I’ve been receiving many emails of late, all about wanting to lose weight for the summer months. It’s that time of year when we begin to uncover ourselves from those big sweaters and finally take notice.  Weight loss is all about your metabolism.. let’s take a look!
Metabolism and weight loss
It may be tempting to blame your metabolism for weight gain. But because metabolism is a natural process, your body generally balances it to meet your individual needs. That’s why if you try so-called starvation diets, your body compensates by slowing down these bodily processes and conserving calories for survival. Only in rare cases do you get excessive weight gain from a medical problem that slows metabolism, such as Cushing’s syndrome or having an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism).
Unfortunately, weight gain is most commonly the result of eating more calories than you burn. To lose weight, then, you need to create an energy deficit by eating fewer calories, increasing the number of calories you burn through physical activity, or both.
Where is my metabolism? How do I rev up my energy? How does it all work?  Let’s take a moment to discuss the process of metabolism..
I want to share my story with you. It’s not especially exciting really, it’s about what I have learned and how I have broken the mold in making my fitness coach business a successful one!  I broke the rules….
First and foremost, I am an orthotherapist. I learned how to heal the body: be careful, take care, soft hands, nurture… well, all clinic work. And then, I became a rehabilitation specialist, where the same rules apply. It worked, in a small sort of way. There was something missing… I knew that I had to change things up to make it happen for my clients… True to myself, I had to live it… I began training my body in a very different way, I explored athletics, strength, sculpting.. I pushed my limits at every turn. I worked and am still working with my personal trainer (yes, the trainer needs a trainer, we all do! @TonyGreco), and through all my courses in fitness coaching (too many to list), and through all of my learning in nutrition, I found that my clients were being underchallenged. These courses are formulated in a way that will always leave the client underchallenged, because we don’t want to be responsible if something goes wrong. If you know your stuff, things won’t go wrong! I have faith in my knowledge and in my experience, I am limited only by my own imagination.
I was described as being a Porsche! Yeah, that sweet fast engine… Ok, so the conversation wasn’t about that, it was about expensive and high maintenance. Go figure! However, the way I see it, high maintenance usually = performance and power! I like that description and I will own it! What does that have to do with carbohydrates? well, all high maintenance and expensive cars need fuel in the gas tank to get from A to B! The quality of the fuel is what will keep it performing! This is where carbohydrates come in…
I am one of the lucky ones. You know the type? great genetics, fast metabolism, fit… ok, some work goes into that for sure, I live the life.. however, I do have clients who are doing all the right things, eating all the right foods in the right quantities and the right times and yet… they are getting strong, fitter, more able… for sure… the scale is NOT moving. And I mean, not moving at all.
What is weight loss resistance? why does it happen? how do we break that barrier?
There are different schools of thought on this one.
Look down, what do you see? What do you want to see? Looking for that six-pack? The truth is, the six pack is there! It’s hiding under unwanted body fat!
My clients often ask me to help them shape that six-pack, then, when they start to understand what it takes to show them off, reality sets in. It’s not about those crunches, or those pilates classes. It’s about nutrition, all body exercises as well as the crunches. The abdominals have to be worked from the inside out. In other words, no amount of crunches and Russian twists will shape those muscles if they are not first steady and firm on the inside. That comes with all body strength including cardio training, balance training and strength training. Nutrition is key to putting it all together. Without strong nutrition, the muscle cannot be shaped, without a balanced diet, your metabolism slows down the fat loss process hiding that sixpack under unwanted adipose.
My advice to all those who are looking for that bikini body:
In any weight loss training program, three elements have to come into play.As we get busier throughout the seasons, we often let one of the elements drop and find that we plateau or loose ground with our goal.
Nutrition
Cardio Training
Strength Training
Nutrition:
Eating a protein rich interval based regimen is what is going to get your there.Think of your body as a wood burning oven, the better the wood, the hotter the energy.The oven stops burning hot when you don’t feed it… so does your body.
I was at a party recently, when I overheard a woman say to a group:
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‘It only takes 20 minutes of cardio every morning before breakfast to burn body fat’
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Granted, she’s fit, granted, she’s done triathlons, marathons, has done strength training… etc… but she only knows what she knows.  The key is in what she doesn’t know… As she left the party, many in this group started asking me the question: True or False?
Weight loss is fickle! We start something new and we begin to see some positive changes. So we keep at it because it works!.. for a while anyway… Then the plateau blues set in. Sure, we feel better but the scale has stopped moving in the right direction!!!
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It’s either 1 of 2 things…
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It may be that we’ve gotten complacent, gotten used to the demands and let the important things slip to the wayside (or maybe weigh side?)…
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Or, it’s that it’s time to do something new
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Our body can be sneaky! It will adjust to the tasks and demand and give no more than it has to in order to survive. It’s engineered that way, there’s nothing you can do to change that. That’s typically when we through the demand, albeit with a sweat, with no real challenge of survival.
I’ve been receiving many emails of late, all about wanting to lose weight for the summer months. It’s that time of year when we begin to uncover ourselves from those big sweaters and finally take notice.  Weight loss is all about your metabolism.. let’s take a look!
