Ep 27 - Five Things That WON'T Increase Your Metabolism (And Two Things That Will)

Have you heard that there are special HIIT workouts, foods, pills, eating windows,  or fasting protocols that will magically rev up your metabolism?  Or have you heard that it's inevitable that your metabolism will slow down as you age?  In today's episode we dispel common myths we've seen on the internet about what does and doesn't increase your metabolism.  We discuss the science behind each of these myths and teach you to evaluate some of these gimmicks on your own. 

Then we talk about the two things that WILL increase your metabolism:  1) eating more and 2) lifting weights.  And we give a real-life example of how lifestyle choices can impact your metabolism.  If your head is spinning from all the crazy stuff you've heard about how to increase your metabolism or you want to learn how to really start investing in your metabolism, listen up! 

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Welcome to the Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30 Podcast. I'm Joe. And I'm Allison. And we're your co hosts and the founders of Couture Fitness and Lifestyle Coaching. We're on a quest to help women design lives they love and bodies they adore. We were fed up with the dieting industry and decided to create something different. We're starting a calories up revolution where women are nourished, their metabolisms are healed and their bodies and brains start working for them in the battle against weight loss. If you feel like your metabolism is wrecked, and you want to lose weight once and for all you are in the right place. Well, hello, everyone, you've got both Joe and Alison today on the podcast. And we're going to be talking about five things that will not increase your metabolism. And then as a corollary to that are things that actually will increase your metabolism. And speaking of increasing your metabolism, I wanted to mention that our next program is starting at the beginning of October. So as this podcast airs, it is not too early to be in thinking about signing up for that program we do usually sell out so if you want to join us in October, get on our waitlist, schedule a console call with us so we can talk through with you what we would do with you in terms of losing weight. And I also want to mention that you know, so you might be thinking, Oh, I don't want to go on a diet in October that's just right when the holidays are hitting. Well, I would say that the the time period of our next program which will run October through December is the perfect time to invest in your metabolism and you can use those holiday calories to your advantage and use it to invest in your metabolism. So get on our waitlist schedule a constant call if you're interested in working with us in October. Okay, and so before we get started on talking about what will increase your metabolism and what won't Allison, why don't you do a recap of your summer for us what's going on with you? Yeah, summer flew by way, way way too quickly, as it always does. Like I feel like it was just May and I was just waiting for our neighborhood pulled open and couldn't wait for all the fun summer plans. And it always just flies by we didn't really do anything major. Like we didn't go on any big summer vacations we kind of just wanted to you know have fun at home this summer because we've we've gone on lots of vacations over the last year, year and a half. Somehow my kids my children did not have any evening activities this entire summer so we went to the pool more than we ever have. Ever during the summer. The girls tried to get a streak to see how many days in a row. We could go without having a single day not being at the pool. I think the longest we were ever able to go without having a no pool day was 11 days. But we went to our neighborhood pool and lots of pools a ton this summer just kind of had a pretty low key summer I played lots of tennis, which makes me very happy. Of course, I kept lifting my weights. I never stopped doing that. That's kind of it for us. But it was a really good pretty relaxed summer honestly, what about you, I know yours was not quite as relaxing? No, I would say I was the opposite of relaxing. So we bought a new house in early June. We had been house hunting for about a year and finally found the Dream House bought it and then just because of the timing of things moved and got our old house ready to sell over the period of about a month. And that was over June and I put a new driveway in at my old house. We did lots of painting. There was lots of packing and lots of purging. And we lived in our old house for 17 years. So June was just a complete blur. And as you probably know, you know moving sort of turned your entire life upside down. And then directly after we moved we went on a week long. I wouldn't call a vacation. It was a vacation. But we went we had some trips, a trip already planned where we were driving up to Madison, Wisconsin to visit my sister and then over to Minneapolis where my mother in law's 90th birthday parties. We finally got home in early July. And it's just been a lot of moving organizing, being an organizing, feeling very unorganized and trying to put my life back together. But that's okay, we got our dream house. So that's I guess what's the important thing? Unlike you, though, I did not get to get all so I thought I got abandoned anything but June was pretty crazy. And so getting into the gym and lifting kind of felt at the backburner. And I want to talk about the results of that later in this episode. So I got back at it in July and I'm feeling back to my old self. So today, what we're going to talk about are kind of some things that we've seen floating around social media about things that are will purportedly increase your metabolism but in reality you really want many of these are somewhat true. There are kind of half truths to these different methods of increasing your metabolism but none of them will actually give you a true metabolic benefit. So that's, you know, number one last thing and that will produce meaningful weight loss or help you maintain your weight easily. And so first, I think it's important for us to talk about what your metabolism is or how we're defining metabolism for purposes of this podcast. And that is simply the amount of energy your body expends on a daily basis. Now I will No, this is not the technical medical definition of metabolism that involves some other things like chemical processes going on in your body. But this is the definition most people think of when they think of metabolism, like how much you know energy your body expends. Having a healthy metabolism is a key to long term weight management. And it will help stave off a lot of the diseases related to aging. And a lot of the disease as a result of having an increase in adipose or fat tissue on your body. Things like insulin resistance, diabetes, Alzheimer's, all of these are linked to your metabolic health or another way of putting it is follows conditions are linked to your body burning calories at a low rate. I have heard some people say that like a healthy metabolism, again, a body that's not efficient at burning calories, and that's burning calories at a very high rate with solve many, many of the diseases that we are battling in this day and age, like I mentioned, diabetes, even heart disease, insulin resistance, Alzheimer's, all those things are directly tied to your metabolic rate, because that it also relates to your ability to maintain a healthy weight. But for our purposes of today's discussion, when we refer to metabolism, we are very simply referring to how many calories you burn in a day. And if you think about it that way, I think that's really going to help you debunk what is going to truly rev up your metabolism. And so as we do this podcast today, our aim is that we can help you as you come across these things that you might see on the internet or elsewhere social media, things that people purport will increase your metabolism, look for the science and try to understand what the scientific explanation as to why a special pill or a particular exercise is going to boost your metabolism. And I think then you will be armed with the ability to debunk some of these myths. I was looking at a YouTube video the other day, I don't even think it had anything to do with fitness or health. And the thing that came up, you know, the ad that came up was this woman going on and on about if you put this one ingredient in your drink in the morning, you would burn 500 more calories a day, and he wouldn't ever have to work out and blah, blah, blah. And it was it was cinnamon. That makes me so angry when I see that. And she never explained why it was that like putting this in your drink was going to do all these things. So look for the scientific explanation. And hopefully as we talk through some of these things, and like I mentioned, you'll you'll be able to figure this out sort of on your own. So Allison, what is one thing that comes to mind or comes up that people often will say will increase your metabolism? Okay, so the first one that comes to mind for me is that HIIT training will increase your metabolism and cause you to burn calories for hours after your workout is over. Okay, and can you first what is a hit workout. So when I say hit, I mean h i t not h i t interval training. So that just means basically in a high intensity interval workout would be something where you would spike your heart rate up really high for a short period of time. And then you would rest and let it come back down. So I'll give a couple of examples of hit training, you could do hit on the treadmill, I used to do lots of sprints on the treadmill where I would run really hard within a pretty high incline for like 30 seconds. And then I would rest for like 30 to 60 seconds. And then I would go again, you could do the same thing on a bike, you could go really hard with the resistance pretty high for you know, a few, let's say 30 seconds, and then rest until your heart rate comes back down. So there's all different ways that you can perform hit training. This one, like you said, it's a half truth, yes, you are probably going to burn more calories after a hit workout then after doing like a steady state cardio workout, which would just be maybe like jogging at the same pace for 30 minutes. However, hit training is often way over done. So I think it can be effective when it's used appropriately. But most of the time, people assume you know, if I do a little hit training, that's good. But if I do more, that's better. And if I do hit training every day, that's even better. And I will tell you taking even three to four hit classes per week is just a recipe for disaster. So if you think you're gonna go to I'm going to use this just as an example not hating on it at all orange theory, if you think you're going to do Orangetheory, four to five days a week, you are going to really really stress out your body and it's eventually going to have the opposite effect. Believe it or not, your body is going to fight back by holding on to fat you're probably going to cause your cortisol to be pretty high which actually promotes fat storage. And so while you're going to feel like this is the best workout ever We're on my heart rate is so high, I'm sweating, I'm out of breath, this is the best thing ever, I can promise you that you really, really need to be careful with HIIT. And not overdo it because like I said, it can have the opposite effect and just promote your body to hang on to fat, especially if it's combined with under eating, we see that a lot people are under eating and doing it. I used to weigh overdo the hit cardio, I'm sure I was doing at least four days a week of some form of hit cardio Pro, often for probably 30 to 60 minutes, I was not getting the results that I wanted at all. But I just kept thinking, I just need to work a little bit harder, and the results will come well guess what this went on for many years, and the results never came. So if you want to do HIIT, I think 10 to 30 minutes a week is a really good place to be you want to focus instead on just more traditional weight training, which we're going to talk about more later on, the more muscle you have on your body, the better when it comes to your metabolism. HIIT is not going to put muscle on your body, it is a form of cardio training, do not consider doing HIIT to be your strength training, they are very different. You can almost consider it even if you're doing it with like a weight that's really just cardio with weights. That's the first one I would say it's again, it's a half truth, yes, you can burn a lot of calories doing HIIT. But it can be way over done. And your body can adapt to all that cardio to where you're not really burning as much as you maybe were at the beginning. So do you have anything else, Joe that you want to add about hit training? Yeah, so I mean, I do Orangetheory for my cardio when I do cardio, which is usually you know, near the end of a dieting phase, and they talk a lot in the class about the afterburn. And if you get the 12 Slap points, you're gonna burn so many calories throughout the day. And that is the quote unquote, science behind why it is supposed to, you know, help your metabolism. But what I will say is that number one, I the research I've read is that weight training does that too. And it actually burns way more calories when you're at rest a because you're, you know, building muscle on your body, but also just resistance training. Aside from that, you're going to have more calorie burn later in the day than just a cardio workout. So I don't think it is anything special as it relates resistance training in terms of the afterburn that people talk about the other thing is, don't let your mind trick you. Yes, you know, you can go to one of those Orangetheory classes. And again, I'm not picking on Orange theory, either. It's just what I tend to do. And I think it's a really good example of HIIT training, you're doing interval training throughout the entire hour of that class. So you can leave that class dripping with sweat and feeling like you have really done something. But don't let that fool you, your body will adapt to that. And that has happened to me and just don't let that sweating and huffing and puffing make you think that you have done anything to help your metabolism, but you're probably actually doing the opposite. But your mind can play tricks on you. That's for sure. Okay, what what's your next piece of advice about what we often hear will increase your metabolism Allison? Yes. So this one makes me really angry that burners are going to cause you to burn more calories. This is another half truth. I hate fat burners much more than I hate hit training. I will say that often. Not always. Often, if you see something marketed as a fat burner, it is usually mostly expensive caffeine, they will probably put some other ingredients in there. I'm sure every fat burner has like all kinds of you know, they're gonna say the science behind like, why does this ingredient help you burn more fat and speed up your metabolism, maybe you are going to burn a few extra calories from taking a fat burner, it's often because they make you very jittery. And you might just be moving around a little bit more at first until your body gets used to it. And it might even suppress your appetite a little bit. But eventually, like many things we talked about, such as cardio, your body is going to adapt. Also, I will add that the extra calorie burn is going to be so minimal that it's not going to result in noticeable weight loss. If you change nothing at all about your diet, your exercise your lifestyle and just said, Oh, I am just the only thing I'm going to change is to take this pill, I think you will be very very disappointed in your results. I would say as a general rule if something seems easy, it seems like wow, this is a really easy way for me to increase my metabolism. Like taking a pill it's probably too good to be true. I know what makes me so angry when I see companies we've probably all seen this advertisement before I don't even know what brand it is. But they'll say something like if you lose more than 10 pounds in a week discontinue use as if to make it seem like you're just going to take this pill and this weight is going to magically fall off you it makes me so mad. So I would say sure these could help you burn a few more calories in the short term. This is not a good long term strategy at all. I would personally just avoid these completely. I have I will say in full disclosure, I have taken these before but it's always been at the direction of a coach when I have been preparing for a bodybuilding show. But it is not something that I do for more than just a few weeks. It's kind of one of those and it's usually honestly just done for energy purposes not for burning extra calories but wore. So at the end of a bodybuilding prep, you're just tired, because you're getting really lean, you're not eating much, you're probably doing more cardio than normal, and you're just tired. And so I've taken these then. But that is completely unnecessary if you were just trying to get in better shape for the long term, if you were trying to get in shape, even just for an event, like wedding or something, I still wouldn't recommend these. I have not taken them in many, many years since I haven't competed. And I would not recommend anybody take these. So do you have anything else to add on fat burners? Yeah, I mean, just don't even bother. Don't waste your money. If you're not willing to get your diet and exercise in order. There is no magical pill. I mean, there just isn't. And you're just wasting time and money. So you was I would take it right. Like if determinately was going to help me burn more calories every day and wasn't harmful and didn't have any bad side effects. I would take it and I would tell every client to take it so it's just not true. Yeah, totally agree. Okay, Joe, I'll give you a turn unless you have more to add on fat burners. Now I don't there's not much else to say. Yeah. Okay, what's another common thing that you might hear that can increase your metabolism? Okay, so I think the next category would be eating special foods or specific foods. So like I mentioned this add dice where it went on for 10 minutes about put this magical thing in your drink and you know, you'll burn an extra 500 calories a day it was cinnamon that she was talking about now, I don't know why she needed to sell anything. You just go buy some cinnamon at the store, but it was some special formulation or something I don't know. But I've heard cinnamon beans, almonds, cayenne pepper also seen things like avoid bananas, like Avoid These Foods if you want to rev up your metabolism. Okay, so what could possibly be the science behind this? So I think what some of these foods or spices I guess could do is they might aid in stabilizing blood sugar that's not really tied to how many calories you burn a day. So but it is true. If you have stable blood sugar, you're going to be less hungry. That's the only thing I can think. So cinnamon is known to stabilize blood sugar. I can't vouch for that necessarily. Sometimes I put cinnamon in my oatmeal or other things I like cinnamon. But I don't actually can't speak to the properties of it. You know stabilizing your blood sugar beans are same, they're gonna be very high in fiber. Do you think beans can stabilize your blood sugar? I honestly I wouldn't say the same. I'm not sure that almonds or cayenne pepper or other things would stabilize your blood sugar or have any special properties that would do that. So I think the the science may be behind this is some of these things can stabilize your blood sugar, which may speak to things like insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is sort of tied to metabolic health, not metabolism as we have defined it. But there is a link between insulin resistance and metabolic health. But none of these foods are going to magically cause you to burn more calories. The only food that I can think of that would do that. And you can't eat enough of it to make any dent in anything would be celery I've heard showing celery actually burns more calories that are in the salary, but you couldn't chew enough celery in a day to make any meaningful impact on your calorie burn. But you're not going to lose five pounds chewing celery, I'll just tell you that. So what is the real science most of the foods I just mentioned cinnamon beans, almonds, celery, cayenne pepper are very healthy. But simply adding these into your diet is not going to increase your metabolism in any material way that is going to cause any sort of weight loss though what really matters is sort of the big picture. And that is eating the right amount of food from an adequacy standpoint, and of protein and enough carbs, and enough fats. All of those macronutrients play a role in your overall health. And so you need to be eating enough of each of those macronutrients. And I can just promise you that adding in any one of those magical foods will not make any material difference to how many calories your body burns in a day. Similarly, cutting out any of those macronutrients. Well, you don't, you would never want any protein and fat to live. So you would never want to cut out those macronutrients. But cutting out carbs is also not going to increase your metabolism, it would possibly decrease the amount of nutrients you're taking into your body or the calories you're taking into your body. It is not going to increase the calories leaving your body or how your body expends energy and probably we'll get into this in a minute, you know, it could put you into an arena of under eating which is only going to depress your metabolism. So that's my take on eating special foods to eat or not eat thoughts on this Allison? No, I agree. I would say just focused on eating healthy foods, eating lots of protein and fiber, but don't waste any energy saying oh, I've got to fit this one very specific food into my diet because it's going to increase my metabolism just eat as many healthy, minimally processed foods as you can. And I know that there's so much confusion out there now about like, what really is a healthy food? My general rule is, if it did not exist 100 years ago, it's probably way too processed and you don't even you don't need it in your diet. So animal proteins, fruits, vegetables, grains, whole grains, things like that. So that's what I would say there. Okay, I know you've got another one. And I know this is one of your personal pet peeves. Okay, this one is a two parter. So the first thing that will not impact your metabolism is eating at certain times a bit. So this can be a variety of things that I've heard number one is that you have to eat like every three hours or every two hours to keep your metabolism running. The other thing I've heard is like, don't eat after 6pm. Because anything you eat before fat, that will all turn into fat. In terms of what the sciences behind this, I think these are just the the eating every three hours, I don't know where that came from. But it's really your total caloric intake for the day. And you want to make sure that that is sufficient, and that you're eating enough protein. So but whether you eat that I think it was, I think the reality of that is that it would be very hard to eat that much food in one setting. So maybe if you break it up into several small meals throughout the day, if number one go to stabilize your blood sugar, you're probably going to feel more satiated. And then you know, eating sufficiently is easier to do in several meals throughout the day than one big meal. So I think that might be the science behind that. But it doesn't really matter if you eat three meals, four meals or a bunch of little meals, it's all going to have the same impact on how many calories that your body burns, that eating like after 6pm, or whatever. I think that came maybe from Oprah. I remember her talking about that. And that was a rule she had I think the science behind that is that if you stop eating at a certain time, it's probably going to help you if you're trying to get into a calorie deficit. Like if you just have a cut off and you don't eat after a certain time, it's going to strategy to aid in decreasing your overall caloric intake. That's my thinking on that. So the real science behind all of this timing matters a lot less than we think. And so the way I think about it is the timing of food is really a strategy. So I know Allison, you have a lot of trouble sleeping without eating before you go to bed. So you need to eat within our two hours of bedtime. Right? I do and I make sure I eat carbs before bedtime, too, believe it or not, there's got to be carbs in there. Okay, I've tried fasting before, I'm gonna talk about that in a second. But I have to eat right when I get up in the morning and I eat usually most days, three breakfasts. But I'm not a big reader at night, I don't I don't, you know, I could skip dinner much more easily than I could skip one of my breakfasts, you know, that's what works for me to get all the nutrition in and to that's how I feel the best. So I think you should time your meals in a way that makes you feel good and feel your best. I know, for some of our clients, you know, we have them eating a lot more protein and sometimes more calories than they're used to. And I would say a strategy there is you do want to start early, you want to get a head start on it on the day and not save all that till dinner. But that's again, more strategy than the timing really mattering all that much I have heard. And again, this doesn't really go to metabolism, it goes to blood sugar stabilization, that the first meal you eat of the day really Prime's your body in terms of like how stable your blood sugar is going to be throughout the day. So you want to include some protein in that meal, whatever your first meal of the day is. But again, that doesn't really have anything to do with how many calories you're burning throughout the day. It's more like strategy for setting yourself up to have good energy throughout the day, which I guess at some point in time, if you feel like crap, you're not going to be moving around very much. So maybe if you feel good, and that relates to timing of meals, you might expend more energy because you're just moving around more. That's the only thing I can think any thoughts about timing of meals, I have nothing else to add, it really does not matter. And it's all just a strategy. When somebody says Oh, I lost all this weight because I started eating my food in this particular time window. It's not because they changed the time of their food. It's all about probably that they were eating maybe less than they were before if they had been overeating before. So I know you're going to get into that here in a minute. So no nothing else to add there. timing matters very little. I say if you're hungry at a certain time of day, you shouldn't deprive yourself because it's a certain time of day you should eat I mean I wake up and I eat within probably an hour to two hours of waking up. And then I also have to eat pretty close to my bedtime to within like two hours or so otherwise, I will wake up in the middle of the night hungry and then I will never be able to go back to sleep so don't worry so much about timing. Okay, next we're going to cover my biggest pet peeve which is fasting and intermittent fasting and I will probably will I get a lot of hate mail from this because I know a lot of people love their intermittent fasting. Okay, so does intermittent fasting. Now, it may, there may be all sorts of other benefits to intermittent fasting, I will admit I'm not an expert on that I have done read a lot of research that says that there are no additional benefits from intermittent fasting than you would get from just going on a low calorie diet for a period of time. That's really what intermittent fasting is. But I'm not going to debate that today. The question we want to answer today is does intermittent fasting rev up your metabolism? And the answer is no, likely going to have the exact opposite effect on your metabolism. So what is sort of the science behind you know why intermittent fasting might impact your metabolism? So I think we're things have gone a little awry is intermittent fasting is often promoted as a cure for insulin resistance. So I think that's where that myth has come from, is that and like I said, insulin resistance does relate to metabolic health, but not in the way that we're defining it today, just sort of the chemical processes that are running in your body, if you have insulin resistance, it is very difficult to lose weight. But I think it's you know, maybe also debatable how much insulin resistant or how much intermittent fasting does for insulin resistance, I think it's much more complex than just to go not eat for a while, the real science behind intermittent fasting as it relates to how many calories you're going to burn in a day, the what what intermittent fasting is most likely going to do is actually slow down your metabolism because your metabolism adapts to the amount of calories you eat. So if you stop eating by fasting, over time, your body will respond by getting more efficient and burning fewer calories. There's just no other way around that. So what we often see, and we just had our first coaching call, or in our first coaching call of our July session, person after person, I started intermittent fasting when you know, COVID began, I lost a ton of weight, and then I'm not sure what's happened, but I gained it all back. And then some, even though I'm still fasting, I think if you are overeating or you are if you can fast, and it puts you into a caloric deficit, it seems like it works like magic at first, but after a while it's going to stop working like any other diet. Anything else to add on that Allison? No. And I mean, if you are somebody who was like, You know what, this is just how I naturally want to eat, I like to skip breakfast, fine, whatever, that's fine. But yeah, there is nothing magical about it. It is another strategy, like you talked about to help people get into a caloric deficit. And to take that a step further, if you were somebody who was already under eating, and you start intermittent fasting, and you're still under eating just in a different time window, you're not going to change anything, you're just eating the same amount of food in a different time window. So there's, there really is nothing magical about it. I do think some people maybe just enjoy it, because maybe they feel like then they can eat like a big dinner or something without having already like eaten a ton of calories throughout the day. I'm not a fan at all, I actually think it's a, it's much, much harder to get in all of the protein that you need to be getting in. If you're trying to fit it in all in a small window too. It's really hard to eat. If you're eating like two meals a day, it's gonna be really hard to get enough protein. That's another another issue that I have with it. So not a huge fan. Yeah, and I do want to say something more about insulin resistance as again, I think I think that's the big thing right now is if you have insulin resistance, you should fast. So I want to approach it from a different angle. And like I said, insulin resistance is sort of tied to metabolic health overall, not necessarily to the amount of calories you burn in a day. But I would say your body's ability to maintain healthy weight, which is very hard to do if you have insulin resistance. And what insulin resistance is, is your body's ability. This is a very simplistic to regulate glucose and process insulin. You know, I guess intermittent fasting could. I've seen lots of things that intermittent fasting is a magical cure for insulin resistance. I do think it's true that if you can lose weight intermittent through intermittent fasting, and that's all body fat, then it could help. But usually when you lose weight by not eating, you lose muscle and body fat. But anecdotally, what we've seen from the clients that we've had that have been really into intermittent fasting is I would describe their bodies almost being in a chronic fat storage mode. If we just look at our clients across the spectrum, the ones who have fasted, have the most weight to lose, and have the most difficulty getting their bodies into a fat burning mode. They are it's like their bodies are very stubbornly holding on to that and storing fat and they also tend to have a pretty poor body composition. And by that I mean they have a very high percentage of body fat compared to muscle on their body. And I think what has happened is through all the fasting is that they have worked knocked about for muscle is calorically expensive. You need enough calories to support muscle on your body. And when you start starving in the first place it's going to tap into were one of the places is going to tap in is to your muscle muscle is actually having muscle tissue on your body. That's the approach I would take if I had insulin resistance or someone I loved how to insulin resistance would be don't don't focus so much on the eating side of this. I mean, it is important and you want to be eating enough protein and other things. But focus on getting muscle on your body, that is probably the best thing you can do to cure your insulin resistance for long term because muscle tissue is very helpful in regulating glucose and processing insulin and making you more insulin sensitive. So rather than fasting, where I would spend my energies, if you're worried about insulin resistance is getting muscle tissue on your body. I also put kind of keto in this category of intermittent fasting as something that might rev up your metabolism or curate insulin resistance. Everyone thinks that you know you just cut out carbs if you have insulin resistance. I say no, I say it's more about getting muscle on your body and neither intermittent fasting or keto are necessarily going to help that intermittent fasting absolutely is not going to support getting muscle on your body keto, depending on how you're doing it may or may not, you know hinder that. That's my soapbox on insulin resistance investing. Okay, Allison, what's the last truth have truth about metabolism that you want everyone to now? Okay. So I think that there is a myth that as you get older, your metabolism is just going to slow down. And this is inevitable. And I would say again, this is a half truth. A lot of people most people probably will see their metabolism slow down as they age, but it is not necessarily just because they age. And I've said this before, I think on other episodes, but the real reason why many of us will see our metabolism get quote slower as we get older, is because of the lifestyle choices that we have made or tend to make. As we get older, many of us tend to get more sedentary as we get older, especially in today's world, we don't really have to move at all I could probably take like, I don't know, 500 steps a day, if I was literally just doing all the things that I had to do, I have a desk job, I can get in my car and drive everywhere, I don't really have to move. And so if I wasn't consciously moving, I could be very sedentary. It's also very common as we get older to not prioritize strength training. And if we don't do that, we are going to start losing muscle in our 30s and continue to lose muscle every decade after that if we are not doing something to combat that, which is strength training that is going to slow your metabolism down. If you're not strength training, you're going to be losing muscle and therefore slowing down your metabolism. And then it's also common as we get older, not for everyone. I mean, some people definitely overeat. But we do see a lot of people who see oh, you know, I feel like my metabolism is getting slower, I'm going to start eating less under eating is one of the worst things you can do for your metabolism, whether that is chronically under eating all we under eating pretty much every day for many, many years, or intermittently under eating. And I don't mean the same thing as intermittent fasting. When I say that, I mean, maybe going on a really restrictive diet for a couple of months. That is one of the worst things you can do for your metabolism, I usually say the harder the diet, meaning the lower calorie, the diet, the bigger the rebound is going to be we have seen kind of like you were talking about Joe, the the clients who have a lot of problems losing weight, or the ones who have fasted, we also see that the more restrictive somebody has been in the longer they have have been restricting, absolutely, without a doubt, the worst place their metabolism is going to be in. And we've got to do a lot of work to build that back up before they can lose weight again. So it's kind of a half truth that your metabolism is going to slow as you get older. It it often does. But it's not because you got older, it's because of the lifestyle changes that you have made. Joe is going to finish this off and talk about what actually will increase your metabolism. Okay, well, it's two things while maybe maybe more like three, and they're really boring. Talking about them anyway. Not nearly as exciting is putting cinnamon in your beverages every morning. So the first thing is eating enough for most women. This means somewhere between 18 120 200 calories our aim for every one of our clients is to get them up to 1800 calories a day, kind of as a baseline because nothing will slow your metabolism down more than under eating and your body adjusts to the amount of calories you give it so if you give it 1800 calories a day on a regular basis, it's going to get used to burning at that rate. If you give it 1000 calories it's going a day it's going to adjust downward and adjust to that so the best thing you can do is eat more to get your metabolism up and that probably is the opposite of what you've heard but it but it is the truth. And like Alison mentioned the women who have The very hardest time losing weight are the ones who have dieted the most in their lifetime or have done the most extreme things in the name of weight loss, because our bodies also have a memory. And if it will, it's like I've heard it said like, You have one chance to starve yourself and then your body forever, remember. So if you've been dieting for a long time, if you've been chronically I would say eating at like 1600 calories or below, you've got some work to do to get that Mattel metabolism revved up, and there's just sort of no way about it, the more calories you regularly give your body, the more calories your body is going to burn, it's going to be much, much easier to diet and short little bursts, and have your body actually respond if you are eating adequately for most of the time. So that is the number one thing that will rev up your metabolism. The number two thing, which I think is equal to eating enough is lifting weights. Although I will say you aren't going to get the benefit of lifting weights if you're not eating enough. So you're gonna need one in place first, but you need to be doing some sort of resistance training two to four times per week, I'm not talking cardio with dumbbells, I'm actually talking about like a real, you know, structured weightlifting routine. The reason for that is, as Allison mentioned, like we do lose a certain percentage of our muscle mass as we hit age 30. And so if you aren't doing something to sort of preserve what muscle you do have or add to that, it's going to be going backwards. So how do you preserve your muscle mass and add muscle tissue to your body is by lifting weights. Again, if you have to first be giving your body adequate nutrition for your body to do something with the resistance training exercises, but you need to be lifting weights. So those are the top two things you need to do to rev up your metabolism. The other thing that you can do too, that's going to impact your metabolism, again, that daily energy expenditure is getting in lots of I would say general gentle movement. So I'm not talking about revved up cardio where your sweat is dripping off of you and you're huffing and puffing and your heart is pounding. I'm just talking about like walking, cleaning the house yoga, pilates, I would put all of those exercises in this category, but you want to be getting in quite a bit of movement in your day. And that will add to your overall calorie expenditure far more than you think it will 10,000 steps we've all heard that that's a good goal in terms of daily movement. And what it does is it increases your what's called your need, which is your non exercise Activity Thermogenesis. So it's your overall calorie it's going to add to that overall calorie expenditure. But how it differs from cardio isn't it's not going to spike your cortisol, which we talked about earlier can often put you like in a fat storage mode, then the last thing I'll talk about is eating enough protein that goes with eating enough under that category of eating enough, but you want to be eating an r&r rule of thumb, and this is really low for most people. But we tried to get all of our clients or start them off eating 100 grams of protein. So that's a good place to aim if you if you're not eating that already. Why is protein so important? Well, in terms of calorie burn, and increasing your metabolism number one, it's going to support the muscle tissue on your body. So it's going to preserve the muscle tissue and you'll have on your body if you're lifting weights, it's also going to help you build muscle tissue. Number two is protein has a higher thermic effect than other macronutrients. So it actually takes more energy for your body to digest protein. So that's going to give you a little calorie boost that's probably nothing to write home about. And one of the last reasons you should eat so much protein but it is one reason that you want to eat enough protein it's also going to stabilize your blood sugar keep your energy even just to help you adhere to any calorie goals you have overall. So those are the things I would say you should focus on before anything else if you want to increase your metabolism. Now I have a real life example of all of this and I think it's interesting and we talk about these things big picture but then when you have a real life example like it really hits home how important this is so I had mentioned earlier in the show that for the month of June we were moving and so sort of my my weightlifting workouts sort of took a backseat so over the month of June I would say that I probably took three weeks off total I would say where I didn't I wasn't able to lift weights at all my nutrition during that time period was okay probably when probably was not eating as much protein as I usually do. Probably not eating as many calories as I usually do. But it wasn't terrible. I wasn't eating like pizza and doughnuts and ice cream all day long. I was you know, still eating good, healthy, pretty healthy by anyone's standards. And I was getting tons and tons of movement probably 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day by packing and just getting ready for this move. And I did weigh myself sort of occasionally throughout this process and when it was all over and we got back from our vacation at the beginning of July I got on the scale and my weight was actually down a little bit by a couple of pounds. And I was so excited I was like oh, great. You know I usually when you cut out exercising you think like This skill is gonna balloon or skyrocket. So I was very happy with that. But I went to I got a body scan shortly after that. And what the body scan revealed is that I have lost about five pounds of muscle, I usually carry around 72 pounds of muscle on my body and about 30 pounds of fat, that's where things usually are for me. And I had dropped that, that three weeks off of weight lifting, and probably my nutrition was not that great, my skeletal muscle mass dropped down to about 68 pounds. And that cause I didn't increase that much in body fat, but it caused my body fat percentage to shoot up because just skyrocket up to like 23%. And I usually sit around 18 to 19% body fat. So just those three weeks off really, really had a much bigger impact than I thought it would. So then I looked at the math of all of that, and like what the buyer had just ignored that or I didn't even have the knowledge that actually what I had done during that month is I've really lost any body fat I lost muscle. That's why the scale went down the Viaskin that I get also spits out a basal metabolic rate. So when I am, you know, kind of my normal body composition, I think my basal metabolic rate is around 1600 calories, give or take a few calories a day. And that loss of five pounds of muscle dropped it down to 1500 calories a day. And I did the math on that. And if I extrapolated that out to a year, that's that would be like 365,000 calories. If I if I did nothing to like restore that muscle kept on eating the same didn't even change any other part of my lifestyle that would result in about 10 pounds of weight gain over a year. Now, who knows if that would happen, the impact that your muscle has on the amount of calories you burn in a given day is real. So that's why we always say like most women come to us wanting to lose weight. And we understand that. But really, if you focused on adding five pounds of muscle to your body just started with that as a goal that has real real impact. That's an extra 100 calories or so that you might burn a day just doing nothing but having that muscle sitting on your body. So I say I give that example just to show that, you know, God forbid, had I fasted or something during that month, fasted and cut out my walking or anything, I mean, I probably would have lost a lot more muscle. And you can see how that can really add up and sort of compound on itself and years and years of doing that can really send your metabolism straight to the gutter. So I just say that as a real life example of how precious that muscle is and what you have to do to preserve it on your body. Any more thoughts on what will and won't increase your metabolism? Allison? No, I would just say in general, if it sounds too good to be true, I can promise you that it is because you know if if something really worked, everybody would be doing it. So don't fall prey to the quick fixes. And the two big things that Joe mentioned, you know, eating enough and lifting weights, it's really not that hard. I mean, it takes discipline, it might be boring, it's definitely not exciting. Like you said, it's not as exciting as maybe saying, Oh, I'm just going to put this special powder in my drink. But that's really what is going to help you with your metabolism. I think a lot of women, it's very scary. It's especially scary. Maybe it's not scary to lift weights, but it's definitely scary to increase your food, it's probably really scary to cut out cardio. I know it was for me back when I was under eating and overtraining is really scary. I think that it more than anything is when people could use the help of a good coach who can guide them through that and tell them yes, you need to keep eating more, don't be scared. And like you said earlier, this is one of the best times to invest in your metabolism with the holidays coming up. It's going into winter, not I'm not saying you're necessarily going to gain a bunch of weight, but I think it takes some of the pressure off to where you might think okay, if I eat if I eat more, you know, I'm going to I'm not going to be in a swimsuit. So even if I gain a little bit of weight, you know, it's not as scary to maybe attempt it now versus other times of the year. So that's all I really have to add. Well all good advice. Okay. Any favorite foods you're getting into your macros these days? I'm gonna say pulled pork and I don't mean like the lean like pork loin, but I mean like fatty like pork shoulder pork, but that sort of slow cooked pulled pork. I love it in all different ways. I will put it in the slow cooker on our house and you just throw it in there and it's ready at the end of the day, make a huge batch and have lots of leftovers. There's a local restaurant called Jack stack and I cannot get enough of their pulled pork. So I'm going to say that is my favorite right now. Yes, it might have a lot of fat in it, but it's got tons and tons of protein really filling and really delicious. What about you? Well, as you know, we recently had Lauren from Lauren fit foodie on our podcast. So I've been trying a lot of her recipes and they came with the protein powder, which I haven't traditionally been very good at. So I'm trying her ice creams or protein ice creams and some of her recipes and I went and got away casein protein blend. So anyway, I'm doing a lot of experimenting right now. So far so good. That's fun. Then you'll have to share your favorites. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, do you want to wrap up with what listeners might be thinking about in terms of joining us for our next session? Yeah. So like we said, we are right now signing people up for our October session, we will start right at the beginning of October, it is not too early to get on the waitlist to schedule a call, or even just to buy, you can just go right out to our website, couture fitness coaching.com. We've got all of our programs and our prices out there, it's really all the same program, you'll see a couple of different options if you go out there. But it's really just different time lengths. So you can buy three months, six months or a full year. So definitely, if you are interested, do one of those things, either get on our waitlist and set up a call or just go ahead and buy because we do tend to fill up. And like I also mentioned, if you think you are in the category of somebody who maybe does need to do work on their metabolism, this is the perfect time of year to do so you can eat a lot through the holidays and then hopefully your body will be in a good spot to get into a fat loss phase by next spring. So definitely don't wait to get signed up for our next program. I agree at this holiday calories to good use. Great time to eat a lot of food. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Bye. That's what we've got for you today about how you can invest in your metabolism and start losing weight by eating more and exercising less. Trust us you aren't too old and it's never too late. If you want to learn more about this topic, head over to our Facebook group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook at Couture Fitness Coaching. And if you want to work with us, join us for our next 12 weeks session.