Have you ever found yourself on a plateau when losing weight or just that your low carb or low calorie diet isn’t working? Then your not alone, this is very common and according to an excellent post written by Rusty Moore on fitnessblackbook.com you might just need to reset your metabolism to be able to lose weight again.
Eat it all to reset your metabolism
In this post I’ll try to summarize some of the suggestions Rusty makes in his post and add some of my own clarifications. I do recommend that you go over to his site and read the full 3-part article.
What is Leptin?
Before going any further it is necessary to explain what leptin is as the rest of this article will refer to this hormone.
Being a hormone means that leptin, once it has been released, will travel in you body and make things happen. What it does is to send a message to your brain, via your blood, from your stored fat with information about how much energy or fuel you have left in your tank.
With this information at hand your body knows how fast or slow it can run your metabolism. When leptin levels are high that sends a message to your brain that you have spare resources at your disposal, basically a green light to speed up metabolism.
On the other hand, when levels are low that sends a message that your body should slow down your metabolism.
Cheat Days and Leptin
Cheat days or cheat meals are often introduced to give your shake up your metabolism a bit and trick your body to start burning energy (fat) by raising the leptin levels. When consuming more calories than you usually do the leptin will send a message to your brain to increase metabolism.
This is a good thing, but what happens if your so called leptin resistant?
Leptin Resistance
Being resistant to leptin introduce a serious problem. The leptin then can’t help your body regulate how much energy you need and how fast to run your metabolism. This means that leptin will not tell your body to eat less, hunger will continue even if you eat the calories you need (and probably more than you need) each day.
If you have trouble losing weight you could be leptin resistant.
Often leptin resistance and insulin resistance goes together making you eat more than you need and storing more fat than you should. That’s why some people even when they’re sticking to a low calorie diet don’t see any results.
To do something about this the goal is to increase your sensitivity to leptin.
Resetting Your Metabolism
When resetting your body to be able to lose weight again you will have to stop counting calories, stop any diet including intermittent fasting and prepare yourself that you might add a few pounds during the 2 month resetting program.
For the next two months you should ignore everything you have been reading and do the following.
- Eat 3 times a day – full meals until your completely satisfied
- Eat within 30 minutes from waking up. Never skip breakfast, eat a full breakfast preferably with 2-3 eggs included
- Don’t cut out carbs, eat everything
- Avoid omega 6 fat sources such as vegetable oils. Use butter, cold pressed olive oil or cold pressed coconut oil when cooking
- Limit all things with sugar
- Eat fruits and vegetables
- Don’t eat deep fried food (french fries, KFC etc). Basically stay away from fast food restaurants
- Skip cardio workouts during these 2 months, only do weight lifting
Resetting System: Please Wait
Now that you have reset your system your body is ready to burn calories again. Actually you now will have a faster burn rate even while resting!
It’s now time to look over your diet again and skip some of the calories. Go easy on the carbs again and try to stay away from bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. Don’t eliminate it from your diet just add other things instead when you can. Or just eat less of it.
After this period it’s time to really start working out. So take out your jump rope, stationary bike and kettlebell and really get going. Adding exercise now, especially when combining cardio and strength training will increase your metabolism even more. Now your ready to lose the few pounds you may have put on during the first two months of resetting.
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Resources
Please check out the articles.
http://fitnessblackbook.com/dieting_for_fat_loss/eating-to-increase-your-metabolism-pt-1/
http://fitnessblackbook.com/dieting_for_fat_loss/eating-to-increase-your-metabolism-pt-2/
http://fitnessblackbook.com/dieting_for_fat_loss/eating-to-increase-your-metabolism-pt-3/
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Good info! The pounds I might add, are you sure they’ll come off again? I’ve been on a plateau for a while now and want to lose a few more pounds. Adding wasn’t part of my plan…
Thanks! I’m sure the pounds will come off if you cut down on carbs and exercise after this ‘reset’ period. I think that if you know what your getting yourself into (like adding a few) it’s easier to cope with. You know you’ll at least come down to your weight before you tried this out and if it works for you perhaps you’ll just keep losing a few more pounds. Hope that helps!