Have You Crashed Your Metabolism?

By Russ Howe


There are many people around the world who are struggling with weight loss and today we will be looking at one of the main reasons behind this. If you are in a situation where you feel like you simply cannot lose weight no matter how little you eat or how long you stay on the treadmill, you aren't by yourself in this predicament.

If you have experienced this in the past then today's the day you begin understanding the science behind the problem. []

If we think hard, we are probably all able to name someone in our lives who has had difficulty losing weight. One of the causes could be metabolic damage, which we are going to look at today. This condition is shockingly common in today's looks driven society, thanks to the popularity of fad diets and quick fixes. The following two things are usually associated with individuals suffering from metabolic damage:

1. Constantly following a low calorie diet.

2. An unusually long cardiovascular exercise program.

Almost every individual who has damaged their metabolism as a result of trying to shed body fat follow at least one of the two things listed above. Let's take a deeper look into each factor so you can determine whether this issue has happened to you.

The main problem which causes metabolic damage is a poorly structured diet. If you follow a very restrictive, low calorie diet for a long period of time your body begins to adapt by slowing it's metabolism in a bid to prevent you from burning off what little nutrients it has available to use. It's not bothered about losing body fat, it simply wants to keep you alive. So despite eating very little, you will find it near impossible to shed any more fat. This particular issue affects many people, particularly women, who buy into the myths promoted by celebrity fad diets and glossy magazines.

Also, you'll usually see these individuals then following an intense workout program which involves many hours of cardiovascular exercise each week. If you are spending hours of your time in the gym each day running and cycling while following a very low calorie diet you are not helping yourself.

Of course, this only adds to the problems and forces the body to work even harder to slow down the metabolism and hang onto it's vital fat stores. So despite working very hard, you physically cannot lose anything. If this sounds like a situation you have been in at some point, you are not alone.

What usually happens here is the individual gets frustrated before completely quitting. When they do this, they suddenly binge on junk foods and then pile a lot of weight back on because their body has adapted to a very low calorie diet, so it doesn't know how to handle the sudden jump in the opposite direction. This is why many people who follow these fad diets tend to end up heavier in the long term.

After gaining this fat quite quickly following their binge eating phase, people usually get quite hard on themselves and make a decision to get things back on track. There is nothing wrong with that. The only problem is, of course, that they jump back on the restrictive diet which wasn't working for them last time and then they place even more restriction on it second time around.

The good news for anybody who recognizes these symptoms is that it's not impossible to reverse and correct.

Thankfully, correcting a damaged metabolism is not very hard. It is, however, a process which requires a little bit of time. Increase your daily calorie intake by around 5% over the course of the next few weeks. Once your body has been able to adjust and maintain your weight at this higher calorific intake you are ready to increase further.

Fixing metabolic damage can take a while, sometimes over a year, so be patient. But if you can't lose weight no matter what you do in the gym and you recognize these symptoms from your current lifestyle then you have no reason to carry on with your existing routine. Understanding weight loss is often turned into a form of rocket science, but the facts are simple when you clear away the nonsense. If you have damaged your metabolism, your body needs to repair it before it will allow you to diet effectively.




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