Switch Your Metabolism Class: set for Mondays: Oct 7,14,21, 6 – 7:30;  and Wednesdays: Oct 9,16,23, 1 – 2:30.  The goal: to teach you how to be a Fat Burner and not a Sugar Burner.  We’ll cover the Paleo Diet, Digestion, Blood Sugar (you HAVE to understand your biology to lose weight and get healthy), Ketosis, Power Cooking, Compliance Strategies and much more.  The class will be held at the Marshall Community Center (4133A Rectortown Rd, Marshall Va), which is right off Rt 17 and Rt 66 – it’s easy to get to.  The total cost: $100.  My goal:  to help you understand that your weight and your health are a matter of your Biology, not a low cal/low fat diet that never works, ever; and that you have the Power to change yourself.  Email me if you can attend.  Phone and Skype sessions are available if you’re long distance.

I’ve got an idea for improving health and losing weight that might seem blasphemous to all the hardcore dieters out there:  step away from the Mini Meal.

All these years of diet and supplement companies advising us that eating 5, 6, even 7 times a day will “speed up our metabolism” and help us lose weight?  Well, the “eat all day long” idea has certainly taken hold, but how’s that working out for health and weight loss?  Not so well, and no wonder.  The theory behind it is completely wrong.

Mini meals don’t speed up metabolism. If you eat 2000 calories in a day, divided by 3 meals or 6, it takes the same amount of energy (thermogenesis) to digest that food.  Sadly, thermogenesis doesn’t actually account for much of our calorie burn at all, so as a weight loss tool, it’s ineffectual.  As a weight GAIN aid, it’s a huge possibility, here’s why:  one, the habit of eating all day is waaayyy too easy to establish.  For everyone who’s tried this form of eating, you know that dependency and excitement about the next meal (every 2 hours or so) becomes a mental focal point. Eating happens whether there’s true hunger or not, or whether the body actually needs the nutrients or not.  Eating happens because “it’s time to eat”.  The real disaster comes from the constant presence of glucose/sugar in the blood stream.

When glucose is present in amounts over 100mg/dcl (you’d know this if you used a glucometer), that’s considered TOO MUCH GLUCOSE in the blood (remember: excess glucose is TOXIC to the body).  Your pancreas releases the hormone Insulin, which takes the excess glucose and (1) puts it in needy muscle cells  (2) puts in empty liver cells (3) takes all the leftovers and remakes the glucose into TRIGLYCERIDES.  The body does this very easily.  Wondering if this is happening to you?  Look down at your stomach.  The body deposits most of these homemade triglycerides in the abdominal area. In addition to belly fat, excess glucose and excess insulin dramatically create/cause inflammation in the body.   A condition we DON’T want.

Here’s another story:  you only eat 3 meals a day; you eat mostly healthy fats and proteins, tons of vegetables, some fruits, some nuts and seeds, some whole fat dairy,  your blood sugar/glucose stays under 100, you have hours WITHOUT insulin in your blood.  Then your pancreas releases the hormone GLUCAGON.  Glucagon “taps” the fat cells holding those triglycerides, takes them to the liver, which remakes them into glucose for the body to burn. You’ve literally “burned fat”.

I’ve got to say something else about Metabolism:  More is NOT always better.  NORMAL metabolism is better.  Faster metabolism means faster aging, a slow metabolism means poor health.  Normal means normal, and that’s what we should aim for.  Who wants to age faster?

Back to the mini meals.  Please don’t worry that you’ll “crash your metabolism” if you don’t eat every couple of hours.  That’s ridiculous.  Your metabolism is at the mercy of your HORMONES; the hormone insulin BUILDS, the hormone glucagon TEARS DOWN.  Anabolic and Catabolic.

Worried because you can’t seem to go more than a few hours without STARVING?  You’re a sugar burner.  Sugar burners have built systems for digesting and storing sugar/glucose, and because that system runs so fast, you’re genuinely hungry all the time.   Fat Burners can go HOURS without feeling hungry, even through hard workouts.  IT FEELS GREAT TO BE A FAT BURNER.  Honestly!  For years I was a 5/6 mini-meal a dayer. I know what I’m talking about, but the science is backing me up.

My Metabolism class will be discussing this in detail, I promise.  You’ll learn everything you ever wanted to know about going from a Sugar Burner to a Fat Burner.  It’s a life changer.  Not just because it’s healthier and promotes permanent weight loss, but because being a Sugar Burner is like carrying a very heavy weight on your shoulders.  Thoughts of the next meal are pervasive and intrusive and overwhelming.  Maybe you’ve never thought about it in those terms before; but I promise you, when constant thoughts of food are no longer dominating your brain, there’s a freedom; and it’s very, very liberating.

Hope to see you there:)