Calories, food and metabolismthe never ending dilemma
4 May 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Metabolism is a moving, shifting target, hardly finite or fixed in time and space. Metabolism, like hope, floats. Here is the deal; optimally we need to take in about as many calories as we burn during the course of the day. Too few calories and we wont recover from the savage training we continually subject ourselves to. On the other hand if you consume a lot more calories than are required to keep the soft machine fueled, lubed and oiled, youll add to body fat to existing fat storage sites. To the contrary, we want to drain the fat deposits. We do this by operating at a slight caloric deficit. We settle in and after 4 or 5 weeks the lard will start to melt and drain. Subcutaneous fat, hard like Crisco lard, when mobilized is turned into trans-fatty acid and used as an energy source. By deftly handling the delicate balance between activity generated and calories ingested you become lean in the best possible way. You oxidize stored body fat but because you take in a goodly amount of protein and weight train and do cardio, you retain muscle mass in the face of a caloric deficit. But where exactly is this elusive caloric breakeven point? Isnt that another phrase for metabolic set rate? They are virtually synonymous.
Everybody has a different metabolic rate at any given point in time. What is it? Who knows for certain? How could you accurately know your current metabolic burn rate without traveling around with sophisticated scientific devices? If you had continual access to a metabolic monitoring apparatus, youd see that the basal metabolic rate is a moving continually and is expressed as a single finite number at any point in time the finite number represents the number of calories we currently burn calories while at rest. This number will increase and decrease throughout the day, depending on activity level and circumstance. Metabolic burn rate also undergoes a gradual and continual slowdown as we age unless we do something to counteract this natural occurrence. Over time we become efficient at utilizing our available energy. This explains why a sedentary, obese 400-pound woman cursed with a sluggish metabolism can survive on a mere 1000 calories per day.
When the obese person binges in the slightest they gain an inordinate amount of body fat. Contrast this with the super-fit professional athlete, 200-pounds with 8% body fat; this type can wolf down 8,000 calories a day and not gain an ounce. The champion athlete has a metabolism like the proverbial blast furnace. A high metabolism means were wildly inefficient at using our food-fuel. As a direct result of continual and intense physical activity, activity that requires thousands of calories, the body burns more calories and becomes incredibly efficient at processing nutrients. When the athlete with the blast furnace metabolism cuts back from 8,000 to 4,000 calories per day, they lose an unacceptable amount of size.
My friend and nutritional mentor John Parrillo has long championed the idea that by using a combination of intense exercise and strict, high-calorie/low fat eating, you can teach the metabolism or build the metabolism, i.e., actually increase the amount of calories burned at rest. The confluence of procedures jacks up the human thermostat. Become sedentary and eat excessive calories and you will, over time, slow your metabolism to a crawlan extremely efficient crawl where body fat stores are easily added tothe fitness devotee who performs high-intensity weight training along with cardio is replicating the intense physical activity of the pro athlete albeit to a lesser degree. If you exercise hard as hell and then eat balanced precise meals composed of a low fat protein portion, a fibrous and starchy carbohydrate portion, and eat this way 5-6 times daily in roughly equal meal size and over time the metabolism becomes adept at processing food. Hell, look at all the practice it gets, 35 to 42 meals a week! Avoid foods that are easily converted into body fat (saturated fat, refined carbohydrates, junk food) and eliminate sugar and alcohol.
Over time, you boost the number of calories needed to fuel the soft machine at rest and thats a good thing! Again, irrefutable logic points towards the soundness of the Purposefully Primitive Philosophic Triad: lift weights, hit cardio, eat sensible and dont starve or stuff your self. Do so consistently and continually and over time the caloric cost of doing business increases dramatically. Dont become the stereotypical couch potato or youll end up slamming the brakes on whatever metabolism you have left. Nothing wrong with chill time but if chill time is all the time youre not working, youre going to pack on the pork sure as shooting.
Speed up the metabolic process by getting active, speed up the metabolic process by lifting weights and make sure and blast away at cardio on a regular basis. Eat clean, clean up the food selections. Multiple meals are huge when it comes to building the metabolism. Obviously a body in motion burns more calories than a body at rest so get in motion. Be active and vital.
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