Let’s face it – 2021 was a tough year for many people. COVID continued and tornados ripped through our land. With a new day and a new year, we try and move on. We try to improve our circumstances. Is 2022 the year you work on you? Is it time for you to lose the weight and get healthy? I think we can all admit diets are hard. You sacrifice at birthday parties and business luncheons. You know that with dedicated sacrifice it will help you get to your weight loss goals. Diets can help you lose weight, but you have to be careful. In some cases, they can also make it harder for you to keep the weight off. If you are considering a new diet, help keep the weight off by not ruining your metabolism.
There are four main reasons your metabolism can become wrecked during a diet. If you are not careful and ignore these, you may end up with pounds off your waist but not for long. Your body will not be able to keep the weight off.
Your metabolism is what makes your body use the food you eat to create energy, build tissue and dispose of wastes. Destroy the metabolism and your efforts in weight loss or weight control will be a never-ending struggle.
The first thing that will destroy a metabolism is on-and-off dieting. People call this yo-yo dieting. Jumping on and off the diet train confuses the body. When you drop and gain weight over and over it disrupts the hypothalamus, the weight set point, and the metabolism.
Your hypothalamus is in charge of maintaining homeostasis and controlling hormones. Your body maintains homeostasis by regulating your body and holding it steady in one place. Let’s take your body temperature for example. If you get hot, your body will start sweating to cool you down. It will try to “hold” your temperature at 98.6° F. This is all controlled by the hypothalamus.
Beyond just maintaining homeostasis, your hypothalamus controls your hormones. This control directly affects thirst, hunger, energy levels, behavior, sleep and overall metabolism. When you bounce your weight up and down, it disrupts your body’s ability to control and regulate your weight.
The second problem with many diets is that they don’t detoxify the body while losing weight. Harmful chemicals in our foods, products and air must be dealt with. Fat cells in our body are created to absorb and retain fat and toxins to further prevent harm to the body. This toxin accumulation in fat cells causes an increase in inflammation, leptin resistance (controls appetite), type 2 diabetes and further damage to the fat cells.
When you have too many toxins to process, your body will make new fat cells to store the toxins. This is a self-defense strategy to keep toxins out of circulation and away from major organs. This can cause you to not be able to lose weight no matter how much effort you put into it. Until you address the toxin levels in your body, you will continue to make new fat cells. The end result is no weight loss and utter frustration.
The third problem that affects your metabolism is a lack of cellular hydration. Most people that are overweight are also dehydrated. There is a direct correlation between high body fat, poor metabolism and hydration levels. In addition, every time we improve hydration levels a person’s metabolism improves. During your weight loss it is imperative to be monitoring your hydration levels at regular intervals. If your diet causes you to lose water, then it will have a catastrophic effect on your metabolism. Not only will you struggle to lose weight, but you will have difficulty maintaining any weight loss.
The last problem that will ruin your metabolism is utilizing a diet that strictly focuses on cutting calories. You have to think about your weight and health as a total package. In order to truly be successful at losing weight and keeping it off, then calorie restrictions will take place, but it has to be part of a bigger plan.
Diets that focus solely on restricting calories teach your body to live off fewer calories. If you’re not careful, your metabolism will slow down. The question then comes in – Once the diet phase is over and you start to add more calories back into your daily food regimen, what do you think happens? That’s right, since our bodies are used to living off less and our metabolism is slower, we will start to gain weight again. Instead of just a calorie-focused diet, you need a complete plan that will help you get healthy from the inside out.
When you choose to lose weight, utilize a health program that helps you lose weight the right way. Make sure your program focuses on detoxing your body, improving your cellular hydration and improving your metabolism. The last thing you want to do is destroy all the effort you have put out towards losing weight. When you finish your diet, you should know with absolute certainty that you have improved your metabolism not ruined it.
-by Brandon Crouch, D.C.
About the Author: For the past 17 years, Drs. Brandon and Chantelle Crouch have dedicated their lives to helping others restore and maintain their health in their thriving family chiropractic office – Crouch Family Chiropractic. Dr. Brandon and Dr. Chantelle offer revolutionary wellness and weight loss programs. Their programs are customized for each individual and are designed to help with weight loss, improve metabolic function, decrease toxicity and improve the overall health. www.CrouchFamilyChiro.com.
