Tip Me Tuesday: Metabolic Management

By Naomi Rabon, NW Fitness Team Trainer

How many of you reading this think that your ‘metabolism’ is a thing inside your body, like an organ, that determined how fast or slow someone was able to lose weight?

Working with clients over the years, I have concluded that many others have a vague understanding of what a metabolism is, yet still blame it for the struggles and stresses of having to work out and eat healthy all the time just to keep that darn thing in line.

Does his sound familiar?

My metabolism was so much faster when I was younger but after I hit 30 it decided it didn’t want to work as hard anymore.

I was born with a slow metabolism.

My friend is so lucky, she can eat anything and not gain weight. She just naturally has a fast metabolism.

So here we have several different scenarios where people blame their ability to lose weight (release stored energy/use energy for fuel) or gain weight (store energy/build muscle) on the function and speed of their metabolism.

METABOLISM: SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT YOU THINK

The word metabolism, I’ve learned, is actually both a noun and a verb (action verb) that originated from the Greek word metabolḗ, which means change. A metabolism is the set of life-sustaining chemical transformations within the cells of all living organisms.

Three main functions of metabolism

1. The conversion of food/fuel to energy to run cellular processes

2. The conversion of food/fuel into building blocks for proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and some carbohydrates.

3. The elimination of nitrogenous wastes.

That means that your metabolism is a functioning, active process that is dictated by so many things stemming from both nature – your genetics – and nurture – what you do or don’t do to take care of your health, fitness and, thus, your metabolism.

OPTIMIZE YOUR METABOLISM!

To a point, you are the one who can dictate the long-term health and effective functioning of your metabolism, not the other way around. You aren’t the victim of a slow metabolism; your metabolism is at the mercy of your lifestyle choices.

I think it was in 7th grade that I started noticing my hips getting bigger. My mom has big hips, my grandmother on my mom’s side had big hips, so I believed I was just destined to have big hips. But I didn’t want big hips!

All my friends (I mean all of my friends) were bragging about their size 0 or size 2 Girbaud jeans while I was creeping up into size 6-8 territory.

Needless to say, that’s when I really started to pay attention to the fat and calories in foods I ate, and started to exercise on a regular basis.

I was so afraid I was doomed to a certain fate that I had no control over, which was big hips and a slow metabolism, as my mom has struggled with her weight her whole life and my grandmother was not a small lady either.

METABOLISMS “HATE” DEFICITS

As many still think the calorie burn is where it’s at when it comes to weight loss, I too fell for that myth and was a cardio junkie for about 15 years to try and fight my “big hips, slow metabolism” fate.

Guess what?

Too much cardio combined with too few calories for too long only slowed my metabolism down more, and in order to combat any potential weight gain, I had to keep up the cardio sessions and keep my calories at about 1,400-1,600 per day – just to prevent any weight gain.

I see this in my clients often: the vicious cycle of “weight gain fear” resulting in too much cardio and under eating. Biologically, the metabolism can’t stay in a caloric deficit without slowing down. Your metabolism was designed to slow the rate of metabolic speed when energy consumed is not equal to energy expenditure.

So, if too much cardio (energy expenditure) and too little food (energy consumed) equals metabolic slow down, what do you think could help rev up your metabolism? You got it! Weight training (building muscle) and EATING!

Now don’t get too excited – this is a very delicate process.

THE “MAGIC” OF REVERSE DIETING

By now, many of you have heard about “Reverse Dieting”, which Nicole covered in great detail in her blog post Reverse Dieting 101: A Guide To Staying Lean.

Building your metabolism back up to a healthy place after it’s been taxed – either through years of yo-yo dieting, coming off a competition prep – has to be done carefully. Otherwise, you could rebound in the opposite direction, which could cause other unhealthy behavior patterns to emerge. That’s why applying Nicole’s steps on how to reverse diet is crucial.

When done properly, reverse dieting provides you with three main benefits:

• Restores a slowed metabolism over time and gives you the metabolic capacity to diet again.

• Fills the muscles back out after your dieting period, usually making for a more appealing physique (which mentally is a nice boost when you are not aiming for a contest but you really like the way you are looking – lean and full.)

• Helps keep you lean in the “offseason”, so you don’t have to diet so long and hard the next time to achieve your desired results. It’s the situation all competitors should strive to be in – leaner in offseason, metabolism fired up on higher calories to support the next prep, and a nice offseason of lean muscle growth.

HEALTHY CHOICES = METABOLIC EFFICIENCY

Here’s what you can do to help give your metabolism a healthy boost!

1. Health First While we all want a beautiful physique, it doesn’t have to come at the cost of your health! The health of our metabolism is at the root of our overall health and our fitness. Without a healthy functioning metabolism, our gorgeous physique we’ve worked so hard for will be short lived if attainable at all.

While there are a lot of short cuts and quick fixes that may (emphasis on may) get you temporary results, it comes at a very high long-term price, and that is the health of your metabolism (and most likely your mental and emotional well-being as well).

Focus on being healthy first, and with a healthy metabolism can eventually come a beautiful, healthy, fit physique.

2. See Your Doctor A good starting point is to see your doctor and have all your hormones and other systems checked by getting a full metabolic blood panel. You may have some underlying issues that need to be addressed before taking any further steps.

3. You Are In Control Don’t feel helpless and think that you are at the mercy of a slow metabolism. While we are genetically predisposed to certain biological characteristics, we can also make lifestyle choices that can help prevent genetically predisposed physical characteristics.

Obesity and weight gain in certain areas, as well as genetically predisposed health-related illnesses and disease such as heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol and so on, can be controlled.

We are not victims of these situations, we are at risk of genetically predisposed traits that can be both managed and combated by making healthy choices and living a healthy lifestyle.

I highly recommend you follow the steps Nicole lays out in Reverse Dieting. Depending on where you are on your fitness journey, this may be a very scary thing to do, but for long-term fitness and to build up your metabolism to a healthy place, your future goals and long-term metabolic health depend on it!

One of the trainers on Nicole’s elite NW Fitness Training Team, Naomi is a certified Personal Trainer and Fitness Specialist through the National Academy of Sports Medicine. She is a NPC Figure competitor who has been involved in the health and fitness industry for over 12 years.

Go here to find out more about training with the NW Fitness Training Team! 

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