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If you are like many of us overweight folks, you find that you can take pounds off, but they always come back. There is a point at which the human body seems comfortable and that point is called your “setpoint.” Problem is, YOU may not be comfortable with it, and your body seems to have a mind of its own!
According to scientists our bodies are programmed to maintain a certain level of fatness. It has to do with the survival of the human race — our bodies seek a level
that will be prepared to deal with a famine, conserving our fat stores, and a diet in “body language” equals famine! When we diet signals are sent to the brain that tell it we are “starving.” Our metabolism slows down to conserve that fat and the energy stores, and our appetite increases. So we are jinxed from the start. When we diet we burn less calories and get hungrier! And women tend to have more of a problem with this than men do.
Men are different, in more ways than one. Their bodies are composed of more muscle than women’s bodies and muscles burn more fat up. Muscle is one of the most metabolically active tissues in the body. Muscle actually burns eighteen times as many calories as fat. Your metabolic rate will be lower if you have a high ratio of fat to muscle.
So why are some people skinny and some fat? Unfortunately for the chubby ones among us, it is all in the genes! Your genes determine the balance of dozens of chemicals that ultimately regulate your own body’s metabolic rate and appetite-control center. Stomping your feet and screaming, “It’s not fair!” will not help either, except that you may burn up some more calories — but learning how the body works and then trying to trick your it just might!
One hormone, leptin, plays a big part in this survival game. Leptin tells the brain what is going on in the fat cells. When the fat cells are large and plumped up, they release a steady flow of leptin to our brain, which in turn curbs production of neuropeptide Y, or NPY. NPY is a brain chemical that signals the body to eat more and burn less. When your fat cells shrink (while dieting or during a famine) they release less NPY which sends the signal to slow it all down and conserve the fat stores. Short of a drug that blocks NPY, we are left to figure out how to trick our body into thinking we are not dieting.
So how can a person trick their metabolism into not slowing down?
First, about your diet: When you decide you are going to get back on the diet track, cut back on your caloric intake gradually. If you cut back to under 1000 calories a day you will be taking off lean muscle as well as fat, and you want to keep all the muscle you can since it burns up calories more quickly. To determine the right amount of calories to limit yourself to during a diet, figure out what you normally eat, calorically speaking, and then subtract 500 to 600 calories. This regime should allow you to lose about one and a half pounds a week without slowing your metabolism down too much. Try to incorporate less fat and more carbohydrates into your diet. Carbs have a “thermic effect.” What this means is that they actually raise the metabolic rate slightly after eating. And don’t skip meals to diet. Eating 3 to 5 low-fat meals will stoke that fire and keep it burning. When you skip meals your metabolism slows down. Then you have your big meal while your metabolism is turned down and your weight loss plan has turned anti-productive.
Second, exercise: To reset that setpoint you need to get moving. Even if you continue to eat normally, but add exercise to your daily living, you will lose weight. Exercise burns calories, so even if your metabolism has slowed down, the activity will help you burn more calories. Exercise can give your metabolism a short term and long term boost. It combats the effects of the slowed-down metabolism from the lower caloric intake. Weight training is also good for burning calories. This type of workout(resistance) will help you build more muscle, and that will burn more fat and calories. Studies have shown that weight training can help a woman burn an extra 300 calories a day, at rest. The strength training workout itself burns about 500 calories an hour. But don't rush into a full scale workout. Your body will soon adjust to that and slow down at that speed. Bump it up a bit in increments. Add a little faster walking
into your walk at intervals that increase every week. Remember, we are trying to trick the metabolism so it doesn’t slow to a crawl!
So, the good news is that some subtle lifestyle changes could change the way your body burns up those calories. Don’t scare it into thinking it’s in the middle of a famine!
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