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Is slow metabolism stopping your weight loss?

By Mario Hostios

Weight loss has become big business. Billions are spent every year by millions of people in hopes of shedding pounds, and unfortunately most of them fail. Oh boy, I hope that isn’t harsh, it isn’t meant to be. My point is this; people are trying to lose weight and failing because they are misled by fads, hype, and mass confusion that pervade the weight loss business. The most common misunderstanding about weight loss is the notion that your body is a calorie checkbook…it isn’t.

This is why conventional dieting to restrict calories and increasing activity to burn more calories never ever works in the long term and often fails in the short term. In fact, following the calorie checkbook theory to lose weight ends up slowing down your metabolism stimulating your body to become fatter! Yuck! Who wants that? Instead of thinking “lose weight” we need to think “burn fat” instead. Once we can embrace that, then we can focus on what burns fat, and how to get the engine fired up.

Burning fat is all about metabolism, end of story. Your metabolism is like your FICO credit score. For instance, if your FICO score is high, you get a better rate on a loan, and if your FICO score is low, then your rate on a loan stinks, or you may be denied the loan altogether. If your metabolism is fast, then burning excess fat happens easy and automatically. If you metabolism is slow, then no matter how good you are, burning fat is really difficult to do. But if that is so, than how do you know if your metabolism is fast or slow?

Your metabolic score

There are two simple numbers to measure to calculate your “metabolic score”. The first way is to check your temperature in the morning before you get out of bed with a digital thermometer (make sure it is accurate). Ideally it should read 98.0 degrees (it won’t be 98.6 because you aren’t up and moving around). This temperature indicates that your thyroid gland is working at peak efficiency, and it is the thyroid that governs metabolism as it relates to weight loss.

People who struggle to lose weight will always have a slow metabolism that is reflected by a lower temperature. It is best to check it each day for a week to get an average. In my experience, temperatures under 96.6 are like crappy credit scores and make weight loss tough (just like crappy credit makes it hard to get approved for a loan), even if the person is doing “everything right”. Y’know the adage “I hate (fill in the blank), she can eat whatever she wants and never gains a pound, she just burns it off.” Well, it’s true.

The second way is to check your blood sugar. A fasting blood sugar test is conducted after not eating for 8 hours and normal reading are between 70-100 mg/dL. Readings over 126 may indicate diabetes. A glucose tolerance test adds a sugary drink after the fasting blood sugar is taken and then a follow up reading is taken 2 hours later to determine how well the body moves that sugar into your muscles or liver. A poor glucose tolerance test reveals a sluggish metabolism that is sensitive to becoming fatter from eating too much sugar.

These two readings are changeable! Just like crappy credit scores, a fitness routine improves these factors, and that is what burns the fat off! Calorie burning happens, but fat burning is achieved because metabolism is repaired. So in closing these two tests, morning temperature and blood sugar readings, reveal low metabolism and poor sugar tolerance, two principle indicators of weight loss difficulty.

Burning fat and staying lean and mean for life will always and only result from a exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle program keeps your metabolism up (warm morning temperature) and sugar tolerance great (you don’t pass out in a diabetic coma when you eat a stack of rice cakes).

Get a digital thermometer and a blood glucometer. In one week you will know where you metabolism is at and you will be able to track changes as you get into your fitness routine.

About the Author:

Mario Hostios is a certified personal trainer in Los Angeles, Ca. To get more Mario, free ebooks, and audio, go to www.livefitla.com.