Written by Helga Marin June 2011
Two days ago a woman came to see me for a consultation as she wanted my help to lose weight. When I asked her what was standing in her way of doing so, she told me that she suffered from a low metabolic rate and no matter how much she restricted her diet, the weight just wouldn’t move.
She had visited doctors, health care practitioners, nutritionists and anyone who promised help with weight loss. She had also done all the tests related to her metabolism. Her hormones were in balance, her thyroid was functioning as it should and she did not have any disease or disorder affecting her metabolism. I asked her about her diet and quickly estimated her kcal intake.
I found that she was eating around 1000 kcal a day. She explained that this was her normal routine but sometimes she would be tempted to eat a little bit more. Her story is probably the most common one I hear from people who come to see me for weight loss. Crashing down your metabolic rate is not only the most common reason for weight gain but also the most difficult one to deal with.
Working with weight loss for more than 15 years, I have searched for solutions in order to help people in correcting their metabolic rate.
Today I know that it is not only possible but it can be fairly easy if done properly. It is important to understand how your body works and how it is constantly adapting to its environment. What is interesting to note is that your body has this amazing capacity to adapt to almost any diet, at least short term. When you eat toxic food your body works hard to eliminating but it also adapts to the toxic environment compromising vital functions that keep the body healthy and working at its peak.Your body has also the ability to adapt to a lower intake of kcal so the metabolic rate slows down as you eat less. Finally, your body has the capacity to adapt to any extreme diet that works on eliminating food groups; for example the Atkins diet. It could work one time or even 2-4 times but after that it stops working.
The key to successful weight loss is not so much about lowering your kcal intake, even though that might be necessary at times, and it is not so much about eliminating completely food groups from your diet. It is about teaching your body to burn as many kcal as it possibly can. When your metabolic rate is working effectively, eating unhealthily now and then will not cause you to gain weight. This is why, instead of cutting down your kcal or eliminating food groups from your diet, you should be thinking about how you can raise up your metabolic rate.
Here are few tips on how to raise your metabolic rate:
1. Eat according to your gene type. Understanding that we are all different and that one diet doesn’t fit all is one way to raise your metabolic rate. Some people do better on high carb diet, some do better on a high protein diet and some do better on a high fat diet. Finding out what suits you could be the key to a successful weight loss. It is important to note that even if you do better on a high-fat rather than high-carb diet it doesn’t mean you should cut out carbs completely from your diet but rather you should focus on reducing the amount of carbs. The same goes for all the different types. We all need carbohydrates, protein and fat but the ratio between the 3 can vary between individuals.
2. Eat frequently or 5-6 small meals a day. Eating frequently is probably one of the most effective ways to speed up the metabolic rate no matter what kind of genes you have. I usually use the metaphor of a fire place. Put wood on the fire regularly and you keep the fire up. Put too much wood on the fire and you kill it. Leave too long time in between and the fire goes down automatically. Your metabolism is the same, when you feed your body with a small amount of food regularly and you keep up the metabolic rate you lose weight, and when you eat too much you start storing fat instead of using the fuel you take in and you gain weight.
3. Avoid trans fats and high fructose corn syrup. Trans fats or hydrogenated fats are fats that can not be used as fuel for the body and so whenever you eat trans fats it gets stored directly in your fat tissue. Besides contributing to weight gain, trans fats are one of the biggest risk factors behind heart and cardiovascular diseases. High fructose corn syrup, which is the cheapest and the most common sugar in processed food, is one big contributing factor to weight gain. Some evidence suggests that fructose may cause weight gain and fat storage in humans, because it’s metabolized into fat in the liver, rather than being absorbed and processed into glucose the way that table sugar or other carbohydrates are. This kind of sugar also suppresses your ability to feel full which can lead to excessive consumption of food.
4. Your mood and how you feel has a lot to do with your body’s metabolism and its ability to burn fat. As your body is constantly reacting to your feelings by releasing different chemicals you can easily both raise and slow down your metabolic rate and your body’s ability to mobilize fat as an energy source, with your feelings.
There are 18 more ways to boost up your metabolic rate and so if you want to learn more you can. Next Saturday, the 25th of June I will be conducting a seminar on 22 ways to boost up your metabolic rate and increase your body’s ability to burn fat. The workshop I call Eat more, Weigh less. If you are interested you can sign up by emailing me back or call 050 5518482. I have attached all info via attachment.
Yours in Health and fitness Helga Marin