Ok let’s get one thing straight – you haven’t killed your metabolism. It isn’t broken even.
It’s adapted.
I want to explain why our metabolism adapts and even strategies you can use to make this work to your advantage.
And just to be clear…your age is not an excuse.
While yes it can feel harder to make changes as we get older, a big part of that is simply the fact we’ve ignored many of these other factors for so long and previous dieting and training practices are catching up with us now!
So first…why does your metabolism adapt?
Our metabolism isn’t a stagnant thing.
Changes in our lifestyle and changes in our lifestyle can have a huge impact on it – from how we fuel to how active we are.
That’s why we have to be conscious of how we approach losing weight, especially if we want to see amazing and LASTING body recomp.
Because so often in search of faster results, and more dramatic changes on the scale, we implement habits that have a NEGATIVE impact on our metabolic health.
While we do need a calorie deficit to lose weight, creating too big a deficit will backfire.
Yet this is so often what we’ve always done.
If calories in vs. calories out is our main focus for weight loss, we almost assume going lower is better.
But it’s not.
Yes, it may be nice to see that scale change quickly, but dropping our calories extremely low changes how our body functions.
Metabolic adaptations occur and our metabolism slows to try to regulate energy expenditure to match energy intake.
Less energy coming in, your body makes sure survival functions are covered first.
This can mean we may find ourselves having less energy to get up and move around extra.
We may find we fidget less.
We may even see our workout performance decline.
Your body will slow down, or reduce, any processes that burn energy it doesn’t feel it has coming in…
And this can also mean muscle being lost.
Muscle is metabolically costly. It requires more energy to be maintained.
Whereas, our fat stores are more pure fuel for our body.
When energy is in short supply, our body is going to do what it can to conserve.
Less muscle means less energy needed to survive.
That is why we can not only struggle to build muscle in an extreme deficit even though we’re trying to train hard, but we can even LOSE muscle.
And oddly enough, the harder we train to try to see the results, the more we may be making that deficit even more extreme…fighting against any muscle building efforts further.
So while yes, a calorie deficit is key…
Slashing our calories lower to try to see results faster started the snowball of metabolic adaptations…
Adaptations you may find accumulate more and more as you get older.
And this is why we start blaming our age for the metabolic slowdown.
Over time, we’ve repeated this yo-yo dieting cycle…
Slash our calories lower and burn more calories in our training.
So we lose fast on the scale.
But we ultimately lose just as much muscle as fat.
Slowing our metabolic rate.
And in the process creating hormonal imbalances which only make matters worse.
Then ultimately we can’t sustain the severe restriction and training regime, so we regain the weight.
But when we regain the weight, we aren’t doing so in a healthy way to rebuild muscle.
Instead we’re defaulting back into bad habits.
All that weight we then gain only makes our body composition worse as we put on fat.
This leads to us even potentially putting on more weight as our body has learned to function better off of the lower calories AND we’ve lost muscle.
So the next time we go to diet down, not only is the process HARDER but our metabolic rate may be slower and may only further adapt as we implement those same dieting practices!
And this is why it can feel like it as we get older it gets harder and harder.
Not to mention, as most of us get older…we aren’t as active.
So lower activity levels on average coupled with improper dieting practices and this yo-yo dieting cycle…
Of course it feels like it gets harder and our metabolism is slower than ever.
Now I do want to mention…age DOES have an impact.
Because while too often we just blame our age and write ourselves off because of it, there are things we WILL need to address with how we train and fuel if we want to see results NO MATTER our age…
As we get older, we aren’t able to utilize protein as efficiently and muscle gains are slower.
Our hormonal environment isn’t as optimal as it once was for muscle growth.
And less muscle as we get older DOES mean a slower metabolism.
BUT again…our metabolism is constantly adjusting…
So as much as our previous dieting practices have had an impact negatively…we can also CHANGE them to not only address our changing needs as we get older but also REVERSE the adaptations we’ve created with previous dieting attempts…
So…How can you use the fact that your metabolism adjusts to your advantage?
Because at any point we can improve our metabolic health and increase our metabolic rate by changing how we fuel and train!
We can eat to be energized and want to move more.
This means NOT starving ourselves as we try to train harder.
We can properly fuel our training as our workouts focus on building lean muscle.
This means we need to stop seeing our workouts as a chance to burn more calories and instead focus on building muscle.
We need to challenge ourselves with our lifts. We need to not just fall into doing more. And we need to focus on that protein.
This will lead to us increasing our muscle mass to burn more calories at rest. AKA raise our resting metabolic rate!
The more we focus on these habits to increase our metabolic rate, the more we will find we are able to lose fat and KEEP IT OFF.
We will look leaner and FEEL BETTER because we are actually FUELING our body to function optimally…
And this can be done at ANY age.
While yes, we don’t utilize protein as efficiently or have that same anabolic environment for muscle growth as naturally, just RECOGNIZING this, we can account for it.
We can focus more on strength training and truly challenging ourselves.
And we can be even more conscious about a small calorie deficit after retraining ourselves first potentially to eat more.
Not to mention, we can emphasize MORE PROTEIN. As by just getting MORE we can create that same muscle protein synthesis we had with less when our hormones were at more “optimal” levels.
But as much as this all sounds fabulous….
I’m going to warn you…
This process of addressing metabolic adaptations takes time…
There are no magic metabolic foods or moves we need to be including.
Honestly, the process of addressing metabolic adaptations is often even FRUSTRATING.
It’s hard mentally because it usually requires us to do the OPPOSITE of what we’ve always done…
And often we feel like we’re LOSING PROGRESS when first making the necessary dietary changes.
Yup.
Especially if you want to see the scale go DOWN….in the process of helping improve your metabolic healthy, you may first have to embrace the scale GOING UP.
Your body doesn’t like change…even when it is good for it.
So increasing your calories to truly fuel that muscle growth and increase your metabolism may mean seeing the scale increase.
This isn’t just that glycogen stores are being filled from a depleted state…
It’s partly because your body has learned to function on LESS.
So this extra energy to start is viewed as extra you don’t need and will be stored.
That’s why slowly increasing your calories from your deficit just 50-100 slowly over the weeks is key.
This helps restore hormonal balance.
And as you do this, you need to focus on PROTEIN.
This can help you avoid gaining unwanted fat as much as possible as you increase your calories.
And it can pay off because extra as we get older because we need more protein to create that same anabolic, muscle building response we had when we were younger.
And then, even as you see the scale increase, you can’t fear increasing calories.
Which will probably be the OPPOSITE of what you first want to do when seeking to lose weight.
As you build lean muscle, from proper fueling and strength training, your energy demands will increase.
Aka your metabolic rate will increase!
And then you’ll need to eat more to maintain it.
What once may have been enough, then becomes a deficit.
Now you may be wondering…But how do I know I’m not just gaining a ton of fat?!
This is where stepping off the scale and measuring may be key!
As muscle is being built, you will see inches being lost before the scale starts to trend downward.
And while frustrating, acknowledging this and accepting this…and embracing the long term habits…will ultimately pay off.
Because if you do have more weight to lose, the scale WILL start to change.
But it takes time.
Yup…patience…that thing none of us want to have is key.
So if you’ve worried your metabolism is dead…
It’s not.
You haven’t killed it.
And metabolic adaptations…heck you even saying you just have always have had a slow metabolism…
Can be changed at any and every age.
But you DO need to avoid extreme calorie deficits, focus on protein and build that lean muscle with your workouts!
And if you’ve found yourself repeating the same horrible yo-yo dieting cycle, the only way out of it is to make a change and realize your results may go backward before that recomp starts happening!
Because it can be hard to trust the process, having that outside perspective and guidance can be key.
To help you address metabolic adaptations and see the results you deserve, check out my 1:1 Coaching.
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