Exercise should increase your energy and leave you feeling good about yourself. If you're on a weight-loss program that's making you tired, find a new program.
Symptoms
Symptoms of fatigue during a weight-loss program can go beyond feeling tired. If you're an athlete, fatigue may take the form of decreased ability to perform in your sport. For others, it may mean decreased motivation, lethargy or exhaustion. Whatever the case, fatigue should not accompany weight loss and exercise, say Jack H. Wilmore and David L. Costill in "Physiology of Sport and Exercise."
Underweight
If you're an athlete training for a sport, you may be at risk for being underweight. Being underweight can be as stressful to the body as being overweight. If you're chronically fatigued due to being underweight, you may be decreasing your immune system's ability to function, Wilmore and Costill say. Training often leads to injury or illness. Proper nutritional intake during periods of intense training can help reduce the likelihood of becoming underweight
Rapid Weight Loss
Rapid weight loss with a plan of high amounts of exercise and small amounts of food can result in fatigue. If you're not eating enough and exercising, your body must resort to stored energy. In about a day, energy that's stored in the liver becomes exhausted. The body must provide nutrients for the vital working organs of the body, especially the heart and brain. Turning fat into nutrients is hard work, and eventually you begin to produce ketones -- partially broken-down fat and amino acids. Ketones inside of your blood raise the pH, which also increases fatigue, say Francis Sizer and Eleanor Whitney in "Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies."
Diet
Certain diets, such as a low-carbohydrate one, can increase fatigue by decreasing nutrition and increasing dehydration. According to Wilmore and Costill, when carbohydrate stores are depleted with diet, so is water. When carbohydrates are stored, there is 2.6g water stored with it. When you use the carbohydrate, you also lose that water. If you deplete your carbohydrate stores, you're also depleting your water stores. Dehydration can cause fatigue.
Prevention/Solution
To avoid fatigue with weight loss and exercise, choose a program that recommends moderate weight loss of 1 lb. to 2 lbs. per week. This should be achieved through combining diet and exercise. Exercise should not push you to the limit. It should increase your energy and make you feel better. If you're fatigued, decrease exercise. If this doesn't work, consult your doctor, says David C. Nieman in "Exercise Testing and Prescription."
References
- "Exercise Testing and Prescription"; David C. Nieman; 2007
- "Physiology of Sport and Exercise"; Wilmore, Jack H., Costill, David L.; 2004
- "Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies"; Sizer, Francis, Whitney, Eleanor; 2004.
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