Having a damaged metabolism can cause long lasting effects causing weight gain and make it harder to lose weight.
What is a Metabolism?
Everyone has a metabolism, but each person’s metabolism is different. Your metabolism is defined by the Mayo Clinic as the number of calories your body uses to carry out basic functions.
These functions include:
- Core processes (heart beating, blood circulating, breathing, digesting foods)
- Growing and repairing cells
- Everyday activities (non-exercise)
- Creating hormones
- Plus more
What additional factors play a role?
- Age
- Gender
- Body Composition (amount of muscle or fat)
- Hormones
- Chronic Health Conditions
- Additional Activity such as exercise.
The biggest driver of our metabolism is…. The amount of muscle we have. Each pound of muscle roughly burns 10 calories per day. Your thyroid burns 200-300 on average, your core processes burn hundreds of calories, but muscle is the biggest factor that isn’t “exercise”.
What is a Damaged Metabolism?
A damaged metabolism is a metabolism that doesn’t burn as many calories as someone with a normal functioning metabolism. This can be due to inactivity, lack of muscle, unbalanced hormones, health conditions, vitamin/mineral deficiencies, or poor nutrition for an extended amount of time.
Where a normal female 40 year old that is 5’8 and 180 pounds may burn 1500 calories a day at rest, someone with a damaged metabolism could burn up to 500+ calories less each day. We will go into reasons of a damaged metabolism.
Starvation Mode?
When we think of metabolism, we think of calories in versus calories out. If we eat less than our metabolism, our body has to use stored energy (fat/muscle) as fuel. If we eat more than our metabolism, then our body stores fat (sometimes muscle).
How is it possible to be on an extreme diet (less than 1000 calories) and not lose weight? It’s because your metabolism slows to the amount of calories you are consuming.
Most think that starvation mode is a condition in which you gain weight eating reduced calories. Starvation mode is a condition in which the body is forced to lower the metabolism to help preserve survival. We have seen in studies that to offset extremely low calorie diets, the body slows down core processes. This includes lowering body temperature, reducing pulse, creating less hormones, less repair of cells, and psychiatric downgrading. You can read more on the subject here.
Causes of a Damaged Metabolism
When clients approach me with damaged metabolism, I typically see the following issues:
- Extreme Low Calorie diets, or experience with crash diets
- Health Conditions (insulin resistance/autoimmune)
- Hormonal Issues
- Do not resistance train
- Doesn’t eat enough protein
- Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
- Poor Gut Health
- Relies on cardio or uses resistance training while not fueling body enough causing damage
- Being sedentary
- Chronic Dehydration
Extreme Calorie Diets
If you practice an extremely low calorie diet, you will have your metabolism crash. The body will use muscle as fuel, greatly decreasing your metabolism and will shut down core processes to offset the reduction in calories.
Health Conditions
Some health conditions worsen the metabolism, and some health conditions are caused by poor nutrition, training, deficiencies, and more. Autoimmune disorders, insulin resistance, and more can cause excess weight gain, even in a calorie deficit.
Hormonal Conditions
Low thyroid, high estrogen, high cortisol, low testosterone, and many other hormones play a role in metabolism. If you have any of these conditions, your body will be more prone to have a slower metabolism and more likely to store body fat, even at lower calorie diets. Some of these hormonal issues are a direct cause of poor nutrition, training, deficiencies, etc.
Resistance Training
Resistance training convinces the body (with proper nutrition, we will get to that shortly) to help fuel the metabolism, build lean muscle, tone, and help you improve your health. If you do not resistance train, you are more likely to lose muscle while dieting, crashing your metabolism.
Protein
Protein is the single most important element to nutrition when it comes to metabolism. It prevents muscle wasting, keeping the metabolism high. Protein also helps repair muscle and build toned muscle. Less protein will crash your metabolism. Protein is also needed for hair, skin, nails, bones, ligaments, blood cells, neurotransmitters and more.
Vitamin and Mineral Deficiencies
Vitamins such as Vitamin D, and minerals such as chromium, iodine, and selenium have direct roles in our metabolism. Being deficient will cause the metabolism to go down.
Poor Gut Health
Poor gut health can cause both obesity and malnourishment. The body absorbs the food, vitamins, minerals, and more through our gut. If our gut health is poor, our body will be more likely to gain weight.
Too Much Cardio
Cardio can be catabolic. This means that it breaks down tissue instead of building tissue. This can be bad for toning and muscle, which decreases the metabolism. What is worse is if you do excess cardio, or even strength training without fueling your body properly. This can cause you to tear down your tissues even faster.
Being Sedentary
Being sedentary will cause your metabolism to slow since you are not doing anything extra for calories to be used.
Chronic Dehydration
Being dehydrated slows the metabolism and convinces the body to store water weight. This bloat can add pounds. Being properly hydrated will cause the metabolism to increase.
How to Fix a Damaged Metabolism
There are things I suggest to fix a metabolism. Some will sound crazy, but with many years of experience with fixing damaged metabolism, these tips will work if you are patient enough to work on them. You didn’t damage your metabolism in a day, so you can’t fix it in a day. However, I have had clients start losing weight within a few weeks.
Set a calorie and protein goal
Does carbs and fats matter? Sure, but they are predominantly used as energy, where protein is more of a driver of metabolism. Your protein goal should be .8-1.2 grams per GOAL body weight. Keep in mind, if your goal is still going to put you in a BMI rating that is obese, I would set a protein goal to a BMI weight that is considered healthy (23-25 BMI). You do not have to diet down to this number, but it would be more accurate when reflecting calories and protein. To figure out a calorie goal, go to 1stphorm.app/nutritiontrain and it will help you setup a calorie goal. As a nutritionist and coach, I do this for my paid clients as well.
Again, under eating with a damaged metabolism has got you to the point you are at now. Eating more (of the right things) will fix it.
I suggest Level-1, Phormula-1, and Vegan Power Pro to help my clients hit their protein goals.
If you have a chronic health condition…
Talk to your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. If you suffer from autoimmune or insulin resistance, I would suggest lowering carbs to around 100 grams per day. This will help your body utilize these carbohydrates better while allowing for more weight loss. This will also help you drastically improve your health. Side note: if you have an autoimmune, consider eliminating gluten and decreasing preservatives.
Less cardio, more resistance training
Resistance training isn’t going to “bulk” you up while rebuilding your metabolism, but it will help you tone and fix a damaged metabolism. Weights, body weight exercises, resistance bands, machines will all do the trick to help you repair your metabolism. Note: Must hit protein goal for resistance training to work. Resistance training without enough protein causes damage to the cells.
Vitamins and minerals are super important
Try to eat 5-7 servings of fruits, veggies, and whole grains daily. This can be difficult due to taste preferences or trying to keep calories low. I suggest a quality daily nutrient pack like Micro Factor to make sure you don’t have any deficiencies in your diet. This also includes antioxidants, probiotics, COQ10 for heart health, essential fatty acids, and vitamins and minerals.
Fix your gut health
This is probably one of the most important. Most people with damaged metabolisms have poor gut health. Your gut needs fruits, veggies, good bacteria, fuel for good bacteria, blood sugar controllers, digestive enzymes, and anti-inflammatories (from veggies, fish oil, digestive enzymes, probiotics).
I suggest 5-7 servings of a variety of fruits and veggies, 3 servings of fermented foods (greek yogurt, kombucha, sauerkraut, etc), and digestive enzymes like papaya and mango. I take Opti-Greens 50 instead.
Walk more
Although I said to lower cardio, walking more, especially before or after meals can be great for the metabolism.
Drink 100+ ounces of water a day
Water increases the metabolism and helps remove fat cells from our body. Water also decreases bloat and helps with energy levels.
I do not suggest fat burners… yet
I like fat burners, however, if you are a chronic under-eater, fat burners may further decrease your appetite, making it near impossible to increase your metabolism. Once you have switched your diet and have found success for a few weeks, then introduce the 1-DB Fastpack if interested.
Summary
I have switched clients from a 400 calorie a day diet to a 1400 calorie a day diet and had them lose weight in the first week. We must give our body a reason to increase the metabolism, because years of extreme diet and deficiencies have cause damage to the vulnerable metabolism.
Dustin Holston
Advanced Nutrition Solutions