Mistakes That Cause Metabolic Damage

For those that have successfully lost body fat and retained muscle or gained weight/muscle without gaining much body fat, this short write-up isn’t going to be ground breaking news. For those that are taking in an extremely low amount of calories and can’t seem to lose weight or those that are taking in massive amounts of calories and wondering why they’re looking “soft” on their bulk, read up.

Metabolism is the biggest factor in whether someone can easily lose or gain weight, whether it’s muscle or fat. Some have it easier than others and can manipulate their weight gain/loss without hitting many plateaus along the way. No matter how fortunate or unfortunate you are with your metabolism, it can always be improved with a little work or destroyed if not taken care of over time.

Most articles will suggest taking in anywhere from 0.7 to 0.9 grams of protein per lean body mass and eating 500 calories below maintenance to successfully lose weight while retaining muscle. While this is a great rule of thumb for most people starting out, it doesn’t provide any additional information on what to do as you actually progress. Most people that calculate their total energy expenditure and start off eating 300-500 less will see 0.5 to 1 lb loss per week for 2-3 weeks, which is optimal for fat loss. The problem with this is that metabolism adapts over time as the body tries to hold on to fat stores. As the weeks go on and you are taking in roughly the same amount, your body will “adjust” to that amount to make the most effective use of the calories you are taking in to maintain fat, something that the human body has been genetically programmed to do since the beginning of time.

Another mistake is that people that are bulking on 4,000 or 5,000+ calories will decide to go straight into 2000 or less calories the day they decide to bulk. This isn’t optimal because:

1. You may lose anywhere from 4-10 pounds within a week, possibly two, but your metabolism will quickly adjust to the new amount of calories you’re taking in and will “stall” out there, making it that much lower you’d have to go in calories to lose weight.
2. Had you started off doing 4,700 calories for a week, then 4,400 the next week, then around 4,000ish for a week or two to actually get into your cut, your body would have slowly lost possibly 1 or 2 pounds of fat along with a few pounds of water while keeping your metabolism optimal during your cut. Any further you SLOWLY (by 200/300 or so) reduce your calories will be rewarded by a 1 or 2 lb drop in body fat each week without stalling.
3. Adding to #2, since you’re slowing making your way down to a lower amount of calories and slowly losing weight, there is a significantly higher chance that you will have a better muscle to body fat ratio when you are done with your cut, regardless of the amount of weight you end on.

Of course, all this is assuming that hormone levels stay normal over time, as anything can cause a sudden spike or drop of weight during any given week (thyroid levels, drop in testosterone, cortisol levels, carb intake or any form of HIIT cardio program that can affect water levels, etc). This is just scratching the surface but extremely important for those that are wanting to get the basics, I’ll expand more on how other effects of metabolism and hormones can alter weight loss/gain in later articles. Check out my article on the ephedrine and caffeine stack to help out metabolism a bit and suppress your appetite.

This also applies for those doing the opposite coming off a cut. Slowly transition into it and you’ll get more out of your calories over time.

Credit: http://ceefitness.com/metabolic-damage/