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Master your metabolism
I've been dieting constantly on and off for years since I was a teenager, and have lost and gained nearly four stone more times than I can count. This last time I gained back even more. Have I ruined my metabolism?
For the sake of example, let's say you lose four stone just by dieting. Let's further assume that about half of the weight you lost is fat and half of it is muscle. (These percentages aren't exactly right, but they'll work for the purpose of illustration.) You've now lost about two stone of muscle and two stone of fat. Now let's say that you go off the diet and regain that four stone. This time, almost all of the regained weight is going to be fat, and virtually none of it is going to be muscle. So at the end of the day, you weigh the same as before, but your body composition is significantly different. You now have a significantly higher percentage of body fat.
Why does this matter? Simple. Most of your calories are 'burned' by muscle tissue. Fat is basically metabolic 'dead weight'. When you lose a lot of muscle, you lose one of your biggest allies in the war against fat. This shift in body composition is one of the things people refer to when they talk about their metabolism being 'ruined' by dieting. To raise your metabolic rate, one of the best things you can do is regain some of that lost muscle by adding weight training to your routine.
The other thing that frequently happens with yo-yo dieting is that you train your fat storage enzymes to be more efficient. When you repeatedly starve yourself, those enzymes simply become better at their job of storing fat, an evolutionary strategy meant to keep you alive during times of famine. But by exercising consistently, eating fewer calories than you burn, and by eating the right kind of calories, you can re-train the fat-releasing enzymes to come out of hiding.
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