Another article you girls might wanna give some reflection:)
Guest post by Mary Burak.
Mary is Metabolic Typing Diet practitioner. Workout IQ is honored to share her knowledge and insight into nutrition and how foods that we choose make us or break us.
Quite a number of people resort to drastic measures to lose weight in a hurry.
One popular method is to go on a very low-calorie diet for a couple of weeks. Food intake is cut way back, even to the point of skipping meals, and eating only very small portions of food. The plan works, and the weight peels off. At least for a while.
Before long, all the weight that was lost was found again.
The first thought is usually, How did this happen?
There was no cheating, no indulgences, nor binging. The diet was followed to the letter. But, suddenly, the scale reads the same as it did before the diet. No matter what is tried, the weight stays the same. It’s as if your body was trying to sabotage you and stay the same.
You’d be tempted to think, Stupid body!
Well, sabotage is a strong word, and your body is extremely smart. This struggle to maintain the same weight is called your “setpoint”.
It is a survival mechanism that is designed to help you conserve body fat. Back in the days when we were all hunter/gatherers, food wasn’t as easy to come by, so your body is programmed to do what it can to maintain the same weight.
Your body is still working on the basic design outlined millennia ago.
It doesn’t know that in the industrialized world, food is everywhere. So, when you cut back on your caloric intake, your body automatically thinks there is a famine and will go into starvation mode.
The setpoint will kick in to protect you. Your metabolism slows down, and your appetite picks up. When in starvation mode, you need to be motivated to eat as much food as possible because your body doesn’t know when the next meal is coming.
If you’re just dieting, the increased appetite becomes a test of your will.
In 1995, researchers at Rockerfeller University found that metabolic rates in adults who had lost 10% of their body weight on an 800-calorie-a-day diet plan also had decreased their metabolic rate by 10%.
However, your setpoint can work in the opposite direction as well.
If you suddenly add weight, your metabolism speeds up and your appetite decreases. Those same researchers at Rockefeller University found those who gained 10% of their body weight had a 10% increase in their metabolic rate.
Before you reach for that brownie, you should know that the setpoint is only one factor in determining a person’s weight. There are things like hormones, genes that also have a dramatic affect.
So, what’s a person to do?
If you’re overweight, you can lower your setpoint by following these two guidelines:
1. Avoid low-calorie diets.
If you really want to reduce your caloric intake, please do so only gradually, and moderately. It’s difficult to state how many calories can be cut before inducing a metabolic slowdown. Some experts recommend you figure out how many calories you’re eating now, then reduce that by no more than 500 calories per day. The Mayo Clinic has a handy calculator for this that also factors in how active you are. And, these experts agree that you should never go below 1200 calories a day without a doctor’s supervision.
2. Exercise
Surprised? You shouldn’t be.
Exercise builds muscle, which requires more energy to maintain than fat.
For each pound of muscle, your body burns 6 calories. Doesn’t sound like much?
Well, I personally have 115 lbs of muscle, and I’m only 5′5″. So, just sitting around doing nothing, my muscles are burning nearly 700 calories a day.
Just imagine how much more I burn when I’m hefting kettlebells around the park!
Here’s a lean body mass estimator to check out how much muscle you might have. And, for you couch potatoes out there, a pound of body fat only requires 2 calories to maintain. So, get up and get going!
