How To Repair A Damaged Metabolism
By Tom Venuto
-If you've caused metabolic damage as a
result of following starvation diets or losing weight too rapidly in the past,
it can be extremely difficult to achieve any further fat loss at all. The good
news is, metabolic damage can be repaired. All it takes is the right
combination of metabolism stimulating exercise and metabolism stimulating
nutrition (NOT just a diet), all done consistently over time.
-The big irony is that most of the diet
programs that claim to help you get rid of excess weight, only end up making it
harder for you in the long run because they use harsh metabolism-decreasing
diets and not enough exercise (almost never any weight training).
-It may take a little longer if you have
really messed things up with severe starvation dieting in the past, especially
if you've lost a lot of lean body mass, but it is never hopeless. Anyone can
increase their metabolism.
-Most people get an almost immediate
boost in metabolic rate when they start the Burn The Fat program. However, the results
are not going to be "overnight." Give it a little time...
-Within 3 weeks your metabolism will
already be more efficient. Within 6-8 weeks, it's burning hot. Give me 12 weeks
of consistent diligent effort, sticking with all the metabolism boosting
strategies I teach, and your metabolism really will become like a turbo charged
engine, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that.
-What’s most important for upping your
metabolism is CONSISTENCY in
applying the Burn The Fat
nutrition and
training principles every single day.
-That Includes:
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1. Meal Frequency:
eat
5-6 small meals per day
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2.
Meal Timing:
eat
approximately every 3 hours, with a substantial breakfast and a substantial
post workout meal.
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3.
Sufficient Caloric Intake: maintain
a small calorie deficit and avoid starvation-level diets (suggested safe
levels
for
fat loss: 2100-2500 calories per day for men, 1400-1800 calories per day for
women; adjust as needed)
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4. Food Choices:
Select
natural, unprocessed foods with high thermic effect (lean proteins like
chicken, turkey, egg whites and fish are highly thermic, as are all green
vegetables, salad vegetables and other fibrous carbs)
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5.
Cardio Training:
Push up the intensity a bit
if you really want to get a metabolic boost. Walking and low intensity cardio
is fine, but higher intensity is more metabolism-stimulating
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6. Weight Training:
The basic exercises that
include the largest muscle groups or even call into play the entire body as a
unit (squats, front squats, split squats, deadlifts, stiff legged deadlifts,
overhead presses, all kinds of rows and core-activation exercises) will have
a much greater metabolism stimulating effect than isolation exercises
(concentration curls, calf raises, etc)
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-The weight training is extremely
important in cases of "metabolic damage" because this is the stimulus
to keep the muscle you have and begin rebuilding new muscle tissue, which is
the engine that drives your metabolism.
-The men don't usually have a problem
with the weight training, but I still hear women say they don't want to lift
weights as part of their fat loss programs. Well, people who wont lift weights
can expect a very, very long metabolism "repair process" if they
achieve it at all.
-CONSISTENCY
IS THE KEY.
-Nothing will undermine the
"re-building" of your metabolism like inconsistency. If you stop and
start, or skip meals and workouts often, you will not even get off the ground.
-After your metabolism is back up where
it should be, it takes continued "stoking" of the metabolic furnace
to keep it there. Once you get your metabolic engine running, you've got to
keep feeding it fuel or the fire will die down.
-Picture an old fashioned wood burning
stove...
-Imagine you're in a cabin up in the
mountains in the winter. It's cold in there and you want to keep the cabin
warm. Can you achieve this by feeding the fire once or twice per day? Nope. Not
enough fuel to burn, so not much heat is generated.
-What if you just toss an entire pile of
wood in the stove all at once? Will that work? Nope. Lots of fuel, but can't
all be used at once... it just smothers the fire and the excess just sits
there.
-How about if you throw some tissue paper
or crumpled newspaper in the stove, will that work? Nope - too quickly burning.
-You have to keep putting small amounts
of wood (the right type of fuel) on the fire at regular intervals or the fire
burns out.
-It's also difficult to get the fire lit
again. In the case of metabolism, it's like going through that initial few
weeks of overcoming inertia all over again.
-Your goal is to get your metabolism
burning hot and keep it burning and this cannot be achieved by missing meals,
missing workouts or with sporadic, infrequent training.
-I have only seen a handful of cases
where all these things were done properly and there was still a longer
"repair" process.
-For example, one case was former ballet
dancer. At 5' 5", she was previously 110 lbs and had increased to about
145 or so. She didn’t want to reach her previous 110, but find a happy medium
of about 125 lbs.
-I figured with 20 lbs to cut, this would
be a simple and predictable process, but she had a challenging time (and I
didn't know why at first).
-I later found out that she had been
anorexic and bulimic for many years. This had caused a lot of damage, and
although she did reach her goal, it took about twice as long as we had
anticipated.
-The good news is, even in this extreme
case, the same nutrition and training principles worked! It just took a little
longer. And by the way her program included some serious training with free
weights and she ate a lot more (clean) food than she had ever eaten before. No
"starvation!"
-That’s the power of burning the fat and
feeding the muscles... Trying to starve the fat with crash diets is what causes
the metabolic damage in the first place!
-If you’re interested in the healthy,
sensible way to take off the fat, while keeping all your muscle and actually
increasing your metabolism in the process, then my Burn the Fat, Feed The
Muscle program can teach you how. No gimmicks or false promises. Just the truth
- you have to work at it and you have to be patient. Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
TOM VENUTO is a fat loss
expert, lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, independent nutrition
researcher, freelance writer, and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle: Fat-Burning Secrets
of The World’s Best Bodybuilders & Fitness Models (e-book) which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or
supplements using secrets of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models.
Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: Burn
The Fat, Feed The Muscle.
