Fat Loss Article:    Making Sense of Weight Loss - By Damien Young

In the complex world of weight loss you can find thousands of articles from people who are in the health profession, fitness profession, scientists, people who wish they were in a profession at all and finally people who actually lost weight. Most of the time their articles completely contradict each other. So out of all these people, who do you trust to give you the right information? Do you trust the family doctor who weighs 300lbs? Do you trust the 18 year old personal trainer with a buff body? How about the scientist who spends every day in his lab with a microscope? Do you trust the guy on TV at 2:00 in the morning showing before and after photos of clients who lost 30lbs in a month by sitting in a rocking chair-like apparatus and rocking their bellies? How about the guy who tells you to drink his shakes twice a day, eat only one meal and you'll become thin and never have to exercise? 

In my opinion, it's best to trust the person who can articulate his/her philosophy the best, make their weight loss instructions very easy to follow and most importantly the one who's information makes the most sense to you.

Making sense seems to be overlooked too often these days when it comes to weight loss. I guess that's why 96% of people who go on a diet regain all their weight back within 3 years. That's right, 96% within 3 years.

Currently $58 Billion Dollars Each Year are spent in the Weight Loss/Diet Industry. So $58 Billion Dollars are spent, yet only 4% of people succeed! That doesn't make much sense, does it?

The diet industry is so successful because people buy based on emotion. What is more emotional than looking at yourself in the mirror every day with disgust? Once some one or some product shows a glimmer of hope, it's almost instinctual to pick up that phone and order it.

The problem is not only that 96% of people fail with dieting, it's that dieting does harm to those 96% of people and through repetitive use can lead to almost irreparable damage.

When someone tells me that a diet worked for them in the past so they're going on it again I just get flabbergasted. If a diet worked for them in the past then why would they need to go on it again, right? I guess my definition of success is different. To me, a successful weight loss plan is something you follow for a period of time, then becomes part of your daily life to where you don't have to think about doing it, makes you lose weight and ultimately never put it back on again.

Isn't that a novel concept?

If you lost 30lbs 5 years ago in just 2 months and slowly regained it all back plus some, can you say your diet was successful? That doesn't make much sense, does it?

I mean, does it really make sense that you're going to lose weight and keep it off forever by not eating a carbohydrate again and only eating fatty foods with protein? Doesn't make much sense to me. Do you think you realistically can eat frozen, pre-packaged foods for each meal for the rest of your life? Do you think you can work out everyday for hours for the rest of your life? Do you think you can add points and go to meetings forever? And finally, do you think you can continue to reduce your calories more and more? I don't believe that makes much sense to anyone when laid out like that.

So, what does make sense? I'll tell you in two words, Your Metabolism. 

Your metabolism is your key to successful, sustained and easy weight loss. Your metabolism, simply put is the process of your body burning calories. The faster your metabolism is, the more calories you will burn. Your body is burning calories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even while you're sleeping your body is burning calories from maintaining itself, repairing muscles, breathing and all other life sustaining functions. The number of calories your body burns by just maintaining itself when resting is called your resting metabolic rate. The faster your resting metabolic rate is, the more calories you burn at rest. Burning more calories at rest is an extremely important and efficient way to lose weight. Doesn't it make sense that burning extra calories while doing absolutely nothing can be pretty important for weight loss?

So, how do you increase your resting metabolic rate? First I'll tell you how not to. I'm going to tell you the physical reasons why the majority of people who are overweight and obese can't seem to win this battle. Understanding the mistakes one makes will help you avoid them in your future.

First mistake- Dieting. Ok, back to making sense. When you go on a diet you will tend to eat fewer calories than you did before. If you are significantly overweight it may be a lot less than you did before. For the sake of this article, let's say you had been eating and drinking approximately 3000 calories per day. Now let's say you start a fad diet. Most diets will put you around 800-1200 calories a day. As soon as you cut your calories by that much, your body does some amazing things. Your body begins to slow down its process of burning calories, (metabolism) since it doesn't know when it's going to get fed again. It goes into what's called "Starvation Mode" and begins its defense mechanism to ensure survival. This defense mechanism slows your metabolism down. Now instead of burning xx amount of calories you're really burning x amount. 

This is always masked because since you are only taking in half the calories you were, you're losing weight. Initially, you'll lose weight fast from the decrease in calories. However; as each week passes, your body slows itself down more and more and the weight loss slows as well. In order for you to continue to lose weight you do what you think is best and cut your calories even more. And now we know what that does! You lose a little more weight but your body is burning calories in slow motion. Eventually, you get moody, are tired all the time and possibly get sick from a lack of nutrients. By doing this for an extended period of time forces your body to have a very slow metabolic rate. Now go diet, lose weight, gain some back, go diet again, lose weight again, gain it back again, etc. The yo-yo dieting and yo-yo weight loss/weight gain does extreme damage to your metabolism and body. Does it make sense to you?

I've worked with hundreds of men and women who I've had increase their calories, (some by as much as an extra 500-700 calories per day) and they started to lose weight after being stuck in a plateau. They lost weight because they finally did something their body appreciated. They lost weight because they finally caused their body to work with them and not against them. They lost weight because they finally "fed the fire" within them and are now burning extra calories without doing anything.

Second mistake- Not eating breakfast. I'm sure this isn't news to you but I'll repeat it anyway with an explanation. When you wake up in the morning you've gone many hours without eating. Your body was utilizing its resting metabolism all night long and burning calories at a slow rate, just enough to keep your body functioning. It will continue to burn calories at a slow rate until you eat or do something physical to increase your heart rate like exercise. Exercise is great; however when you're done your body will eventually slow itself back down and burn calories slowly until it's fed.

When you wake up and eat first thing in the morning, your body begins the process of converting food to energy,(burning calories) early in your day. When done repeatedly day after day, your body knows it will be fed soon after you wake up and will not slow itself down as much since it "knows" it doesn't need to be in starvation mode. Make sense yet?

Now, just by eating breakfast your body will burn more calories without you doing anything compared to when you don't eat breakfast consistently.

Third mistake- Skipping meals and not snacking. Here's one of the most common statements said to me by someone who needs to lose weight. "I don't understand it. I barely eat anything all day and I still am not losing weight!"

I hope by now you can provide the correct response to that statement.

"You're not losing weight because you're not eating!" That would be the correct response. Again, the body goes into starvation mode, burns fewer calories and continues until it gets fed. When you go all day without eating, you go all day burning fewer calories.

Here's another very common statement I'm sure you've heard or said: "I don't eat because I'm not hungry, and I don't want to eat when I'm not hungry. I'm trying to lose weight, not gain it!"

That statement is flawed and here's why. The reason you're not hungry in the first place is because your body is burning calories at a very slow pace. That's right! If your body is burning calories rapidly, (fast metabolism) it will need calories to refuel itself sooner causing physical hunger. So you see, being hungry is a good thing. It's a sign that your body is burning calories. If you're hungry very often throughout your day and eat something when the hunger comes on, then your metabolism is functioning at a fast speed and you're burning a lot of calories. Conversely, if you're not hungry all day then your body is in starvation mode and your metabolism is not functioning properly.

I'm going to use an analogy to explain your metabolism. Imagine yourself in a location that's extremely cold. It's so cold you need to have a fire to survive and keep from freezing. Now, imagine that you built a campfire from dry wood that you found. The fire is burning and it's keeping you alive and warm. This fire represents your metabolism and the wood you're using to fuel the fire is the food that you eat.

What happens when you go too long without putting more wood into the fire? That's right; the fire will slowly lose its energy and eventually go out. The same is true if you go too long without eating food. Your metabolism runs out of energy and slows itself down to a crawl. Now, imagine that your fire is almost out and you throw a big log on top of it, hoping to rekindle it. What will happen is that it will completely put out and smother your fire. In order to rekindle your flame, you must take small pieces of wood, and slowly feed it back to the fire. The same goes for your body. If you throw a large amount of food quickly into your body, your metabolism will slow itself down to a crawl. In order to rekindle your fire and have it burn bright and fast, you must eat smaller amounts of food slowly, deliberately, and often. Your fire within, or your metabolism works in exactly the same way as this campfire. 

Is this all making more sense to you now?

I am going to assume it is, so now we can get into exactly how to speed up that metabolism so you can start losing some weight. 

There are three main components to a healthy and fast metabolism. There are many more factors but for the sake of time we'll just discuss the three most important factors. They are nutrition, muscle and exercise. In this article we'll solely be focused on nutrition. There will be more articles soon to follow that will discuss the best ways to use muscle and exercise to help boost your metabolic rate.

I just discussed the main reasons why people have slow metabolisms and it all revolved around their nutrition. Those are the biggest reasons. In order to reverse the slow metabolism, simply do the opposite of everything I told you not to do.

1-Dieting. Do not diet! If you're a 150lb woman you should be taking in approximately 1350-1500 calories each day, broken up into 3 healthy meals and at least 2 healthy snacks in between meals. I suggest you download  MyFitnessPal and track your food so you can determine on average how many calories you are actually consuming each day. A good measure is to take your bodyweight and multiply it by 9 and then by 10. That will give you an approximate calorie range for you to use. If it's around 1300-1500 calories but only 1 or 2 meals, simply break it up as just mentioned. If after documenting your food intake and find you're consuming a lot less than 1350-1500 calories as a 150lb woman, slowly introduce more calories into your diet by adding a healthy snack each day in between meals. Take a few weeks or a month to finally reach the desired calorie range. Introducing extra calories slowly into your diet will speed up your metabolism and help counteract the extra calories you'll be consuming.

2- Eat breakfast every morning and make sure it's soon after you awaken. If you don't already eat breakfast it may seem tough at first. You may not be hungry first thing in the morning. If that's the case it means your body isn't used to being fed so it's running slow. Now's the time to kick-start it back up! Try eating something that's easily digestible at first if you're not used to eating early. A piece of fruit, yogurt or even a healthy protein shake will get your body on the right track to getting used to consuming calories early. Then after a couple weeks you'll notice you will start getting hungry when you wake up and can start eating something more substantial. In a perfect world your breakfast would be your largest meal and your dinner would be your smallest, so don't be afraid to eat a substantial breakfast.

3- Never, ever skip a meal or snack! It can take a couple of weeks for your body to get fully used to the idea it's going to get fed at a certain time. Any missed meal or snack will interrupt that process and you'll have to start over. Make sure to not miss one meal or snack for the first few weeks. Have your breakfast, then a healthy mid-morning snack a couple hours later, a healthy lunch, a healthy mid-afternoon snack and a healthy dinner. All meals and snacks should be within 2-3 hours of each other. If you get the late night munchies have a protein rich, lower carb snack. Just make sure it's not within 2 hours before you go to sleep. Remember, your body "Knowing" it's going to get fed soon is one of the biggest metabolism boosting secrets, and now you know.

If you can go a few weeks without missing one meal or snack, your body will reward you by speeding up its metabolism substantially. You'll have more energy. You'll get hungry throughout the day. (Good thing) Your blood sugar level will be stable throughout your day. Another important aspect of eating every couple hours is your hunger level. When you get hungry, I mean REALLY hungry, your mind searches for anything quick you can consume. When very hungry you'll tend to eat something very unhealthy because you're not thinking about what's good or bad for you. You're only thinking about getting fed. When you eat every couple hours and you don't get to the "Very Hungry" phase, you'll tend to think more about what you want to eat. This gives you a better chance of selecting something healthier. 

Doing all of this will begin your process of losing weight without having to really think about it. By speeding up your metabolism you'll burn more calories when you sleep, eat, drive, talk, stand, sit, etc. Now doesn't it make sense to you why this would work?

It's important to note that there's a fine line sometimes between taking in more calories than your metabolism can burn and not enough to where your body slows down. Everybody is different. I suggest you speak with a professional if possible. For the time being, it's more important to be on the higher side of calories than the lower side for your metabolism's sake. I recommend focusing on all of the above to get your metabolism into super-speed mode and work on burning calories with exercise. Then you can work on fine-tuning your calorie intake once your body is working efficiently. Stay tuned for more articles on exercise and metabolism.

So, does this all make sense to you now? I hope this article helps to shed some light as to how your metabolism can help or hurt your weight loss efforts. I hope you fully understand why most overweight men and women have a hard time losing weight and keeping it off. Lastly I hope you learned how to use the few tools I mentioned to get your metabolism working fast.

In a nutshell, here are the tips I laid out in this article:

1-Stop dieting and cutting calories too much.

2-Write down what you eat for a week and find out how many calories you're taking in daily.

3- Multiply your bodyweight by 9 and by 10 to determine your approximate calorie range.

4- Break down your 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks evenly to hit your calorie range.

5- Eat breakfast first thing in the morning within 30 minutes of awakening if possible.

6- If you're not used to eating breakfast early start with something easily digestible like fruit or a protein shake for a couple weeks and then move to something more substantial.

7- Never, ever miss a meal or snack. Eat every 2-3 hours throughout your day to feed your fire.

8-Don't eat within 2 hours of bedtime.

Follow this advice and you'll start seeing those pounds shed quickly and efficiently!