HOW METABOLISM AFFECTS YOUR ABILITY TO GAIN OR LOSE WEIGHT!!! A Special Fitness Report by Christopher Pinckley

©2008 Christopher Pinckley No part of this report may be distributed or duplicated without the written permission of the author.

Your Metabolism is Everything You ever notice how some people stay lean no matter what they eat or do, while other people have to monitor every single thing they eat in order to maintain a healthy body weight? Your saying to yourself, yeah right! Who HASN’T noticed that?! It’s the age old quandary of “How do they do it?!” or “She just eats whatever she wants and stays skinny!” or “That guy always has a six pack and he only works out twice a week!”. Yeah, your sick of it right? I mean, nothing against these very blessed people who have great metabolisms. It’s just that it’s pretty darn frustrating for the rest of us when your friend eats burgers and fries every day while you diligently order only a chicken ceasure salad only to notice that you still aren’t as lean as they are. So what’s the deal!? RMR In recent years a few things have been discovered, one of which is your RMR or resting metabolic rate. Your RMR determines the number of calories you burn at rest throughout the day. I know, I know, your saying that you already know this. Be patient, I may have some new information here for you. So your saying that now I can determine the number of calories that I burn at rest. How does that help me? Well, by itself it doesn’t really do much. At the very least what you can do now is attempt to match the number of calories that you consume throughout the day with your RMR(this is assuming that you have found someone who has the oxygen consumption device necessary to ascertain this measurement). The problem is that when you find out what your RMR is you discover that it’s ridiculously low, like 1100/cal/day. This means that after two salads and a cup of coffee your done for the day. How can you survive off of this? Well, technically you could survive off of this regiment, you just wouldn’t be very happy. Luckily, there are still two more options though. The first is investigating and discovering

why your RMR might be so low. The second is doing things that you know will elevate your RMR. Why is my RMR so low? There are a number of reasons why your RMR might be low. The first is good o’l genetics. Genetics do not play as big a role as they used to just because we discovered that we can unlock more potential through the mind. In other words, it may be possible to enhance your metabolism through mental exercises with your mind. However, I digress. The next factor to play a role in your RMR is your sleep. Studies show that the less sleep you get, the more adversely your metabolism is affected. It is affected in two ways. The first is that you begin to shut down your anabolic hormones, primarily growth hormone when you do not get good quality sleep. Some people think that just because they are in bed for 8 hours that they are good to go. This is not necessarily true because they may not be getting the quality of sleep that they need. You need to sleep soundly and uninterrupted in order for your pituitary gland in the brain to secrete growth hormone into your system. Growth Hormone, in turn, elevates your RMR. The other thing that happens is that your body, without proper sleep, can go into catabolic breakdown. This means that your adrenal glands, which are your primary anabolic hormone source, begin secreting catabolic hormones like cortosol instead of anabolic hormones. This also decreases your RMR and makes it hard to burn fat. Worse, however, it makes it easy to retain water weight and difficult to burn sugar. This is the first step to a downward spiral. All of this can happen simply from not getting good, quality sleep on a consistent basis. The third reason your RMR might be low is because of diet. The primary culprits are caffeine, sugar, and alcohol. All of these substances are hard on the liver and kidneys, mostly the kidneys. The kidneys are your primary metabolic controller. They secrete hormones into your body that keep you turnin’ and burnin’ throughout the day. If your kidneys are stressed out, your metabolism is directly affected. The classic syndrome is continual caffeine intake. The great irony is that

caffeine elevates your metabolism right? Some people even drink coffee before they workout in the gym because it helps them burn more fat. Well, this is true. And also remember, some people genetically have a greater constitution than others. This means that some people can really abuse their bodies and get away with it, while others pay a heavy toll for things like caffeine abuse. So what’s the problem then? So, your kidneys are in overdrive because you have just had your third cup of coffee, or perhaps only your second. But, you are not a genetic mutant like Joe in accounting who can pound coffee all day long, eat donuts, go out for a drink at night after work, and then show up the next day full of energy and looking great. Because we know that everyone is built differently, we also know that fitness is not, nor can it ever be an exact science. No two people react to the same stimulus the same way. Ever. And, a lot of people are super duper sensitive to stimulants as well as their environment. Now, after you have consumed coffee on and off throughout the day, your kidneys are fried. Because they are fried, they need rest. However, they don’t get the required rest because your nervous system is wired from the coffee. So, even though you feel tired you don’t really sleep. And, if you do sleep, it is either crappy or you wake up after four hours(or less). At this point you are now dependent upon coffee to keep you cheery at work, and worse than that you are dependent upon coffee to stimulate your adrenal glands. The only problem is that this causes your adrenals to secrete cortisol . Cortisol is the primary catabolic hormone, responsible for the breakdown of your body. This sucks! Interestingly, however, people who take their RMR test after they have had a cup of coffee will find a higher RMR, by even 25% or greater. The problem is that at the end of the day, when the body crashes after the kidney burn of coffee, the RMR will plummet to even lower than your normal RMR. So, suddenly the body responds by retaining any and all calories consumed at the end of the day when your kidneys are burnt and shut down. And guess what we’re getting ready to do at about this time of day??? DINNER!!! Woohoo! So, you set down to dinner(which most people make their largest meal of the day, a mistake) and get

ready to put on some serious water weight. Yum-yum, gobble-gobble…gulp! Now your body already needs a break, but then you load it up with an internal workload to digest. Because your metabolism is down, it is twice as hard for your digestive system to process and burn through sugar. The body responds by just storing it as water weight. The next morning you wake up and wonder why you keep putting on weight. Ugghh! It becomes that vicious cycle again called catabolic breakdown. More fun things can occur from this process as well. Eventually, you can become glucose intolerant. This may not happen overnight, but can occur over a few years. Then you can begin to accrue a growing list of aches and pains because the water in your body goes into fat cells instead of muscle cells when you are in catabolic breakdown. Conversely, when you go into an anabolic state the water goes into the muscle cells and aches and pains magically disappear. So what is the answer to this great conundrum, paradox, vicious circle!? The answer lies in taking little, small steps to begin to elevate your RMR and cut down on catabolic breakdown. Ways to elevate RMR and increase anabolic metabolism Exercise The first obvious step is get some exercise! Yeah, it’s obvious I know, but there are some new discoveries that are not so obvious. One thing that you can do to keep your RMR elevated throughout the day is by short burst, intensive cardio segments throughout the day. Studies have shown that a quick five minute burst of cardio, done 2-3 times throughout the day can burn as much and maybe sometimes more calories than an hour workout by itself. Now, there are a lot of factors at play here, almost too many to isolate. However, the gist of what is happening here is that by doing the short burst cardio intensives, you substantially elevate and keep your RMR elevated to a much higher level. I personally like three times a day for this, morning, noon, and night. I would not, nor ever suggest this as a substitute for actual workouts. It is, however, a great way to keep your metabolism elevated and keep you turnin’ and burnin’. Of

course, if you don’t workout at all then you just need to get off your butt and get started. In my opinion, everyone should be exercising a minimum of 2-3 days/week. I mean, it’s your body and you’ve only got one of them! Eating The next thing is to begin cutting back on things that create cortisol in your body. Suger, chocolate, caffeine, and alcohol and high are on the list. These things are hard on the kidneys and have a tendency to make the kidneys secrete catabolic hormones instead of anabolic hormones. I know, it’s real easy for me to sit here and rattle off about cutting back on this and that and the other. After all, probably at least one of these things is part of your daily comfort zone! So, my suggestion is to cut back a little, not a lot. Don’t threaten your happy place by completely cutting out all of your comfort food items. Of course, if you are drinking a bottle of jack a night and three pots of coffee a day, you may need to be more radical. Most people aren’t drinking quite that much of either of those and so can begin to gradually cut back. For example, if you are drinking a pot of coffee a day, cut back to three cups. If you are drinking three cups a day, cut back to two, etc. Apply this to any and all substances that you KNOW are not good for your metabolism. As you do this, it will also be good to cut back on starches and sugars. The reason for this is that your body, without the coffee pumping through your veins, may have trouble burning through these items. Thus, if your metabolism was completely dependent upon coffee to activate and keep it going, and you then completely quit coffee, you could be in trouble if you kept eating rice, potatoes, and pasta. The nutritional content is not up for debate here, doesn’t matter whether it’s organic or not. It’s quit simply that your body may have trouble burning through these items while the kidneys begin their recovery process. Otherwise, if you continue to eat the way you were eating, it could result in even more water retention. Allow your body some time to adapt by eating more fibrous carbs(greens) and less complex carbs(with sugar). Some items that can help you to keep your RMR elevated throughout this process are liquid kelp, ginseng, L-Glutamine amino acid and green tea. Now, green tea

has caffeine and ultimately it would be good to get off of it completely, but it’s way better for you than coffee. Grapefruit can also help elevate your RMR as well. Sleepy sleepers The next step, which could perhaps be the first step depending upon your lifestyle, is to make sure you are getting enough sleep. You need to sleep in order to secrete growth hormone into your body, period. If you are not getting good enough sleep, you may need to actually prioritize this step. People who don’t get enough sleep over a period of years can become glucose intolerant. This is very bad. This means that everything that has sugar and spikes your glycemic index will create water retention. Again, water retention is the first step in creating excess fat stores. So get some sleep! You CANNOT do without enough sleep, you will eventually pay the piper. Things to do to get more and better quality sleep • Make sure you turn off all gadgets. Phones, or anything beeping besides your alarm clock should be turned off. • Make sure no light get’s into your bedroom when you are sleeping. Studies have shown that the less light, the better quality sleep. • Keep a pen and paper by your bedside. This is good for when your mind starts spinning out of control with all of the things that you need to get done. If you can’t sleep or you wake up thinking about these things, write them all down. You will be surprised to find that once you know you have it all written down, your mind will give you permission to sleep. • Do NOT drink coffee or tea after 3pm or any time before you go to bed. This is obvious. • If you are still having problems, then get some background noise going. I personally like pluggin’ in my mp3 player to some speakers and playing the

sound of rain. Water sounds or spiritual music is good, sometimes just a fan creates good background as well. Your body is your temple! Take care of your body, you only have one! If you can elevate your RMR and get your body back into an anabolic state of being you will be lean and trim in no time at all. I always advocate taking baby steps, make sure not to overwhelm yourself with too much too soon. You can do this!