By Joel Marion, CISSN
Hey, it’s BioTrust Co-Founder and top nutritionist Joel Marion, and I’ve been getting a lot of questions about metabolism lately… so many in fact that I figured I’d put together a few article posts about how you can increase YOURS.
Today’s secret strategy: Increase your G-flux
If you’ve never heard of G-flux, here’s a simple formula for increasing it: Eat more; exercise more. Sounds pretty simple, but let’s take a deeper look.
Exercise increases metabolism. Eating increases metabolism. The trick is learning to balance the two so that you still create a negative calorie balance.
Let’s back up real quickly.
Sedentary people — folks who just sit around and don’t exercise — have painfully slow metabolisms. This is due to many hormonal factors resulting from a lack of exercise combined with the fact that these individuals never really “teach” their body to burn additional calories.
Likewise, chronic dieters share the same plight. When you chronically under-eat, your metabolism shuts down as a starvation protection mechanism and the oh-so-slow metabolism blues start a-playin’.
On the contrary, exercise and eating are metabolism boosters. That being said, it’s not very likely that eating more by itself will ever do wonders for your fat loss goals.
But, when you combine eating more with a high calorie burn via exercise, you get the best of both worlds.
For example, let’s say your basal metabolic rate allows you to burn 2000 calories a day. Knowing this, you go on a diet and begin eating 1500 calories a day, putting you 500 calories in the hole. Now, on the surface a 500 calorie deficit would appear to be a good thing, but unfortunately you’ve done your metabolism NO favors here. In fact, under-eating only decreases metabolism with each passing day.
So, “dieting” is not the method of choice for creating a calorie deficit.
Now, let’s take a similar scenario. You burn 2000 calories a day, but instead of “dieting” you start eating 300 calories MORE each day and you also burn 800 extra calories through exercise. The result? The SAME 500 calorie deficit (2800 calories burned, 2300 calories consumed) but you do so while increasing your metabolism through eating and exercising more.
That’s the power of G-flux. Apply the concept and watch your metabolism skyrocket.
Want to know how to increase your metabolism even further with FOOD? Check out this link we made for you:
Hi Joel/Josh,
I excercise twice a week. 15min intensive sessions where my trainer works me to muscle failure. At present I am leg pressing 207kgs for a minimum of 60reps constant. The amount of weight i push & reps i do keeps increasing weekly but i just can”t manage to shift body weight. I weigh 14.5st and just can’t manage to decrease this figure. I eat regular meals every 3hrs. Any help please?
Hi Gurdeep,
I don’t know if you’ve ever practiced launching children off your back with your legs, but based on the leg press numbers you gave, it sounds like you could do it for hours! =)
It sounds like you’re increasing your strength, which is often — but not necessarily — a sign of increasing of increasing your lean body mass. This leads us to the question, have you had your body composition assessed? Training intensely like you do with resistance exercise can lead to increase muscle mass and concomitant fat loss. However, relying completely on the scale will not show you any changes.
Ask your trainer if he/she can measure your body composition or recommend to you a facility where you can get this measurement, which tells you how much fat mass and lean body mass you have (instead of just body weight).
You’re only exercising twice per week. I won’t critique the program that your trainer has you on because it sounds like it’s effective from the standpoint of increasing strength and/or strength endurance. I do have some questions as to whether this type of exercise is optimal for improving body composition. Such high-rep training is not necessarily conducive to building muscle mass, or losing fat for that matter.
You should consider adding at least two more scheduled exercise sessions per week. You would benefit from doing some high-intensity interval training. This type of conditioning — where you alternate intense, short bursts of exercise (i.e., running, rowing) with short rest periods — is an extremely efficient way to increase fat-burning hormones and elevate your metabolism for hours after. It’s superior to traditional aerobic training for fat loss and preserving lean body mass.
You’ve told us very little about your diet besides meal frequency. In the overall scheme of things, meal frequency is far less important than food choices and portion control. I’ll ask you five questions that will help give some insight into your nutrition and if it’s the proper fat loss plan for you.
1. Are you eating less? To burn your body’s own stores of energy, you have to create a stimulus. Generally speaking, most folks will benefit most from decreasing energy intake (calories in) while simultaneously increasing energy expenditure (exercise). If you eat ’til you’re about 80% full, then you’ll be in good shape. You should strongly consider LeptiBurn to keep your fat loss efforts most efficient. Leptin is the metabolic master switch and literally controls everything related to fat loss, from your metabolic rate to your appetite to fat-burning hormones.
2. Are you eating enough protein? A high-protein diet has been shown to produce a better weight loss profile than typical low-fat diets. Protein increases fat-burning hormones and decreases your appetite. Protein itself boosts your metabolism, as the body requires 3 – 4 times as many calories to break it down as it does for carbohydrates and fats. To help meet your protein needs, you should strongly consider adding BioTrust Low Carb to your arsenal. This 100% all-natural, time-released protein is perfect to meet all of your protein needs: post-exercise, meal replacement, and pre-bedtime.
3. Are you eating too many sugars and starches? Too many carbohydrates, especially at the wrong times, can put a huge damper on your fat loss efforts. As a matter of fact, you can do everything “perfectly,” yet still not get the results you deserve because of too many sugars and starches. You should strongly consider cycling your carbohydrates — more carbs on days of high-intensity training, less on other days — and consuming them (with protein) in the few hours after exercise. To ensure that carbs go to muscles and not fat, take two IC-5 15 minutes before each meal.
4. Are you eating enough vegetables? Simply put, replace grains with greens. Veggies provide added bulk to your plan when you’re following a reduced-calorie diet, which can help fill you up. Plus, they provide the vitamins and minerals necessary to optimize your fat-burning metabolism. You should include at least 1 – 2 servings of veggies with every feeding.
5. Are you consuming enough good fats? Gone is the myth that eating fat makes you fat. Focusing on good fats — like monounsaturated fats and omega-3′s — will optimize your metabolism and help your body learn to burn fat more effectively. Include olive oil, avocados, some nuts and nut butters, some seeds, and coconut oil. Also, don’t afraid to eat beef and use some butter. Choose pasture-raised sources when available. These foods contain some saturated fats that are necessary for overall health.
There you have it, my friend!
Tim Skwiat
BT Head Trainer