Do you feel like you can’t lose weight no matter what you do?
Are you someone that eats small amounts and works out a lot but you still can’t lose weight?
Do you gain weight if you veer off a diet even a little?
If any of these describe you, you may have “metabolic inflexibility”. This means your metabolism is not adaptable or flexible and this makes it easy for you to gain weight and have difficulty losing weight even if you are doing “all the right things”.
The thing is this….the answer to this problem is NOT to eat less or work out more.
Metabolic flexibility can be a sign of health (at least for those of us over 40). Metabolic INflexibility is a sign that your body is out of balance.
So…how do you address this?
Watch the video to find out (and the transcript is below)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
One thing I noticed about the river is that it's very adaptable. It's very flexible. If it's sunny and calm, and there's not a lot of wind and the river is nice and calm, look what a gorgeous morning. But you know, if it's windy then the river is bumpy. And there are lots of waves.
So the river adapts to its environment.
And it's very flexible, really, if you think about it, and we as humans, have the ability to be metabolically flexible. And that's a good thing.
We want to be metabolically flexible!
Which means that our metabolic system, which is all the processing of fuel that we do, right, like burning calories, but also getting rid of waste and toxins, utilizing proteins properly, burning fats properly, using our nutrients, being able to absorb and use our nutrients, that's all our metabolism.
And metabolic flexibility is a sign of health, we want to be metabolically flexible.
Now generally what happens as we age is that we tend to have more stress, we tend to have poor sleep, and we also tend to move less, and oftentimes we don't eat as well.
So when you're 20. That's all fine and dandy, right? If you're not eating well, and you're not moving as much your body is newer. So you remain metabolically flexible, even if you're not taking care of your body.
But as you get older that changes and you start to become more and more metabolically inflexible, if you do nothing to change the circumstances within your body.
So as you get older, it's more important that you eat well, it's more important that you are physically active, and you get the right amount of sleep.
Not to say it's not important when you're young, but the consequences are much greater as you age.
So we want to be metabolically flexible.
If we're not metabolically flexible, then we tend to gain weight very easily, we tend not to be able to lose weight, you know, burn body fat. And we also become very sensitive to things.
Oh, my heartburn, my sciatica.
And oftentimes, what we'll find is that you know, I'm working with women trying to lose weight, “Oh, I, I ate really well and I lost a pound. And then I ate one meal and I gained two pounds.” That's metabolic inflexibility.
And it makes it hard to lose weight.
But there are ways around this there are ways to increase and improve your metabolic flexibility.
One of them is to be physically active, and maintain your physical activity throughout your life.
Another really important thing is to get good sleep and manage your stress because these will affect your metabolism.
It's not a rumor, it's not a myth, it's not an urban legend.
If you don't sleep well, you will not produce fuel in the proper way you will not burn fuel as you would like to.
So we have this fitness, sleep—stress management. Also, obviously, diet can affect this. Right?
If you're eating a lot of refined carbohydrates, a lot of sugars, a lot of empty calories, also a lot of poor, you know, processed foods, your body is not going to be as metabolically flexible.
Doing a metabolic detox, which we just did a couple of weeks ago is like a cleanse, that can upregulate your metabolism…clean out, kind of clean up, clean the pipes, so that everything works better.
And so those are big, but you know, mindset is big too. Your brain has an effect on your metabolism, the way that your thoughts, your stress, let's put it as stress, okay, your autonomic nervous system.
So all of those things are really important.
So if you want to increase your metabolic flexibility, you have to pay attention to those things. It's not just going to happen, unfortunately.
So I just wanted to introduce you to that concept. Because if you're struggling to lose weight, and you feel like you're metabolically inflexible, there are reasons for that, and a lot of it is hormonal.
If you're postmenopausal, you may need a little mother's little helper there, not really, but you know, hormonal treatment, hormonal health, working with a qualified doctor who can prescribe the right types of hormones for you, that can make a big difference.
So if your thyroid is sluggish, maybe you need to work with a doctor who understands this. And that also has a huge effect on your metabolism, of course.
So metabolic flexibility, very important, very holistic.
You need a very holistic approach to it, but it ain't just gonna happen.
By eating less and less and less, that is not going to improve your metabolic flexibility.
As a matter of fact, it'll probably make it worse.
So stay away from those extreme diets such as extreme caloric restriction.
Oh, another one is time-restricted feeding.
So if you can try to do go without eating for 12 to 14 hours overnight, that will improve your metabolic flexibility as well.
So lots of things that you can do. And one of them is to enjoy a beautiful, early morning nature scene that speaks to you.
