If you’re like millions of Americans, you struggle with weight. How much is ideal, where it gathers, and how to get rid of it top most people’s list of health concerns. At Meso Fit Boca, we have answers.
First, let’s discuss metabolism; that wonder word that has us playa-hating the ones who can eat anything and pay no consequences. But blaming metabolism is like blaming radar for why you keep getting speeding tickets. Metabolism is merely a measurement of how quickly your body converts fuel into energy. But just like exercise, metabolism’s are subject to evolutionary responses and starvation may lead to hoarding fat and burning muscle.
Let’s assume that burning more calories than you take in doesn’t always equate to fat loss. This theory is called calories-in vs. calories-out, and is the basis for diets that restrict food intake.
We inherit our metabolism from generations of humans that gained weight when food was plentiful, then lost it when food wasn’t. We might better understand weight gain as a natural consequence of calorie restriction, not the failure of the dieter.
The human metabolism comes from a dizzying lineage of cave-people trying to survive perilous seasons full of predators and other hungry cave-people. Once we were able to store food and protect it, people formed communities. Before refrigeration, people ate what was fresh that day and they shopped daily in markets whose financial solvency depended on delivering the freshest food. We regale at the health benefits of olive oil but fail to realize that the oil they’re referring to was made daily from olive pits littering the countryside, not the oil in your cabinet with a questionable sell by date.
Today we have completely lost touch with that visceral connection to food where smell, touch, and sight, determined what was safe to taste. Today, food companies manipulate these senses leading people to believe everything should taste good, which usually translates to lulling the brain with salty, sugary, fatty foods.
We adopt a scientific approach to weight loss and give the body exactly what it needs every day; because if we don’t pay the body back for the things it has to do every day, hour, minute, and second, the brain hoards calories. So follow a few simple evolutionary and biological rules:
1. Eat enough.
Diets should provide the body what it needs to create nutritionally sound foundations to build upon. These are the nutrients your body receives through foods, not supplements. The last thing anyone needs is the brain to see weight loss as a threat.
Homeostasis is the brains ability to keep all systems functioning normally. Weight losses and gains are stresses to the brain hell-bent on avoiding starvation. This might account for initial weight losses followed by plateaus that usually cause a return to “normal” or even binge eating.
It takes the proper fuel to run efficient metabolisms and the body reverts quickly, so the key is consistent nutrient loading throughout the day. This allows the body to keep up with our persistent pace. Missing meals is stressful to an expectant body. We can’t push cars farther than we fueled them, but the body easily burns muscle for nutrients if restricted too harshly, and metabolisms slow with muscle loss.
To guard against this we need 2 big doses of nutrient-rich vegetable smoothies at key times, morning and night, with 2 to 3 smaller nutrient dense meals between. We also need to account for every loss and gain through metrics that tell us what course adjustments will keep the body moving forward.
If you’re accustomed to eating huge bowls of greens (collard, mustard, spinach, and kale), herbs, turmeric, celery, cucumber, black-eyed peas, lima beans, and wheatgrass, carry on. For those who relish the thought, blend them into a smoothie adding whatever fruit tempers the powerful flavors you might not be used to.
2. Move enough.
When muscles tighten, they get locked out of movement. The body cannot coordinate and therefore cannot burn the calories needed to promote fat loss. This causes the accepted notion that more is better, when in fact, more just wears down a worn down system. It either breaks or trudges along goalless.
Bodies riddled with imbalances need recovery, balance, and stability before attempting to progress. This takes constant check-ups for dashboard warnings that the system turned toward a dead end.
3. Before moving, make sure more of you moves.
In dog-parks and playgrounds, kids and puppies run to exhaustion, stop, rest, then run to exhaustion until all their stored energy is depleted. Our cardio training should mimic this as often as possible, but is only valuable to balanced, adequately fueled, and fully recovered bodies.
To keep the scales tipped toward burning fat as fuel instead of muscle, we have to fight harder the keep the muscle that wastes away with inactivity and age. This is why strength training may be more effective at burning fat than cardio. More muscle means more calories are burned at rest because muscle is extremely metabolically active.
Losing weight doesn’t have to be frustrating. Don’t wait another second spinning your wheels trying to figure out what works. Meso Fit Boca takes the guesswork out with programs that achieve sustainable results fast.
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