A while back, I was trying to get through a door to a shop. I was pulling where I should have been pushing. A man looked at me with exasperation and said, “Listen lady, ya gotta be smarter than the door.” This is a life lesson. You have to smarter than the door. Proper weight and good health are doors we all want to get through. To get through them we have to understand how they work and follow the instructions.
Like me, you may have blamed a “slow metabolism” for being overweight. Well, again that’s me not being smarter than the door. Metabolism is our body’s process that turns food into energy. It’s a complex system and I recommend you speak to your healthcare provider or a nutritionist to gain solid understanding or this important biological process. Finding out if your metabolism is functioning properly is a simple matter of getting a few tests from your healthcare provider.
The buzz words these days are “metabolic syndrome”. The Mayo Clinic describes it this way, “Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Having just one of these conditions — increased blood pressure, elevated insulin levels, excess body fat around the waist or abnormal cholesterol levels — contributes to your risk of serious disease. In combination, your risk is even greater.” The good news about Metabolic Syndrome is that most of the factors within it are things we can take action to correct or at least manage.
Syndrome or no syndrome; there are differences in metabolism in the sexes. If you’ve ever been on a diet with a man you have a first hand understanding of the fact that men seem to have a higher metabolic rate than women. Generally men have less body fat and more muscle than women so they tend to have a higher metabolic rate. Men, once they start taking care of themselves, lose weight more easily than women. The good news for women out there is that, although the ability to change metabolic rate is limited, we can still win the metabolic battle of the sexes by changing the input into the metabolic system. A man sitting on a sofa watching football and eating bags of greasy chips all day is not going to lose more weight than a woman out for a brisk walk after a healthy snack. The woman is inputting positives into the metabolic system by exercising and eating right. Despite genetics, in this situation, the woman wins.
Age also plays a factor in metabolism. As you age your metabolism slows down. In turn, this means that you need fewer calories as you age. You still need the right amount of calories and activity to stay healthy. The age factor brings us to the topic of menopause as a factor in woman’s metabolic rate. Yes, all those pleasant (can you hear the sarcasm?) hormonal changes can influence a woman’s metabolic rate, but it’s still the input/output balance that’s going to have the biggest impact on menopausal weight gain. If you know your metabolism is slowing down than you have got to take the steps you need to keep your system in balance.
Eating more frequently keeps the metabolism on an even keel. When you put too many hours between meals your metabolism actually slows down. Same goes for any type of “starvation diet”. Your body thinks it’s going into crisis mode for lack of food and the metabolism slows down to conserve energy. You may lose weight initially, but your body is smart and it will figure out what you’re doing to it and fight back. Eating small meals or snacking on healthy foods during the day will help keep your metabolism at an even level. Keep an eye on what you’re snacking on please. Six bags of chips a day does not qualify as a healthy snack. Again, you have to be smarter than the door.
It’s not uncommon to see products that claim to raise metabolic rate somehow or will miraculously address Metabolic Syndrome. In reality, although one or two of these products might actually do as they claim, the raise is negligible. Some products can actually hurt you long term. Most of them raise your metabolic rate so temporarily that the purchase price does not justify the result. There are products out there, like green tea, that can be beneficial and healthy, but not one of them will put you on the winning side of the weight loss equation without you putting in the time and effort to balance your input/output equation.
Believe me folks, I wish there was a magic bullet for weight loss and wonderful health out there. If there was I’d be first in line to take a shot. For now we’re going to have to settle for trying to be smarter than the door when it comes to our health.