Metabolism

I think I get asked about metabolism more than anything and luckily, due to my own intense fears that I had completely destroyed mine, I've done lots of reading about it. Hopefully I can shed some comforting light on the topic.

What caloric restriction does to the metabolism:

Restriction is any time that we eat less than our body needs or wants, regardless of 'healthy' or 'good' intentions. This includes diets, cleanses and cutting out food groups, as well as the classic concepts of skipping meals and snacks.

A wonderful metaphor to use for what restriction does to your metabolism is 'The Cave Man brain'. This is the part of our brain that runs us as a mammal. It is so wise in taking care of us as an animal. All it knows is what is happening to it as a mammal.

As soon as we begin to restrict, the Cave Person Brain goes into life saving mode. It may sound dramatic, but all I mean by this is that it does everything to protect you and help you survive. Our Cave Person Brain assumes that caloric restriction means famine and our brains try to figure out how to protect us. It's really brilliant.

The first day we begin to restrict, our Cave Person Brain resolves to protect our body weight and starts to drop our metabolism.Metabolism means how your body uses energy to live on a daily basis. To really simplify it, metabolism is how many calories we need to take in to gain or lose weight. It is not an exact fixed number, but is within a range. Our cave person brains slow our metabolisms down to close to exactly what we are eating, in an effort to protect us.

The way that this happens affects almost every single organ in our body. Although everyone is different (and it manifests differently in everyone) there are some common  methods that the body uses as it tries to conserve energy.

Warmth:The body doesn't wants to use as little energy as it can to keep us warm. So, it shuts down normal blood flow to our hands and feet, keeping them cold all the time. Think of it as not heating a spare room in your house to try to keep the energy/electricity bill down. It makes us chilly, so that rather than using energy to keep us at 36 degrees, it cools us down so we seek extra layers and alternative ways of getting warmth. This stops it having to do this work itself, because that would be using vital calories that it can't waste.

Slows heart rate:So that our bodies aren't wasting calories on the beat on the heart

Slows digestion:So that youre not using energy processing food, using energy pushing it into the intestines and going to the toilet. These all 'waste' energy.

Stops sex hormones:It rolls the sex hormones in your brain to pre- adolence levels. Sex drive takes calories.  Baby making takes calories. And for sure, for females, baby carrying takes calories. So it rules those out of the equation. So it stops producing the hormone that could potentially cause these calorie outputs. In fact, in females, both the uterus and ovaries shrink to the size that they were when we were 12.

So the body slows us down. So no matter how hard we strict, we still might not lose weight. Our bodies do everything they can to make it really, really hard to lose. Keep in mind, there are people who don't show these signs. That's why there's no point comparing. Actually, 25% of eating disorder sufferers who do indeed lose a tremendous amount of body weight, don't actually end up loosing their period at all. You can be sure as hell that the eating disorder will cling onto this and convince your that you aren't 'sick enough.' You might have 5 of the symptoms, but if you don't have the 6th, you start to question whether you actually are sick. But of course you are. Even if you don't display any of the physical signs, if you're engaging in the behaviours and you struggling mentally YOU ARE SICK ENOUGH to seek help.

So, whether or not you have lost weight, if you have restricted your calories, you metabolism will have slowed.

What beginning to eat then does to the metabolism:

When you decide to start recovery, you decide to start nourishing yourself and this means not restricting, and upping calories. Some people worry that if they havent been losing much weight or maintaining on such low calories (that they were on before deciding on recovery) what on earth will happen when they genuinely start eating. The answer is simple. Your metabolism will speed up.

Your body has no judgement. As soon as you start consistently nourishing it again, your metabolism will rise. I'm not talking a few biscuits per day increase, I'm talking eating everything your body asks of you- which might be a hell of a lot. As soon as you begin meeting your energy needs, it simply will just rise on its own. Some people even find that after increasing their calories a lot, their bodies go into a state of hypermetabolism and this isn't uncommon. Your metabolism isn't permanently damaged.

This also explains why diets do not work and are unsustainable. Have you ever heard somebody say they have an event at the weekend so are going on a 'cleanse' or something similar during the week to prepare for it. The metabolic process explains, so simply, why people who simply go on 'diets' for a week or so, end up actually gaining weight. They will restrict calories, which lowers their metabolic rate, they will become ravenously hungry after a period of restriction, that they will eat lots of food which will work on their lowered metabolic rate. Tell your friend, or anyone who considers a short-term diet or fad that the only thing they will achieve by this clense is to lower their metabolism so they're probably better of not. My room-mate a uni (kindly) informed me she was eating X amount of calories per day. I won't say how many, but it was hella low. She was just on a little diet I guess. I told her exactly that. You're lowering your metabolism! and she just said, "I gain weight when I eat hardly anything though!" It's no surprise! her metabolism will have lowered due to the tiny amount she's eating. Until she ups her calories significantly, she will gain on small amounts.

There is always the anxiety that you will be the unicorn, the anomalies, whose metabolism will not naturally increase. You think that you will gain on small amounts forever. But once you begin to meet your bodies needs, there is no reason that it won't increase. Trust your body, it has got your best interests in mind. So if anyone ever asks me again "Han! how do I raise my metabolism?" All I will reply is:eat more.It is the only way. There is no other magic formula.