#1 Absolute Best Way To FIX Your METABOLISM

Hello Health Champions today I'm going to talk  about the number one absolute best way to fix your  

metabolism and that is to start understanding that  your body is guided by an intelligence there's an  

intelligence reciting in your body that is driving  everything that is taking care of business and our  

best hope to fixing things like metabolism which  is pretty complex is to try to start thinking like  

the body and that is my goal today is to get us  going in that direction and the first thing to  

understand is that food is about survival every  living thing on the planet is trying to get some  

resources to trying to ingest some resources to  help that species that bacterium that plant that  

animal survive and they're always going to be  times when there is more and there's going to  

be times when there is less and if we have the  ability to adapt and when there is a little bit  

more we can store some things we can store some  resources then we have a certain buffer there's  

a certain safety that we can rely on when there  are times when there is not so much and that the  

body is guided by a principle called a set point  that there's a certain range of weight there's  

a pretty narrow band of weight where the body  feels comfortable where it feels safe it feels  

that at this level it has enough resources and  if we start dropping below that level then the  

body will do whatever it can to get back there  and if we overeat then the body will spend more  

energy to try to get back to that set point and  if there's a longer period of time where we have  

less food then we will tend to lose weight  we will tend to lose the buffer of stored  

resources that we have and then we will have  a threatened survival our body will feel like  

it's not safe it has to start changing something  in order to secure survival and we're not just  

talking about losing weight but expending more  energy because you could do that by forcing your  

body to exercise a whole lot we're talking  about the basal metabolic rate which is how  

much energy is your body using at rest before  it's doing anything else this is also called  

RMR resting metabolic rate and sometimes they  try to estimate that by giving you a very very  

rough idea you multiply your weight in pounds by  10 and then you get your basal metabolic rate and  

if you measure your weight in kilos then you would  multiply by 22 approximately but again that's an  

average and it's probably if your basal metabolic  rate is working reasonably well realize that there  

are huge huge variations in this and if you're  watching this video chances are that your basal  

metabolic rate is not all that normal and it could  be plus minus 50 fluctuations in this depending on  

what's happened to you but just to get an idea  if you weigh 180 pounds we multiply that by 10  

that would put your basal metabolic rate at 1800  and then we add to that the activity that you do  

during the day and that could be everything not  just exercise it's walking around and and moving  

and fidgeting and shivering and all of that other  stuff if you do another 700 calories that would  

put you at about 2500 but then we really need  to start understanding what happens when we  

try to change those numbers and how is feast and  famine different than starvation how does the body  

think differently about this how does it perceive  that differently so what we need to know is any  

time that you reduce the intake more than the  time between two normal meals for you then  

your body will reduce the expenditure anytime  the body is out of food then it will cut back  

on the metabolism on the metabolic rate just a  little bit but when does this reduction become a  

problem when does it become permanent if you eat  and it comes right back up that's not a problem  

but it's a problem if it goes so long that it  starts shutting down permanently long term and  

here's where we need to understand that the body  is super intelligent there's a reason why it's  

doing this and there needs to be an interpretation  there needs to be a perception and usually when  

we talk about perception we're talking about our  conscious Minds perceiving something but we need  

to understand that your cells every individual  cell has a perception of its own at the cellular  

level and that perception is all about survival  so when is survival threatened so for example  

if you eat 24 of 2500 calories that's about a  hundred calories per hour that your body would  

be using does that mean we have to eat every hour  no obviously not so there's a time factor in here  

it doesn't feel threatened immediately it feels  threatened when it starts seeing a trend when it  

senses that this is heading someplace unsafe  and it also has to be about satisfaction once  

you get to eat again does the body feel it got  enough to feel safe or did it still feel like  

it's missing something so starvation is when  there's a sustained lack or a reduced amount  

of resources to the point where it goes on so  long that the body feels threatened it feels  

this is heading someplace bad especially if we  are consistently below the basal metabolic rate  

on the other hand intermittent fasting which  is when you on purpose wait a little bit longer  

between meals you compress your meals into a  shorter time period and usually you eat fewer  

meals but especially it's a shorter time period  where you might go 16 to 18 hours without eating  

then you might think that the body would feel  hey this is going to someplace bad but here's  

the thing as long as you get to eat to satiety  as long as you get to replenish those resources  

and the body is satisfied and full now it doesn't  feel threatened now that becomes part of a normal  

pattern which the body does it's part of feast and  famine which is very very normal for every species  

even if we go a little bit longer like several  days maybe two days all the way up to seven then  

as long as we get to eat to satiety then there is  no permanent damage we're not permanently shutting  

down that basal metabolic rate and I don't know  that anyone knows exactly what the time frame  

is when it starts shutting down permanently and  there's probably a big amount of variation there  

as well but there is some evidence that if you go  longer than two or three weeks with total fasting  

then the body will start to lower that basal  rate permanently another indication that we can  

get is that people who diet people who do calorie  restrictions they'll usually lose weight pretty  

well in the beginning but then after two to three  weeks the either it starts plateauing and tapering  

off or they might even start gaining weight back  even at a calorie restriction so two to three  

weeks I think is probably a pretty good measure  of when things start changing permanently whereas  

if we are talking hours or just a few days then  we're safe as long as we get to eat until we're  

full and the body feels happy again the thing to  understand about feast and famine is that it is  

very very normal there's always been variations  in food supply sometimes it rains more sometimes  

there's more food growing sometimes times you find  an animal to kill if you're a lion and sometimes  

you don't there's also seasonal variation and if  we miss one or two days here and there but then we  

get to eat again then the body feels perfectly  safe as long as we replenish the resources  

completely and some critics say that well if you  practice intermittent fasting or if you miss a day  

or two then you're gonna overeat you're gonna over  compensate and undo all the benefits and then some  

I don't believe that's true in my experience it's  not true and most of the people who practice this  

are not having that problem I think what's going  on is that it happens when you eat processed foods  

because processed foods have sometimes drug-like  effects they will stimulate receptors opiate  

receptors they'll stimulate pleasure receptors  and they're designed to do that they put chemicals  

in there to do that on purpose and by doing that  you bypass this normal regulation but if you eat  

whole food that has plenty of resources plenty  of nutrients that's nutrient dense then I don't  

believe that you will overeat you miss a day  or two and then you reset and you're back on  

track but now let's try to keep thinking like the  body would and try to understand what happens when  

we diet and what happens relative to this thing  called the set point this narrow range of weight  

where the body feels safe and comfortable so we  cut back on food we reduce calories on purpose and  

hopefully first thing that happens is we start off  at this weight and now we start losing some weight  

and we're happy it's working but then  eventually we've gone long enough that the  

body is uncomfortable it starts feeling threatened  and what does it do it does what all living things  

do it compensates and it adapts and the way that  it does that is by reducing energy expenditure and  

increasing hunger because it's trying to get back  to this line this is where it thought it believes  

it needs to be so first of all it starts to reduce  expenditure and the weight loss plateaus but then  

it's also trying to get back up there so it turns  back the thermostat it turns down the heat even  

more and now it starts to go back up so we start  gaining back a little bit even though we're still  

eating less food we're still eating fewer calories  so the body is trying to get back to that set  

point we're burning less energy we're getting  hungrier and hungrier and despite all that we  

start to gain the weight back what do most people  do at that point well they kind of lose hope they  

say hey this didn't seem to be working it worked  for a while but now it's not so I give up and you  

go back to eating like you used to do and this  is pretty much always what happens when we don't  

have a long-term plan when we think that we can do  something for a period of time and then stop doing  

it we're automatically going to go back to eating  like we did before except now we have a lower  

expenditure we're using less so what that means  is not only are we probably gonna gain it back  

to the set point but we have a lower expenditure  and we're gonna probably gain a little bit extra  

and now what happens is that we have raised the  set point and we don't know if this is exactly  

how it works I'm just trying to get you to think  of possibilities of how the body is reacting how  

the body is adapting because it is super super  intelligent and if it do it if it does something  

there has to be a reason and we know that this  is pretty much what happens with all dieting  

and oftentimes this is called yo-yo dieting as  in you lose the weight and you gain it back but  

unfortunately it's really it really should be  called yo-yo dieting plus because every time  

it seems like you add on a few more pounds and a  really sad example of this is called The Biggest  

Loser which was a TV show that ran for over 10  seasons and Not only was it a Monumental failure  

but they kept doing it year after year after  year and a lot of people thought at first that  

hey you know the Biggest Loser meant the person  who lost the most weight but would turn out was  

that these people really were the biggest losers  because they completely destroyed their metabolism  

so let's say for example they would eat 1500  calories I don't know what the exact number was  

it probably varied with body size but just pick  a number and let's say that they had a resting  

metabolic Rays a basal metabolic rate of 3 000  calories because they started out at 300 pounds  

now they would exercise a lot and this is why  they lost weight if you exercise three four  

five six thousand calories and you're already  in a deficit the body even if the body turns the  

basal metabolic rate close to zero then you're  still gonna lose weight because you're working  

out all the time you're going to lose one or two  pounds a day because of how much you're forcing  

the body to expend energy but you can only get  healthy you could only find long-term balance if  

the body perceives that as moving towards some  form of equilibrium some form of Harmony and  

balance and how do you think the body reacts to  working out all day long and not getting any food  

the body's perception is that this is an extreme  threat hey I'm spending all this energy there's  

nothing coming back in and not only that but it's  an extreme fight flight mode you're pushing the  

body you're pushing pushing hours and hours every  day and as a result you get an extreme reduction  

in basal metabolic rate and most of these people  they gain the weight back very very quickly and  

not only that but they couldn't even maintain  weight unless they exercised several hours a  

day because their basal metabolic rate had  cut way way down sometimes in half so let's  

go through some factors let's try to understand  the different things that will lower your basal  

metabolic rate and we talked about the first thing  which is dieting that it creates the perception  

of a threat that it thinks it's going to die if it  doesn't change if it doesn't lower the expenditure  

relative to where it thinks it needs to be and as  a result over and over doing that over and over  

you will raise that set point the second thing  would be aging and there are some things that  

are inevitable with aging things do slow down we  have a cycle of life where we kind of peak around  

25 and then it's downhill but how quickly it goes  downhill has to do with a lot of different factors  

so a lot of people will be less active they will  start getting hormonal changes over the years and  

the decades and to some degree they'll have a loss  of muscle but we need to realize that a lot of the  

things that we call aging some are inevitable  but a lot of things we call aging is actually  

disuse or premature aging from abusing the body  from using chemicals and too much sugar and too  

much alcohol and too much oxidative factors so  aging is inevitable so far but we can do a lot  

to slow with down and if we maintain an active  lifestyle and eat good food then a lot of these  

things won't be nearly as pronounced and a third  huge factor is insulin resistance now we need to  

understand insulin because that it's at the root  of most disease processes and most health problems  

today and it is a necessary it's life-saving  it's a good hormone but we need to keep things  

in Balance so first of all insulin is a storage  hormone and the first thing and the best known  

thing it does is it assists glucose so we eat  food we bring up our blood sugar and Insulin  

acts as the key to get that blood sugar into the  cell where it can be used and turned into energy  

but if we eat excess glucose if we had too much  sugar too much bread too much pasta too frequently  

too much processed foods too frequently now we get  excess glucose and as a response from the body we  

get excess insulin because it has to constantly  respond to those high levels of glucose and if  

we have this problem chronically if we have the  situation chronically it becomes a problem called  

insulin resistance because we keep pushing so  much stuff into the cells that they say hey we've  

had enough let's back off a little bit the cells  start resisting the action of insulin and now the  

body has to make even more insulin to try to take  care of the problem but the cells are resisting so  

there's no amount of insulin that will get the job  done and now what happens is we have chronically  

High insulin levels and remember that insulin is  a storage hormone so now we end up storing energy  

rather than using it which of course now will  lower that basal metabolic rate because all  

that energy is locked away and Insulin promotes  lipogenesis meaning it promotes the Turning of  

glucose into fat high levels of insulin makes  more fat but it works the other way around  

too that it prevents lipolysis it prevents the  breakdown so it makes more fat and it keeps us  

from using it and in doing that we're gonna store  more and spend less and this is one of the main  

principles that gets that set point stuck that  the body gets stuck at a certain weight and it  

can't move away from there it can't lower it back  down as long as insulin is high now there are many  

other hormones that are super important and the  number one hormone would be thyroid because the  

thyroid hormone is your actual metabolic hormone  it is the actual thermostat it's the thing that  

cranks things up but it can't do that by itself  it's depending on all these other variables that  

we're talking about and very often people will  mention that the thyroid hormone depends on  

iodine and therefore they say if your thyroid is  slow if your metabolism is slow just take more  

iodine but there's a huge problem with that  thinking because ninety percent of people in  

the modern in the western world does not have  a problem with iodine they might be a little  

deficient but that's not the reason that the  thyroid is slow it's an autoimmune process it's  

an inflammation process it's a toxicity process  and if you just load up on the iodine you could  

actually make the autoimmune part worse so in  my clinic we find thyroid issues with probably  

30 to 50 percent of people and virtually none of  them need iodine there are other things that the  

thyroid need for support So if you think you have  a thyroid problem I would suggest that you find  

someone that can help you work with it someone  qualified because there's way more to it than  

just taking iodine and the thyroid doesn't act  alone it responds to the pituitary which sends  

out a hormone called thyroid stimulating hormone  TSH so if the thyroid is underperforming it could  

be just that the pituitary isn't sending out  enough TSH but the pituitary also doesn't act  

alone it's responding to the hypothalamus which  sends out thytrophin releasing hormones so the  

hypothalamus is kind of the overseer of this whole  picture and the hypothalamus is really the big  

player in this it's our homeostatic regulator  it's the one that oversees all these variables  

and tries to bring them back into balance it's the  decision maker and because it overlooks everything  

the hypothalamus is really the one that has this  perception of the set point that if we get the  

body out of balance too much then this set point  can get out of whack over time but even though the  

hypothalamus is the supervisor and regulator  of all this it still doesn't quite act alone  

because everything else that we're talking about  feeds back and gives that hypothalamus information  

on which hypothalamus makes that perception so if  other things are out of balance the hypothalamus  

is going to get the wrong picture and if we  truly have a dysfunctional thyroid then it  

doesn't matter what the hypothalamus is saying we  still can't produce the right hormones Etc so the  

hypothalamus is the supervisor but all the other  parts have to work too both in performing their  

jobs and in giving the hypothalamus the right  information and the correct picture and in my  

clinic when we have fixed a lot of the other stuff  when we have brought down the insulin resistance  

and we brought the thyroid hormones up to a good  level and we've fixed a lot of other things then  

if there still have stubborn weight and their  metabolic rate is still low there's a couple of  

supplements that I found that tends to work really  well but again don't try these in isolation don't  

try these without doing all the other things  at the same time or doing them for a period of  

time first and the first one is hypothalamopath  and the second one is called metabopath and the  

first one here is probably the one that's shown  up most often from me in the clinic so I'll put  

some links down below if you want to check those  out but there are other factors as well such as  

fructose and alcohol and these two things are  not poisonous in themselves they're very natural  

substances but the way we consume them today  they're pure poison because they can only be  

processed by the liver so if you had a few grains  or a teaspoon here and there it would be perfectly  

fine but in excess they overwhelm the liver and  they turn into fat they create a fatty liver and a  

fatty liver is an insulin resistant liver and the  liver being the metabolic Hub of your body kind of  

sets the tone for the rest of the body in terms of  insulin resistance so now that those are the two  

factors that primarily Drive insulin resistance  and another one is seed oils this is something  

that has been voted as very very healthy we've had  this phobia for saturated fat so then they tell us  

eat this stuff instead which are the vegetable  oils and it turns out the saturated fats are  

perfectly fine and this is some people say worse  than fructose or alcohol and some people say it  

would be almost as bad either way it is pure  poison and you want to stay away from it by any  

means you can also there are pesticides and other  chemicals that get into your body and interact  

with your hormones they fit into receptors that  are made for your body's own hormones and now  

your endocrine system your hormones don't function  properly because of these chemicals and pesticides  

another Factor would be dysbiosis so if you have  an imbalance or an insufficient amount of bacteria  

in your gut they're finding more and more and more  and I think this is kind of the next Frontier in  

health is to start understanding more about your  gut flora and how to enhance it how to get a  

greater variety and more amount of bacteria there  and also stress affects everything and it affects  

your gut Flora it affects your insulin resistance  it affects blood sugar just about everything  

and we're going to also talk a little bit about  exercise so in order to restore your metabolism  

to fix it to bring it back to burn more brightly  on its own there are some things we need to do so  

first of all we do need to reduce calories safely  okay if you're overweight you need to reduce some  

calories if you're at your ideal weight you just  need to address all these factors but how do we  

reduce calories safely we do it without creating  the perception of a threat so we can't just cut  

back on calories and keep going because the body  doesn't like that also we have to do it without  

hunger if we have hungry first of all we can't  sustain it but hunger is also a signal of a threat  

so a couple of ways to do that low carb high fat  allows us to eat less without getting so hungry  

because the processed foods trigger insulin and  that insulin like we talked about makes you more  

hungry also when you're fasting if you're doing  intermittent fasting you're eating fewer meals  

in a shorter time period then you need to eat to  satiety you can't feel deprived at the end of it  

because then you're just doing another form of  of dieting of starvation of calorie restriction  

where you never feel satisfied and the body  doesn't feel safe to start expending more energy  

therefore we also want to process reduce  processed foods because they make you more hungry  

and artificial flavorings all the chemicals all  the food additives that they put in there to make  

you eat more they bypass they make you more hungry  they bypass your normal satiety mechanisms the  

second thing would be to restore normal insulin  function get back to being insulin sensitive where  

the glucose the blood sugar can get into your  cells with a tiny amount of insulin the way it's  

supposed to work and therefore you want to cut  back or eliminate high glycemic foods and those  

are things that get raise your blood sugar very  quickly and if you look at tables they usually  

call a high glycemic food anything over 70 and  they call anything under 55 a low glycemic food  

don't believe that okay a high glycemic food is  anything over 20 or 30 because those are going  

to be high in carbohydrate even if it's a slow  carbohydrate it's still too much if you're trying  

to get back to normal insulin responses also you  want to cut back or eliminate sugar and alcohol  

you want to cut back on seed oils obviously and  you want to avoid pesticides and chemicals and  

you also want to start understanding stress  responses and how to control how to practice  

stress management techniques long term so that  you can permanently change your stress responses  

because stress will raise blood glucose it will  raise cortisol raise blood glucose raise insulin  

and it will undermine your efforts to get back  to insulin balance next you want to learn more  

about how to restoring your microbiome because  it's involved with just about everything it  

is involved with your Cravings it's involved  with inflammation it's involved with insulin  

resistance and the list could go on and on  and on I did a video on that I'll probably  

make more as we learn more but this is huge and  it's much too big to cover in any detail here  

you also want to control your stress responses  not just for blood sugar but because your stress  

also creates Cravings more cortisol higher glucose  insulin more inflammation and the list goes on and  

on there as well and then there's exercise so a  lot of people say that well you need to exercise  

as much as possible because that burns calories  and helps you lose weight well that's not really  

what we're talking about like The Biggest Loser  people they exercised hours and hours and hours  

and it backfired tremendously so exercise uses up  calories but that has nothing to do with the basal  

metabolic rate it has no effect on that because  that's what the body does before you start moving  

or doing anything so that's completely irrelevant  as far as using up calories or losing weight now  

if you do it correctly exercise does use up some  glucose and you want to do low intensity exercise  

or extremely short bursts of high intensity and  I've done several videos on that so I'm not going  

to go back into this and when you use up some  glucose you are assisting in restoring insulin  

sensitivity and reversing insulin resistance  however it is not the primary mechanism okay  

it's not going to do a whole lot but if you do  it right it might be somewhere like five or ten  

percent of resolving insulin resistance so I  definitely think people need to exercise but  

we need to try to understand how is it relating  to these topics to restoring metabolism and some  

people will really emphasize that you want to  lift weights that's the type of exercise you do  

for your metabolism because when you build muscle  then muscles are more metabolically active and  

you automatically increase your metabolic rate and  there are some numbers floating around where they  

think you can increase by 30 or 40 percent and I'm  not opposed to working out and building muscles I  

think that's great and it does help but we need  to put it in perspective so muscles make up if  

you're healthy if you're fairly muscular and not  obese they probably make up somewhere around 40  

percent of your body weight and they use up about  20 percent of your energy at rest so you're out  

of your basal metabolic rate they make up about 20  percent now we compare that to Fat where fat is 20  

unless you're obese where it could be up to 50 or  even more but for a reasonably normal person it's  

fat is about 20 percent of your body weight and it  only uses five percent so we see here that if we  

divide these out that muscles are about twice as  metabolically active as fat at rest so yes it does  

make a difference but here is the big deal and  here is this is kind of mind-blowing then when we  

look at the brain and the Heart liver kidney and  lung your vital organs the things that are running  

and processing all day behind the scenes they  are less than five percent of your body weight  

and they account for eighty percent of your basal  metabolic rate so they're like 30 to 50 up to a  

hundred uh when it comes to Fat up to 100 times  more metabolically active than that tissue so  

the moral of the story is that muscle is much  better than fat it's twice as good at Burning  

energy at rest as fat is but this is still not a  big deal it's pretty much negligible in the big  

scheme of things however it is still better  than nothing so go for it not just to burn a  

few calories but because muscles are good for a  hundred different reasons exercise is great for  

a hundred different reasons and if you were to  add five pounds of muscle then you would burn  

an extra 50 calories and that's not a whole lot  but it's still kind of moving the momentum in the  

right direction so the key factors to restoring  your metabolic rate in order of importance in my  

opinion is to reduce insulin resistance to become  insulin sensitive the second would be to help the  

hypothalamus restore your set point to restore  your overall metabolic State third would probably  

be the microbiome and as we learn more maybe the  the order of this will change and the microbiome  

will turn out to be everything who knows number  four would be stress and number five would be to  

take care of your thyroid now thyroid's not going  to be the primary thing for most people but for  

some people it is a key factor if you enjoyed this  video you're going to love that one and if you  

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