Metabolism when Dieting

One of the things I've tried to maintain while dieting is a good balance of quality calories to exercise. Once again, I'm no expert and these are opinions I've concluded via research and experience while dieting and working out. There are a couple of things to consider when trying to lose weight: First, are you just trying to slim down and don't care about muscle loss; Second, what does your metabolism and chemical balance look like at the end of a diet cycle?

The Problem with Dieting Through Calorie Restriction

It's pretty much a given that you'll lose weight if you reduce calories - this has been studied and implemented time-and-again, both voluntarily and involuntarily. You should understand that when your body begins to starve for the lack of your usual supply of calories, it starts feeding on the tissues that are available - first you end up losing water weight, then muscle and finally fatty deposits. I don't think people understand this - it's easier for your body to process and utilize proteins stored in your body as muscle mass than it is to use fat. Your body is engineered genetically to keep as much stored energy as fat as possible, so it will always prefer to burn muscle before fat - the result is that yes you are thinner but the cost is severe - once muscle tissue is spent and you've reduced your weight, it's much harder to recover that muscle. When you start consuming calories again, your body naturally tries first to store the energy as fat before contributing to muscle regrowth, especially if you live a sedentary lifestyle. To offset this loss of muscle you can do two things: use weight training to balance out the loss; and secondly try to attain a state of Ketosis by carbohydrate reduction (as already described in my previous post regarding the Adkins Diet). While in Ketosis your body can utilize the lipids (fatty cells) as energy as they are able to cross the brain-barrier.

Spot Reduction

This brings us to spot reduction - I'd define this as "I'm trying to tighten up my stomach so it's flatter" and results in all those wacky machines and self-help aids that were all the rage on "As Seen on TV" ads (GutBuster, etc). Frankly, for the most part they don't work. When you lose weight, you lose it over all your body in a fairly consistent manner. There is no such thing as targeting weight reduction to a specific spot on your body. I say "for the most part" as the exercises itself can promote some muscle tightening, however when the muscles are covered in a layer of fat, who cares if they're tight or not?

Metabolism

The second thing to think about is what type of metabolism you end up with at the end of a diet cycle. You want your metabolism elevated and not depressed. If you restrict your calories too much your body rebels and slows down your metabolism - in effect, your weight loss becomes stalled (I've heard this called "Starvation Mode" often used as a warning when using Weight Loss apps to avoid liability). This is a survival thing ruled by millions of years of evolution and genetics.

Some Mistakes People Make that Screw Up Your Metabolism

Cleansing Fasts - this is basically when you go on some type of fruit-juice diet that causes you to take a quick dive in weight reduction. The issue here is that you end up losing an inordinate amount of muscle mass. Second, fructose (the sugars found in juices) are processed in the liver. It's possible to do some heavy damage to the liver when you do nothing but fruit juices - when eating high fiber fresh fruit, your body moderates the amount you can absorb - the fiber fills you up so you can't consume more than what can harm you - by drinking juices you bypass your body's natural defences and load up the liver. If you look at the 10 things that drinking ethanol (booze) does that are bad for your body and liver, fructose does around 7 of them. Second, energy processed by the liver can only be stored as fat since it isn't readily available for use. Unless you're in a state of Ketosis (which the fruit juices will prevent you from attaining), your taking big risks both to liver health and your loading up fat. All bad, no matter how you look at it.

Drinking Diet Soda - yeah it's zero calorie so it must be OK to consume while dieting, right? Wrong. It turns out that when you drink Diet Soda your brain thinks it's about to get sugar and triggers a chemical response. This causes a release of the hormone insulin which can lead to metabolic issues similar to diabetes - mood swings, sudden drops in energy, the list goes on and the results are all bad.

Not Eating Enough Protein - so many proteins carry a lot of calories, especially red meats as they also carry lots of fat. It becomes natural when you're counting calories to try not to eat those foods with the highest calorie count, so many eat less proteins. It's much better to adjust the type of protein you're consuming instead - an ounce of lean beef has about 71.3 calories (5.2 grams of protein and 5.4 grams of fat). The same in one ounce of chicken breast (boneless, skinless) has 35 calories (5.32 grams of protein and 1.38 grams of fat). This is due to the calorie cost of  protein vs fat: protein has 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram. The number of calories in meat and poultry depends on the ratio of fat and protein. The leaner the meat is, the fewer the calories. The bottom line is to avoid high-fat proteins in preference to low fat proteins like white-meat chicken and fish, instead of forgoing proteins altogether to avoid the calories.

Not Taking Vitamin and Mineral Supplements - when you limit the amount of food that you intake, it tends to pass even faster through your system than normal. I believe this to be a result of an increased metabolism - in any case, combining a shortage of food AND the quickness of digestive flow, you should be taking vitamin and mineral supplements. In fact, if you think you're currently taking enough, you should probably double what you're taking. I tend to do a broad range multi-vitamin in the morning along with a light breakfast and some additional vitamins that I've found to be helpful. At minimum you should be taking  supplements (always with food) at least once a day and preferably twice a day (or more). Do be careful with those vitamins that are not water soluble (Vitamin A is an example) as it's possible to consume too much, which causes a detrimental effect. Research is your friend.

It's entirely possible to make yourself sick when dieting, especially extreme dieting. Make sure you select good quality foods and carefully adjust your diet and exercise if you don't feel well. Working out and dieting shouldn't feel bad (well, except for some stomach grumbling and a bit of soreness) - if you have any doubts, consult your physician.

-- John