The Truth About Metabolism

From "The People Need to Know" Series

by Phil Kaplan

KEY POINT:

You Are Not a Victim of Your Metabolism;

You Are The Creator!

It gets blamed for almost everything. 

It gets attacked both verbally and chemically.

It gets starved, confused, injured, and all too often, destroyed.

Yes, Metabolism, among the many who suffer slower variations of it, may be the most villainized misunderstood inner working of the foundational platform of human life.

In fact, along with respiration and circulation, metabolism is among the most vitally important biological functions. 

To simply indict it as an enemy of weight loss is a near-criminal mistake.

Before we engage in a PR campaign for Human Metabolism, and before we attempt any sort of true metabolic rescue, let’s define this thing.

WHAT IS METABOLISM?

In live seminars, when I ask an audience to define metabolism, I can always count on an audience member sharing a common and familiar anecdote. 

In answer to the “what is it” question, a woman at a  Fort Lauderdale event boldly voiced her distaste for “metabofreaks.”

“Well, there’s this girl Maxine, at work, and she’s like a freak or an alien or something.  When we go to lunch everyone gets salads and she eats a burger and fries . . . and dessert!  Friggin cheesecake!  And she doesn’t gain a pound.”  

She then seemed to growl before concluding her thought with, “Metabofreak.  We hate her!”

Everyone in the audience laughed.  Not because this envious woman was inherently funny.  Likely because most of them knew and hated a metabofreak in their own lives.

Unfortunately, human nature often leads otherwise well-intentioned folks to develop an envy or distaste for others who have what they wish they had.

In this case, envy is misplaced.

There’s an overriding belief that metabolism is a blessing or curse and while some were gifted with metabolic excellence, some apparently stood in the wrong line when metabolisms were being doled out.

Don’t hate the metabolically gifted.  Just become one of them.

You can!

Here’s an actual definition:

Metabolism is the sum total of all activity related to endocrine function, anabolism, catabolism, and energy production.

There it is.

Plain and simple.

Metabolism demystified.

Now you raise an eyebrow and reflexively respond, “huh?”

Never fear, I’m here to explain, and I’ll do it from the perspective of a Master Metabolism Manipulator, a skill I’ll happily share with you.

In attempting to further clarify the meaning of and nature of human metabolism, many informed teachers use off-the-shelf metaphors.

“It’s like your body’s furnace and you have to feed the fire.”

“A fast metabolism is like a fuel-combusting race car, a slow one a rusty old clunker.”

If I were to provide you with an analogy or metaphor and sign off telling you, “it’s that simple,” I’d be doing you a serious disservice.  While we’ll stay away from overly complicated science, and while the common metaphors may offer a baseline grasp of the concept, you do want to understand some key elements of your own metabolic power in order to take control.

The truth is, while simple metaphors abound, metabolic research runs deep. 

Beyond the science of the relationship between key biological and physiological players (heart rate, physical activity, endocrine activity, neurotransmission, digestion, nervous system stimulation, and depth and frequency of oxygenation, oxidation, and breath), an entire field of study, metabolomics, explores, at a micro-level, how metabolites behave to impact and influence cellular behavior.

Metabolites are tiny molecular by-products of metabolic activity involved in or created by the breakdown of food, drugs, chemicals, or your own tissue.  Clearly this  is getting a bit more complicated than “fuel in the furnace.”

To truly understand the intricacies of metabolism is a massive and near-endless undertaking, but you don’t have to understand the array of biochemical phenomena that take place in cells, organs, and tissues to understand a simple overriding fact.

Here it comes.  The biggie.

Ready?

You are not a victim of your metabolism;

You are the creator.

In the absence of true metabolic disease or a medical pathology, you do, in fact, have far greater control than you may have been led to believe.

If weight loss is a goal, even if you’ve been a long-time victim of Weight Loss Resistance, or heavily engaged in relentless battles between food and the scale, the fact that you have a high degree of control over metabolism is very good news.

For frustrated dieters who want to attack me for suggesting they haven’t been victimized by a cruel metabolic reality, the statement, “you are the Creator,” sounds crazy, but that’s only because most chronic dieters found themselves caught up in or lost in “the calorie maze.”

Have you been there? 

If so, you were likely taught that it all comes down to a simplistic equation of calories in vs. calories out, and that misleading mathematical falsehood may be the most stubborn and problematic “theory” underlying the abysmally unsuccessful diet industry.

I’m being polite and forgiving by calling it a theory.

The promise that “cutting calories” is the key to permanent weight loss is a lie.  It’s the lie that has driven a multi-billion-dollar diet industry for decades, an industry that succeeds because it fails.

The trick in fat reduction and weight stabilization is balance. 

It isn’t simply a feat of balancing food and exercise (although that certainly matters), it’s really about establishing a supply and demand of metabolic energy, a reality where your conversion of nutrients into fuel is ideal to meet the physical, emotional, adrenal, and energetic demands of your body, mind, and energy field.

When you’re “in balance,” your nutrient intake effortlessly provides the ideal amount of “metabolic energy” to fuel your heart, lungs, brain, muscles, and hormonal system, to meet the hourly, daily, and ongoing demands of living as you optimally live.

THREE COMPONENTS

The magic comes from three components coming together for metabolic restoration or what we might refer to as metabolic healing.

1. “Balance” between sympathetic stimulation and parasympathetic recovery
2. A nutritional consistency relying on highly thermic metabolic meals
3. Exercise induced-mitochondrial hunger and support of lean body mass

I can simplify:

1. Creating a healthful balance between stress and recovery
2. Eating meals free of sugar and refined foods ample in natural protein and rich in micronutrients (from the most natural sources possible)
3. Strategic reistance exercise stimulating intermittent “need” for fuel in the energy center of the cell – resistance exercise followed by aerobic activity and recovery

I can simplify further:

Metabolism, with all of its complex intricacies comes down to being “the speed with which your body converts food into fuel,” or we might say, “the speed with which your body burns through food.”

Make your body better at burning food, and you are more “metabolically efficient.”

We're almost finished.  Take a breath, re-center, and let's tackle the last point.

HEAT, ONE MORE VARIABLE YOU’LL WANT TO UNDERSTAND

Your body operates at about 98.6 degrees most of the time. 

That makes you a human heat machine, and in order to “generate heat,” you have to “burn fuel.”

Overused "furnace" and "racecar" metaphors aside, to refer to a fit lean body as a "hot" body is certainly in alignment with everything I've shared. 

Muscle is metabolically active tissue directly related to fat burning, insulin regulation, and "heat."  And if aerobic movement can further stoke metabolism, and adequate recovery is in place, eating metabolic meals should be the only remaining puzzle piece. 

That you now understand.

Here’s where it gets confusing.,

If burning more food results in more heat, and metabolism is a function of the amount of heat generated, shouldn’t an effort toward metabolic boost require “more food?”

Conversely, if we stuff our faces with massive amounts of food, even the less metabolically educated among us know we’re likely to get fatter.

So eat more, or eat less?

That’s where a bit of additional understanding comes in to play.

The answer is, with respect for all 3 components I mentioned earlier, eat MORE METABOLICALLY.

Earlier I threw the “calories in vs. calories out theory” under the bus.  And I intend to keep it there.

Consider this absurd scenario.

If we had two identical twins with identical metabolisms and identical lifestyles, and for a full year one at 1500 calories per day of ice cream sundaes, the other 1500 calories a day made up of natural lean proteins and fresh organic vegetables,, with the twins find identical outcomes?

Of course not!  Yet they both would have consumed the same number of calories.

We now have a sense of what metabolism is, but what, exactly is a calorie?

What we commonly refer to as a calorie (in actuality a kilocalorie) is a unit of heat (the amount of heat required to raise 1 kg of water 1 degree Celsius).  If we’re going to find the flaw of the equation I threw under the proverbial busy, we must recognize that even digestion “burns” calories. 

Foods that require more digestive work without creating a residual biochemical disruption cause enhanced “heat.”

Foods, such as natural proteins, are more “thermic” than carbohydrates and fats, and when we consume those proteins as components of fiber rich, micronutrient-loaded, thermic meals, we can supply fuel, material for anabolism, and support of cellular health as we “feed” metabolic demand.

If you now grasp that metabolism boosting is a reality, that it requires change but reasonable change within a sound and science-based paradigm, know this. 

The programs I’ve developed are built upon the benevolent science of human performance, the science I share herein, and the science of metabolism that we’ve identified and explored is an inherent piece of each program’s power. 

Ultimately, the power you have over your own metabolism will come down to how you think, how you eat, how you breathe, how you exercise, and how you sleep.  While at first that may sound overwhelming, the allure of “a shortcut” is a trap.

Can You Really Do This - Gain Metabolic Control?

Metabolic Restoration is not only do-able, its near-certain with the right technology. 

The Metabolic Reboot, built upon 42 Immutable Principles of science is that technology in a simply delivered fail-proof program.  If trying it solo failed to bear fruit, move your ego out of the way and register for The Metabolic Reboot (it even includes an e-version of the Metabolic Meals Recipe Book).  12,000 people have come before you.  It’s your turn to solve the Metabolic Puzzle and own your body, health, and future.

REFERENCES (partial list)

Burbridge S, Stewart I, Placzek M. Development of the Neuroendocrine Hypothalamus. Compr Physiol. 2016 Mar 15;6(2):623-43. doi: 10.1002/cphy.c150023. PMID: 27065164.

Kinabo JL, Durnin JV. Thermic effect of food in man: effect of meal composition, and energy content. Br J Nutr. 1990 Jul;64(1):37-44. doi: 10.1079/bjn19900007. PMID: 2400767.

Amar D, Gay NR, Jimenez-Morales D, Beltran PMJ, Ramaker ME, Raja AN, et al. The mitochondrial multi-omic response to exercise training across tissues. bioRxiv. 2023 Jan 13:2023.01.13.523698. doi: 10.1101/2023.01.13.523698. Update in: Cell Metab. 2024 Jun 4;36(6):1411-1429

McPherron AC, Guo T, Bond ND, Gavrilova O. Increasing muscle mass to improve metabolism. Adipocyte. 2013 Apr 1;2(2):92-8. 

HELPFUL LINKS / NEXT STEPS:

Visit Phil and his Team at Infinite Impact in Boca Raton for a FREE "Metabolic" Experience including Full Spectrum Red Light Therapy and an Introduction to Hyperbaric Oxygen

Order the Metabolic Reboot Online

Email Phil to Inquire About working with one of his Health Optimization and Performance Coaches

Take the Online REMASS Quiz to determine the best strategy for Metabolic Recovery

Watch the  7 Day Reboot and Energy Detox Webinar Replay (90 Minutes)

YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

If you have a question related to the article or Subject Matter, email it to [email protected]

Does Ozempic Boost Metabolism?

No.  Ozempic and the entire class of GLP-1 drugs mimic a hormonal intermediary, Glucagon-Like Peptide.  The "meds" result in a disruption of normal appetite signaling.  While this is, in a sense, a "trick" to reduce appetite and slow the movement of food through the digestive system, it is not without risk.   In fact, the side effects ban be severe.  You can read more about Ozempic here:

https://transgenesis.mykajabi.com/blog/dyingtoloseweight

What is Metabolic Syndrome and Does The Info in this Article Apply if I Have it?

It all applies!  Metabolic Syndrome is a name medical science gave to what we might consider an epidemic condition identified in a population of Americans eating poorly living sedentary or low-activity lifestyles.  It is identified, not by a single marker, but by the co-existence of "a cluster" of symptoms including hypertension, elevated blood sugar (diabetes or pre-diabetes), unhealthy body composition (too much  body  fat), and elevated cholsterol.  For physicians it offers an opportunity to prescribe a plethora of meds, for mmy team it offers a cry for a Metabolic Reboot with full expectation of completely reversing the condition.

Does Intermittent Fasting Work to Boost Metabolism?

It can.  It's gained some popularity but the sudden explosion of "try it" sentiments and the variation in offered strategies makes it, for many, simply another trendy diet resulting in nothing more than calorie restriction and short term reduction in weight.  That said, the research is sound and the concept (get your necessary nutrients for anabolism and fuel) within a 4 - 8 hour window (out of a 24 hour day) has proven beneficialy for fat loss, improved biochemistry, and cognition.  The most effective intermittent fasting (I refer to it as Intermittent eating) strategy I've ever found is integrated as one of three "eating cycles" within the Metabolic Reboot.  It certainly has far-reaching benefit if all of the necessary concerns are addressed and, within the given window(s), nutrient intake is sufficient.

Do I have to Come To Your Facility in Florida to Do The Metabolic Reboot?

No.  I have affiliated coaches in select areas throughout the country, my team offers remote coaching via Zoom or telephone, and the entire program is available virtually (online).  Of course, if you do live in South Florida, you have a major advantage as working with us on-site at Infinite Impact also allows you to incorporate a variety of biohacks and therapies that speed the process and amplify results.

Which Animal Has the Fastest Metabolism?

A Hummingbird.  In fact, a single hummingbird has to consuem its entire body weight in nectar daily.  Keeping those wings fluttering as you whistle, chip, and buzz requires a lot of energy.  The slowest Metabolism in the animal kingdom belongs to the Sloth.  No surprise there.  I think its fair to say most people stuck on their couches with a TV Remote and a bag of chips could use a little more buzzing and a whole lot less slothing.

Be sure to read the next article in the series, Weight Loss Resistance, the Leading Plague