The Vicious Cycle
Working with my clients, the bariatric support groups and assessing people’s metabolisms has given me a very clear understanding as to why we struggle with losing fat. It is a vicious cycle that starts with a belief that we need to eat less and exercise more. Yes, sometimes that is the case – however, many times it is not. Below is one of my client’s experiences that is actually quite common
Elly's story
(Client name has been changed for their protection)
Elly had struggled with losing fat for quite some time. She would decrease her calories and workout harder only to be even more frustrated with no results. She came to me for a metabolic assessment. I had her watch her calories for a few days before the assessment because I was curious to see what was happening. She realized that she was eating around 1200 calories a day. Now if you've tried any of the diets out there you would know that 1200 - 1300 is quite normal. How frustrating to follow a new diet, exercise your heart out with minimal to no results! So what do we do when we decrease our calories and exercise harder and we don't get results? We get frustrated, angry and we emotionally eat and allow ourselves all the food we were depriving ourselves from. Why not? After all - working so hard didn't do anything anyway; I may as well eat whatever I want and ENJOY IT! At this point, without realizing it - you are now overeating and gaining fat. Yes, gaining fat because guess what - you're not working out anymore either! And THAT is the vicious cycle! So, she came in and we assessed her metabolism. It turned out that Elly's RMR was 1438! That meant that Elly needed to have 1438 calories in her body by the end of the day in order for her body to not go into starvation mode. So I instructed her on what she needed to do - EAT MORE! I told her to eat 1438 calories a day and if she exercised on any given day, she needed to eat as many calories as she burned exercising. So if she exercised for 45 minutes and burned 350 calories, she had to make sure she ate 1438 + 350 totaling 1788 calories for the day. Yes, she was skeptical. But she left promising that she would do it. She was scheduled to see me in five days for her first workout and we would do a second body composition then to see what changed with her body. When she came in for her training appointment, she told me she was a little concerned. She really struggled eating so much and couldn't see how she could lose weight eating so many calories. She found herself hungry at odd times but just went with it, tracking carefully to be sure she ended each day with 1438 in her "body bank." We weighed her, measured her and pinched her with the calipers - sure enough - everything went down! She lost 3 lbs of fat, gained 1 lb of muscle, lost an inch in her waist as well as other body parts. She was shocked and very pleased to say the least. Two weeks into her program, she lost 5.5 fat lbs gained 2 lbs of muscle and has lost over 7 inches. The reason she has been so successful is because she finally knows what her body's needs are and is simply eating exactly that. It is about calories in and calories out, but you must know what your unique RMR needs are so you are not working blind, over training or under training and simply giving your body what it needs. Very simple - once you have the information!
To schedule an assessment: Click Here.
|
