PrintThe Metabolism Miracle
by Diane Kress, RD, CDE.
Copyright © 2009 by Da Capo Lifelong Books.
Excerpted with permission of the publisher, Da Capo Lifelong Books.
Everything You Need to Know About The Metabolism Miracle
So you got the memo. You've been eating right, exercising daily, and following the experts' number one rule for weight loss—"burn more calories than your body takes in." You've suffered through liquid diets, points diets, carb-free diets, portion-control diets to achieve this delicate balance. And yet… fat is still going straight to your belly. If you are overweight, you're just not trying hard enough to lose it, right? Maybe not.
You could be one of the millions of people who have an alternative metabolism— uncontrolled Metabolism B.
Most weight loss programs are based on the theory that metabolism (the way your body processes food to meet the body's needs) is the same from person to person. Almost universally, these programs use a mathematical "law of calories": the fewer calories a person consumes, the less he or she will weigh. Increase exercise and weight loss accelerates. If the person also has high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or high blood sugar they would, in addition to counting calories, decrease their fat, sodium, and sugar intake.
As a registered dietitian specializing in obesity for more than 25 years, I had taught my patients these traditional tenets.
Although they tried to put the principles into action, almost half of these motivated patients—45 percent—did not lose an appropriate amount of weight. They weren't able to keep it off. They had minimal (if any) improvements in their cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. And as if that weren't enough, they continued to gain weight and needed more and more medications to combat weight-related health concerns.
I guess I should tell you that as time went on, I became one of my own patients. Eventually, just before my fortieth birthday, I, too, ended up with weight issues, hypertension, elevated cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes…all while following and teaching "the perfect diet."
What was going on? Why was this diet making us sicker? I decided to take apart everything I was taught about diet and started from scratch. Meanwhile, more and more research was done regarding weight, insulin resistance, and diabetes, Soon, I made the connection—it became obvious that the diet we were teaching did not match many peoples' metabolism.
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