Spokane Fitness Blog by Amy Hunt

I hear it all the time.

“I’ve been working out and eating right…why am I stuck at this weight?”

“Why is the scale being so unfriendly to me…I put so much effort in to this!”

I was obsessing over my scale weight the other day too. In fact, I have continually obsessed since the beginning of the year, tracking my weight fluctuations with agony.

I’m fairly open and honest about my weight struggles. Well, okay not weight struggles. DIET struggles. Today I feel like blaming Zach. So it’s Zach’s fault. He can burn so many more calories than me that I get caught up in the eating and forget my goals…until it’s too late. Boo to that.

But when it comes to exercise, I’m at the gym every week. I usually put in 6-8 workouts, sometimes doing doubles during the early part of the week. It’s stress relieving to get a solid workout in every day for me.

Still, that dumb scale has taunted me with about a 6 pound flux between my “starting weight” and an elusive stepping stone to my ultimate goal.

So why am I not losing the weight?!

Metabolism is a buzz word in the fitness industry. Even clients who very obviously don’t understand the concept will spout off to me phrases such as, “I need a metabolism booster…” or “If I could just increase my metabolism…” With only a dangerous half idea of what metabolism even is, many people are misled in to believing that metabolism is something you are born with, slow or fast, and that they are victims of their own bodies.

While I blame Zach for his fast metabolism and bemoan my own slower rate of calorie burn, I have to remind myself what metabolism really is…and who controls it.

The Myth About Metabolism

You are NOT the victim of your metabolism. You are the CREATOR of it.

Metabolism is simply the speed your body processes food. The faster your metabolism is, the more calories it can burn.

Your body requires energy and this energy comes in the form of food. Food breaks down in to some familiar categories such as protein, carbohydrates and fat. If you take in more “energy” than you need from ANY of these, your body will store it as fat. Fat loss is all about calorie “energy” balance.

Our fitness results are determined by a caloric deficit…which is just a fancy way of saying eating fewer calories than the amount that we burn. To create this deficit we need to understand the law of thermodynamics or energy balance.

The Less I Eat the Better…Right?!

To decrease fat and increase lean muscle in your body, you have to know how to play the numbers game. If you burn more calories than you take in each day, you will lose weight.

The ONLY way to lose fat is to follow this simple formula.

It sounds easy enough, but many people seeking to lose weight run in to the issue of not eating enough – yes, you heard me right – to release more fat. Truth is, you DO have to eat.

What slows your metabolism?

There are two factors that could be involved with why your metabolism has slowed. These are:

1. Lack of muscle – from ineffective exercises
2. Lack of muscle – from restricted calorie diets

Too much of anything gets stored as fat – even your favorite healthy foods like broccoli and chicken, if overeaten, can be stored as fat. No matter the food or source of calories, if you eat a calorie surplus, your body WILL store the excess as fat!

Don’t be fooled!

A larger calorie deficit does not mean more weight loss. The caloric deficit must be kept small (10-20%) as you want to maintain lean muscle and lose fat weight only.

You don’t want to lose muscle and just be a skinnier fat person.

So keeping a small caloric deficit will keep your metabolism high while transforming your body. If you reduce calories too far below maintenance, your body’s natural response is to try and maintain calorie balance, meaning it sets in to motion a series of metabolic and hormonal events which ultimately lead to muscle loss and a slower metabolism (meaning, less calories burned by your body naturally).

Muscle demands calories and your body wants to try and preserve calories when it’s not coming from the food you eat each day.

Even more tragic, skipping meals and starving yourself causes your body to increase the level of fat storing enzymes so you are actually teaching your body to become efficient at storing fat!!!

Here’s the kicker…MUSCLE IS YOUR METABOLISM!!!

It’s time to eat smart, not less.

When you restrict your eating below the minimal amount of energy required to feed your nervous system, your body thinks it is starving.

At that point, not only does your body burn muscle for fuel, but while doing this, it also slows your metabolism. When you lose muscle, you are lowering your metabolism.

Talk about a double whammy!

I can’t say this enough…restricting your calories will lower your metabolism!!! On the flip side, the act of eating  - asking your body to process supportive foods frequently, guarantees a faster metabolism.

A faster metabolism means your body becomes a fat burning machine. More Muscle Tissue = A Higher Metabolism

Never eat less than 1200 calories per day! Less than 1200 calories is usually not enough to fuel vital bodily functions.

Lean Muscle is the Key

The amount of lean muscle you hold is directly related to your metabolism and your metabolism defines the shape of your body. Lean muscle burns a LOT more calories than fat so when you lose muscle (or simply lack it altogether!), your metabolism drops and you burn fewer calories.

This is why so many tend to get heavier as they age. About the age of 25, muscle mass tends to decline each year and if eating habits or deliberate exercise isn’t part of your regular routine, you will gain fat weight.

So not only must you  take in sufficient calories to burn fat rather than muscle, it’s also possible to BUILD muscle to lose fat faster. This obviously happens through increased amounts of exercise.

The Exercise That Helps You

While aerobic activities such as running, swimming and fast walking help to tone muscle and burn extra calories, resistance training is the only way to increase the amount of muscle you have in your body.

A consistent and effective exercise program is mandatory to help you burn more calories and maintain and even build lean muscle tissue. Your goal is to keep your activity up and your intake down and you WILL achieve results.

NOTE: It’s impossible to reach your best body through exercise alone. You can never out-train a horrible diet or out-eat a lack of physical activity…these components ONLY work together!!!

It is important to realize that altered body composition is attained through FAT loss and lean muscle tissue gain…NOT WEIGHT LOSS.

Why Fat Loss vs. Weight Loss?

1. Calories are burned in muscle tissue. One pound of lean muscle burns about 20-35 calories a day.
2. Body fat is a store house for calories. One pound of fat burns next to nothing each day.
3. By simply restricting calories to shrink the number on the scale, a significant amount of weight loss will be from lean muscle tissue.
4. This will further inhibit your metabolism to lower levels and calorie burning potential.
5. Rapid weight loss from under-eating causes muscle tissue to be used for energy, which cripples your body’s ability to burn fat for energy. In the future this will cause you to put weight back on and most likely gainmore than you ever had before.
6. Providing your body with a regular exercise program and the food and nutrients it needs will sufficiently fuel working muscles, initiate fat loss and develop and accelerated, fat burning metabolism.
7. Proper fat loss strategies result in weight loss primarily from fat stores.

I’m done looking at the scale as my only source of success in my weight loss regimen. Honestly, if I adhere to the proper plans of exercise and nutrition, I WILL lose the weight. I’ve often said it’s not so much what the scale says as what my clothing says when I put it on. Fatty excess and bulges aren’t going to disappear through starvation diets (as much as I joke about them) but they WILL disappear through healthy eating plans like the 21 Day Challenge and healthy doses of resistance training.

Here’s how I suggest losing body fat instead of muscle tissue for REAL fitness success:

• Make positive changes in your daily eating habits
• Adhere to your supportive nutrition plan (there have been plenty of past blogs with suggestions)
• Commit to at least 3 days each (per week) of resistance training and cardio activity. You may need to work up to this…that’s okay! Do what you can!
• Take at least 10,000 steps a day (Get a pedometer to track this!)
• Eat about one to two hours before exercising to fuel muscles and prevent muscle loss. It’s extremely important to eat before exercising in the morning as well, especially resistance training activities.
• Have a recovery drink or healthy meal within 15 minutes after exercise to replenish nutrients in muscle tissue and expedite recovery.
• Take a whole food nutrient complex that is specifically designed for you to prevent muscle tissue loss. This in turn boosts your metabolism.

And remember…we aren’t the victims! We control our own body’s ability to burn fat! You’re armed with the knowledge…what are you going to do about it?!