Muscle, Fat and Metabolic Sabotage

Metabolic sabotage is the only way to describe what happens to the body goals of millions of determined dieters, fitness buffs and body builders.

The cause? Impatience and resort to quick-fix schemes that disregard how the human body acquires, uses and stores energy.

You don't need an advanced degree to understand and harness your metabolism. These simple guidelines will help you become a smart body manager.

1. Stop being a sucker for quick results.

Are you one of those people who looks at her body and sees only fat hips, a skinny torso or knobby knees? You have fallen into the western trap of seeing yourself as an assemblage of organs and body parts. Your body is a thoroughly integrated system. Failing to understand that makes you a sucker for promises of quick, effortless body changes. You might as well believe you can get water to flow uphill or turn lead into gold.

Anyone who thinks she can permanently lose more than 1 pound of fat per week or gain more than 1/2 pound of muscle per week is a sucker. The world abounds with suckers and people who profit from them.

Here's a sad but common example. A young woman wants to lose fat around her waist, hips and thighs while increasing her bust size and having more energy. She buys pills and supplements that promise to help her lose 10 pounds in a single weekend while boosting her IQ, bra-size and energy level. During that magical weekend she succeeds in draining several quarts of water from her body, to the cheers of her bathroom scale. By Monday, however, she feels jittery, weak and famished. By Friday, she has regained the lost water and another pound of fat to boot. She is now plagued by constant weakness and a craving to eat everything in sight. Those stimulants, diuretics and laxatives have drained her of vital nutrients, weakening or even damaging her heart, liver and muscles, while depleting the energy needed to sustain her usual mental and physical activities.


Another common example. A young man wants to bulk up his chest, shoulders and arms while reducing his body's fat content and boosting his energy level. He takes anabolic steroids and protein "supplements" and plunges headlong into a daily regimen of two hours of weightlifting. He is encouraged by the way his muscles are plumping up, not knowing that it is from temporary storage of glycogen, the precursor to fat. The illusion of success lasts just long enough to encourage him to keep taking the supplement until, a week later, he succumbs to a virus and barely has the energy to get out of bed. If he persists, he will eventually find that he has shrunken his testicles, stunted his growth, given himself man-breasts, weakened his heart and damaged his liver. Not to mention, made himself look grotesque and silly by tottering around on spindly legs with a puffed out torso.

Is it impossible to change your body? No, it's just stupid to expect quick changes through potions and wish fulfillment. Like all living things, your body is governed by strict biochemical processes. The first step to getting the body you really want is to stop being a sucker and accept the fact that there is no free ride. Every physical change is fueled by your metabolism. That must always be the starting point.

2. Build your metabolic capacity.

Permanent improvements to your body must be supported by increased metabolic activity. If you want to burn fat, build muscle cells and increase the rate at which your body turns nutrients into energy, you must first build your body's metabolic capacity. Otherwise, you will end up shortchanging one of your body's vital processes -- often the immune system and, in the case of young people, full growth potential. All your vital functions are powered by the same engine comprising the digestive, respiratory, circulatory and endocrine systems. Favor one at the expense of another, and you will only damage your health.

Boosting your body's metabolic capacity entails many physical changes. You must increase the number of red blood cells, expand lung capacity, expand and lengthen your blood vessels, improve digestive efficiency and increase the number, size and quality of the cells making up your various organs, including your muscles. There is no way this can be achieved in a few days. It takes a minimum of two or three weeks to significantly increase your metabolic capacity. It may take longer, depending on your overall health, conditioning and age.

Consider how elite mountain climbers prepare for challenges like Everest or K-2. They begin by climbing a long series of lesser peaks to build up their stamina, strength and overall metabolic capacity. Then they spend at least six weeks at a base camp at 14,000 feet to build red blood cells and expand lung capacity. They spend another week or two at 20,000 feet to further that process, before finally embarking on the summit attempt. Are these climbers being overly cautious? Hardly. They are as daring and impatient a group of risktakers as you will find. But generations of experience have taught them that it takes weeks to prepare their bodies for a new challenge.

Now, you may not be planning to climb Everest or trek across Antarctica but you would be wise to precede any new demands on your body with a gradual metabolic rampup. Before starting workouts to build strength or muscles, increase your metabolic capacity. Otherwise, any gain will be temporary and you will suffer illness, injury and diminished strength and vitality.

3. Optimize your eating schedule.

The easiest way to enhance metabolic capacity is to frontload your day's nutritional intake. Eat a full breakfast, a normal lunch and a normal dinner. This will produce two major benefits. First, you will have more energy during the period between mid morning and the late afternoon -- the most active hours for most people. Secondly, the big breakfast will keep your blood-sugar level up and trigger appetite-suppressing hormones. Consequently, you will eat less at lunch and dinner which, in turn, will free up metabolic capacity that was being wasted on digesting excess food and converting it to fat for storage.

4. Invest excess capacity into physical activity.

Once you change your eating habits, you will not only feel more productive during the day, but also more energetic in the evening. Invest this excess energy into raising your overall metabolic capacity through moderate aerobic activity. An easy way to start is with a 20-30 minute after-dinner stroll, bike ride, swim or the like. The impatient will feel tempted to exercise longer. Resist that urge. It will take you at least a week or two to get used to your new routine, no matter how easy or pleasant it may feel. After that, gradually increase the intensity and duration of each activity.

Your schedule permitting, gradually shift your exercise time forward. The goal should be to engage in your peak physical exertion somewhere between noon and late afternoon. This corresponds to your body's natural physical peak. Not only will this permit more strenuous and longer workouts, you will preserve your natural sleep cycles. Prolonged and strenuous workouts in the evening tend to shift sleep cycles back and create sleep disturbances that lower your energy level.

5. Get plenty of rest.

Fanatical types equate rest with sloth. Consequently, they end up running themselves into the ground until they become so weak they are forced into extended periods of inactivity and, even, sloth.

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Rest isn't an option, it's a necessity. If you are a professional person who puts in eight or more hours of solid work at the office, don't exercise longer than 60-75 minutes a day, 3 times a week. If you do, you may be hijacking metabolic capacity needed by your immune system, heart muscles, brain activity, blood cells or the body's multifarious hormonal functions. That's why some exercise addicts actually look older and more gaunt than their age.

If you spend more than 90 minutes, definitely give yourself a day of rest before your next workout. If you spend more than 150 minutes, give yourself at least two days of rest. Insufficient rest will also weaken muscles as well as your capacity to rebuild them, and lead to physical deterioration and injury.

6. Always warm up.

Impatience is the enemy of good workouts. It's counterproductive to do anything but gentle warmups for at least the first 12-15 minutes. Your body takes 35-45 minutes to warm up to its full physical capacity. You will typically see a 70-100% increase in physical strength and endurance between a cold start and a warmed up state. If you find yourself short of breath during the first 10-12 minutes, you're jumping the gun.

Start slowly and increase your exertion level very gradually, going from light (1-15 minutes) to moderate (16-30 minutes) to heavy (31-45 or 50 minutes). It's also a good idea to spend 5-10 minutes gradually cooling down. These precautions prevent undue strain on your heart and muscles while letting you get in a more strenuous workout without feeling exhausted when you're done. Jumping off to a strenuous start will get you prematurely winded and prevent a vigorous workout.

Always end your workout when you are still feeling energetic. If you keep going until you are exhausted, you have overtrained and have compromised your productivity and immune system.

7. Vary your routines.

The body and mind are two sides of the same inextricably intertwined creation. Repeating the same workout routine leads to boredom. A bored, disengaged mind is less effective in stimulating the metabolic processes that produce new cells. To keep your mind focused and your body energized at peak efficiency, rotate among a variety of activities and routines. The more variety, the more ways your body will grow.

8. Listen to your body.

Stay sensitive to the many signals your body sends to let you know how hard it wants to be pushed. There is a lot of variation from day to day, and physical progress is rarely linear. It will usually be more like two steps forward and one step back. Over time you will become atuned to your body's rhythms and get good at choosing the right activity, duration and exertion to make the most of the metabolic capacity available on any given day.