasons alone, you shouldn’t cut out one or the other, and these are just a few of many!

Unintentional macronutrient cut

When someone goes on a diet, the intentionally cut of calories usually leads to a macronutrient deficiency. First and foremost, most people don’t know how many calories they are consuming at any time, whether they are dieting or not. This problem alone contributes to more problems than anything else, in my opinion.

Without knowing how many calories you are eating, you most likely won’t know how much protein you’re getting either. Protein is the building block of muscle. Without protein, you can not build muscle. If you work out and don’t get enough protein, you will stress your body and end up doing more damage than good.



Micronutrient deficiency

When you lack macronutrients, it becomes extremely hard, if not impossible, to get all the micronutrients your body needs to function correctly.

Micronutrient deficiencies usually will go rather unnoticed until it’s too late. It is said that micronutrient deficiencies are direct causes of cancer, and I believe this to be true. Simply put, every process in your body is a chemical reaction. Every finger you lift and drop of blood you pump is because chemicals are responding to other chemicals. If you are deficient in just one micronutrient, a butterfly effect could happen and result in an extremely bad problem, like cancer.

For example, Magnesium plays a role in over 300 metabolic reactions in your body. If you are deficient in magnesium, you will negatively affect DNA, blood pressure, muscles, cellular health and so much more. If you have a micronutrient deficiency and start to work out without adding more of that nutrient, you will become more deficient and increase the negative effects.



Why working out is bad for you.

Easily put, I go by the saying

“You are what you eat, and you become efficient in what you do.”

You can design a workout around a diet or a diet around a workout, but you can’t pay attention to one more than the other and expect any type of great results. Working out is a stress on the body, so if you stress it, make sure you know how to properly balance out the stress. If not you may end up hurting yourself permanently or cutting valuable years off your life.