Episode 74: Can You Slow Down Your Metabolism?

Season 5

Nov 9

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Episode Description

In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah discuss the hot topic of metabolism. You’ve probably heard that metabolism slows down as we age and how there are supplements and products to help “boost your metabolism” to avoid this. The girls dive into if you can slow down your metabolism and how dieting (specifically years of it) can affect your metabolism.

Participant #1:
I'm Emily. And I'm Hannah. We are best friends and dietitians. We have a goal of challenging nutrition misinformation and fitness trends with an evidence-based approach episode. We will dish up our thoughts about the latest facts on a popular health related topic. Where are the Up-Beet Dietitians!

Participant #1:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the Up-Beet Dietitians podcast. Hello everyone. Today we are going to bring you a very exciting topic of the question of can you slow down your metabolism? And then also going with that, just the effects of dieting on metabolism. Pretty common question, especially because you might have heard or you probably definitely heard some type of program or some type of person online or wherever it is talk about how something boosts your metabolism or this food boost your metabolism. Or eat this food to get you into a fat burning state. Or don't skip meals or you're going to starvation mode. And we're going to just kind of chat a lot about metabolism, like I said, talk about how the dieting affects it and then like some nutrition tips from us. And this is something that is a little bit more tricky to grasp. This will be definitely a little bit more of a scientific episode from US, which we love that. And the reason we want to discuss it especially is just because so much in the weight loss marketing world, metabolism is oftentimes a target of whether it's like boosting metabolism or change your metabolism or whatever it is. So yes, let's get into it. I've got a lot to say. I love this topic, so I'm like really jazzed right now. So let's first start by defining what metabolism really is. I feel like we don't know what that is unless you, like, are told what it is or you look it up. Before I became a dietitian, I didn't really know what that was. I would just people say, like, I have a slow metabolism or I have a fast metabolism, but I didn't actually know what that was. So to define it, your metabolism is the chemical processes that occur within yourself, within a living organism in order to maintain life. So more, I guess specifically, it is the process by which your body converts what you eat and drink into energy. So it's basically like calories and calories out. But of course we know there's a ton of nuanced stuff. It's not just like calories and calories out is what dictates our health, but that is the equation that defines our metabolism. So to break that down even further, the calories we expend, or what you might think of as your metabolism is your TDEE, your total daily energy expenditure, and this is an accumulation of your BMR, your Neat, your EAP and TF. So I want to break all of these down and then in the future in this episode, we're going to talk about how dieting can play a role in every single one of these different factors. So first one is BMR. That is your basal metabolic rate. You may have heard of that one before. This is the one that makes up the biggest chunk of our total daily calorie expenditure. And by the way, we're going to kind of use the terms calorie and energy interchangeably today because calories are our body's form of energy. So BMR is the calories you burn at rest. I always say even if you like laid in bed and did literally nothing, like not even eat, like you just like sat there and existed, your body would need at least those calories of that BMR. I shared a post on Instagram that was like two days ago that said something like, even if you did nothing, you would still need like a ton of calories. So those four to calorie a day diets are like total bull crap because you need way more than that even just to exist. Yes. Do not do that to your body and go below that. Your organs will thank you for eating at least your BMR on a regular basis. Yeah, so that's the first part. We also have Neat, which is nonexercise activity thermogenesis. Oh, I didn't say BMR. It makes about 60 to our total daily energy expenditure and then meets Neat makes about 20% to 30%. So also a really big chunk of our calories burned. So this is all the activity that our body does besides actual intentional exercise. So like when you fidget or you tap your foot or when you're brushing your teeth, the calories you burn, like using your arm to brush your teeth, that's like a big chunk of our calories. So really, people who don't want to get too big of a tangent here, but people who say that exercise is like the biggest indicator of like how you should be like we should focus on to lose weight are often not well informed because exercise is great for a billion reasons. But as I'll get to it only makes up about 10% of our total calories burns, whereas need is a much bigger chunk. Yeah, it's not as simple as that. Calories in, calories out. With that exercise factor. There's other stuff going on there. Yeah, exactly. And like our Neat can be so variable from person to person, it should all be variable. But Neat for this topic of discussion, day today, day to day changes a lot. Exactly. Which is why, like, when my fitness pal tells you your calorie needs are this every single day. Yeah, exactly. There's no way that can be accurate. So we got BMR, we've got meats, we also have each EAP, which is exercise piece. So exercise activity thermogenesis. Like I said, it's about ten to 15% of our total daily energy expenditure. And that can vary so drastically. It could be way less or way more if you are someone who is super duper active, like a football player who is an NFL are probably going to have a lot more calories burned from eat versus, like, some lady in their 70s who doesn't really do a whole lot besides, like, reading Nits. They like, they're going to have a pretty low eat, so that one can be pretty variable. And then our last one, PF, is the thermic effect of food. So when you eat, your body actually uses and burns calories just from eating it is a small amount. So those who say, like, eat lots of protein to boost your metabolism, like, it technically does a tiny, tiny bit, but there's bigger, more important things to focus on than trying to increase your TEF. Yes. It's such a small percentage that, like, eating in general will just also naturally boost your metabolism. So actually looking at the composition of it might not be as beneficial as you think. Yeah, and like I kind of already said, it's all an estimation. So this is why you can't just tell someone to be in a calorie deficit without giving any other takeaway, like actionable things to do, because what is a calorie deficit for that person today? Like, we can never really know unless we're putting them in this chamber and truly testing their metabolic rate every day. Yeah, and there's also a ton of discrepancies for our intake and our output. So those who, like, use their calorie counting app, like this Bible that they have to abide by is pretty silly because in terms of our intake excuse me, what a food label says can be off by up to, like, 20%. That's crazy. Yeah. So you could think you're eating 100 calories, but eating like, 120 or 80 or 80, which in the grand scheme of things, who the heck cares? But when you're someone who's, like, obsessed with counting calories, it's a big difference. I think that is one of the biggest things. It's just like, it's not as easy as calories and calories out. There's a lot going into it. Food labels aren't always accurate, and then the best way to determine it is if we put them in a chamber, but no one has the time or money for that or resources for that. No one just has I don't access to a calorie measuring chamber. I don't even know where we'd go besides maybe a university or like an intensive training, like Olympic level, maybe NFL level training, maybe. I don't even know if they would have definitely a research lab, but getting access to that? No, absolutely not. They're so expensive. It takes a while. I'm like, who cares? Yeah, you don't need to know that every single day. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so along with our intake, we do also have output discrepancies as well, which I want to breeze through. So more reasons why we shouldn't obsess over calories burned, which we discussed briefly in our Apple Watch episode recently. My favorite section, if there was one section of this entire episode. Take it away. What are your thoughts? I'm just going to hype you up, but I'll take on outro music. Okay. Highly dependent on genetics and age and weight. This is why we're not in. Please don't skip. Don't skip. Stay here. We promise. Okay. There are a lot of discrepancies on the output. The calories we burn, it's highly dependent on genetics and age and gender. Our weights a bigger body burns more calories than a smaller body. Hormones and any kind of, like, hormone disregulation with, like, disease, like hypothyroidism, menopause, birth control. There's a lot going on there. There's a lot going on. Stress. I wish everyone understood how much stress affects their body. We should probably do an episode about this. We always talk about it. It is crazy how much stress affects your body. Not only from, like, a weight standpoint, but that's always one of the biggest cups that everyone cares about. But stress is no way to we say this so much. It affects so much and inhibits so much as well and puts your body into those higher cortisol levels and these other factors. This is my favorite part because it's not just food and exercise. And even if people are like, oh, yeah, your weight too. There's a genetic component. It's just huge. The age, hormones, sleep. You got to be sleeping well if your sleep's all a lot of things are going to be off as well. And then your body composition, like your distribution of whether you have more, like, muscular mass compared to I don't know what the average person I could tell you I know fats, I don't really need to know. But like, that kind of comparison, like someone who might be a little bit lower body fat compared to someone else, that also plays a huge part. So there's so much that goes into metabolism, especially these different outputs that we're using to measure. It's just not something that and it might cause you stress to hear that too. It's like, oh, my gosh, there are all these things I can't control. That's okay. Your body is wonderful. It's doing its best. Yes. I always say it's kind of a good thing that it's handling all that and we don't have to worry about it. It's like, out of our hands. Our bodies aren't these fragile ecosystems where if we don't get the exact right number of calories in versus out, then we're going to just, like, crumble into the ground and turn into dust. No, we would probably be extinct by then. Yeah. By now. Your body can handle if you go over under calorie needs once in a while, and you will, you're never going to be exactly at your TDEE. That'd be crazy. At least not, like, on a regular basis. Yeah. And it'd be hard to even know because of the discrepancies and food labels and whatnot only your body knows what your actual energy expenditure versus in tickets. And we should thank you for that because it's doing it working hard. Yeah. And it gives you signals. Like, we kind of get to like, when we're hungry. That's our body's way. Like, we get signals when we're hungry. That's our body's way of saying it needs more calories. When we're satisfied, it means that we can stop eating and then it will repeat. When it needs more energy, like our body, it's handling it. You can back off, focus on other things like managing your stress and getting enough sleep and meal planning so you can eat enough, like all those things. Yeah. And especially if you're stressed about even gauging. Those hunger and fullness cues, they might be like have been disrupted and affected by dieting, too. So if you can't trust them, luckily, we have lots of resources. So definitely I don't think I have a blog post on this, but we definitely talk about our course. So check out our course where you can go a little bit more into that. But your body, when it came out, when you came out of the womb, I'm like, we might you can't just say womb and then stop talking. I like, stock. I was like, we all come out of the womb, right? Yeah. That's just the term for like, the uterus. Is that the womb? I feel more like because surrogates, you come out with someone else, but you're always coming out. Where are you going with this? Does not matter right now anyway. When you were born, existed, bornbody, knew, knows what it's doing. It might be a matter of just regaining that trust with it, but yeah, from a metabolism standpoint, we're good. Let's take a look at other things we can control, like sleep. Are you managing your stress? Are you actually managing your stress? Don't just say you are. Let me ask you again. Let's think about this. It's going to reflection period. But nevertheless, the only other thing we really want to hit with what metabolism is just like how we talk about way back when with the different types of foods, the effect food changes depending on the macronutrient distribution. And it's not enough to really stress over from that standpoint of changing your metabolism. And then obviously, people with different physical activity levels will burn different amounts of calories and also different size people. If Emily and I did the exact same workout, we would burn different amounts of calories because our bodies are different. Which is why we always say it's very cliche. Everyone always says this. Who's in this space but you can't eat and work out the exact same as someone I think you look like them because of all these different things we've already talked about. Yes. So those what I eat in a day can be helpful for inspiration, but recipe. Inspiration, but yeah, recipe. Not body inspo. No, but don't stress yourself out. I have to eat exactly like them to look like them. There's definitely a genetic component. There's definitely, like, maybe they're managing stress better than you. Maybe they're sleeping more. Maybe they just have more time to, like, put into physical activity. Emily is doing the Gen Z, like, hand thing. I can't even do it right because I'm an old Gen Z. I think we're the linens. Yeah. Because there's definitely some Gensi I can't compute. But then there's also some millennials. I'm like, I do not like that either. Yeah. Or millennials happy middle, which I like. I'm glad. A mixture of both. Yeah. I selfishly want to say that we're the good parts of both. I was literally thinking that in my house, it's like, well, we have all the benefits. I'm a bad guy. No flaws with either of that. I was thinking of, like, the TikTok of the millennials making fun of millennials. They're like, I just did a thing. I don't think neither of us are like that at all. I think my most millennial thing, which in my mind is not even that you decide is, like, being, like, a Harry Potter fan. Yeah. Very millennial. A very millennial thing. But also I grew up with those, so yeah, I'm not going to, like, let me like my house. Let me like my house. Yeah. And we're fine. They have their I know Percy Jackson is coming up, but also I read Percy Jackson. It's a weird middle, but that's, like, my biggest millennial trait I think I found here. I haven't read Harry Potter. Right. I think everyone knows that. I don't know this. If it sounds stupid, that's fine. If you judge me with the Harry Potter houses, can you look at someone and know what house they would be? Would you be able to classify me as one? I would probably say you're hungry puff. You give very much humble Puff five. I don't know if that means I've heard that before. I think it's like, you're very, like, Hufflepuff previously is, like, the nice house. The nicest house that's good. Where they're, like, very fair and honestly, like, Enneagram Nine vibes. Definitely. I classify Enneagram a lot more. Yes. Okay. Which is so interesting that I don't know what my thing is. I feel like I classify a lot like Virgo. That's my thing. I'm like astrology. I don't know either. I know I'm a Capricorn, but I don't know what that means. Oh, my gosh. Wait. I think Capricorns work a lot. I think that's, like, their thing. Well, that's fitting. That's I think the only thing I heard about Capricorn. But that's very much you aren't there, like, something's rising. Something's falling. I know. The dust. I don't know all those, but there's definitely, like, subcategories, which I'm like. What's a Virgo main trait that you classify? Very, like, type A and organized and get stuff done. Yeah, I can see that. Funny enough, Bobby and I are both Virgos, but we are, like, very different people. Yeah, I think that's true for any of these kind of things. Like Enneagrams. Yeah, we got everyone in the month. There's a savings. That would be kind of scary. That would be scary. I need someone who's listening, who knows, like, astrology in and out. So let me know what someone else identify Hannah as a house, because I think you're a house. I need someone to let me know what me and Ross relationship is going to be like as a Capricorn. Ross is May 18. I think that's a Taurus. Taurus. Taurus. I don't know much about those. I need someone who knows to let me know if we're doing someone. I have full confidence, but what do the stars say about it? Please let us know. Yes, we know that two Taurus is actually what do we know about that? I don't know. Let us know. Not Torres. Virgos. We're making it work. Yeah. Who cares what the stars say? We're going to be fine. Okay. Yeah, but it's fun. It's kind of fun to like I like this kind of stuff. I love you belong and there are people like you. I think it's fun. That's why I feel like the houses are fine. Have you done the disk analysis? Usually like a corporate thing. No, I've done the what was it called? I'm in ENF J. Oh, I don't know what that one is, but I've heard of it. I don't know what it would be or what that means. Myersbreaks. That's what it is. Yes, I've done that one, which I don't know how much I really think about that one. Yeah, I think my favorite is Enneagram. I think that one is the most I resonate with. What are you any of grammar. You've talked about this. And then I found out some other people we know are agents. And I'm like, interesting. Yeah, we're the same. I just assume I'm the same as people. Not a good assumption. Okay. I don't know how we got here. I don't know how we got here. That's okay. Let's go back to metabolism. We know that I'm Hufflepuff enneagram. Enneagram. Enneagram. I say enneagram. Enneagram nine hufflepuff. Hufflepuff zillennial capricorn. What does that mean? Someone analyze Anna right now. I need a therapist to chime in on this who actually understands all these things. They'll probably break down. Like, why do you want to label yourself? Yeah, let's unpack your unpacking.

Participant #1:
Okay. Let's talk about what can decrease the metabolic rate, what you guys are here for. You know, metabolism is by now, can we slow it down? And, like, how and why and what's the deeps with that? What's the sinch? So first and foremost, let's talk about dieting, because this is oftentimes where we see those boosting metabolism claims in the dieting space. So little do people know is dieting actually can decrease your metabolism and slow it down, which is probably not what you want to hear from. Let's break it down from the different categories of metabolism Hannah talked about before. So BMR basal metabolic rate decreases when we diet and lose weight because there's just less body mass requiring energy. Your body is like, we don't need we don't need as much to keep everything running. Let's lower those energy needs and less fat and less muscle mass, less calories needed, less and less equal. Right there. Straightforward. Wow, you're a mathematician.

Participant #1:
There we go. She just gets it. This is what gets a little trickier. Muscle mass is more metabolically active, which you probably heard. This is like muscle mass burns more calories than like, that mass. So, like, we got more muscle mass, less, we're still going to need less, but maybe it won't be as less, but not as less than math. It's crazy. But essentially the biggest problem with dieting, really, with this is like, if you're yoyo dieting and you're losing a lot of weight at once and then gaining a lot of weight, but that huge loss in weight almost I don't say almost always, oftentimes can lead to a lot of loss of muscle mass as well, which influences BMR. I would say maybe a little bit more than adipose tissue just because it's a little bit more metabolically active. So that rapid weight loss might not spare your muscle and will lead to a decrease in BMR. Yes, the math is math. The math is math. And the mathematician has really laid it out for us. So very emily the mathematician called me, which is funny because you actually do love math. I actually do love math. But there were no numbers involved. There was one equal sign. And Emily all of a sudden took the role of mathematician, went off the rails. Oh, man. Okay, so that's BMR. As for meat and eats, our exercise and non exercise activity, thermogenesis these will also decrease when we diet and lose weight because the body simply will require less energy to move your body. So generally when you lose weight, your body will burn less calories when it's active. So like I said, let's use like, I guess numbers. If I weighed £200, but then I lost 50 and weighed 150, I'd be burning less calories at £150. But I exercise because I just have less body mass along with that. When we diet, because we are eating oftentimes so little and we're so restrictive and we're feeling burnt out from the diet, you might also just simply experience less drive to exercise. And that of course, will mean that your eat decreases because you're just doing lift activity, because you are rebelling against it, because you hate it, because you are on a diet and it affects the life. Audio yeah, your metabolism stays the same. It changes a lot. I don't know if I want to say it's pretty influenced, but it kind of is pretty easily influenced by a lot of contributing factors and like all these changes we mentioned. It's not like, say, like that weight loss example. I went from like 200 to 150. Like, my energy needs not going to decrease by like 2000. We're talking like big numbers here. But it can play a role. And like we said earlier, too, like, hunger and fullness are also going to be playing a role. Our psychology around food is going to be playing a giant role. I think it's even more notable. Like, not only is our metabolism slowing down, but we're also becoming obsessed with food, preoccupied with food. My experience binge eating development, eating disorder. So these things are also an exciting network along with all of these metabolic changes as well. One piece of the puzzle. Exactly. That last thing we'll know is that the thermic effect of food thermogenic effect, thermic effect, yeah. We'll also decrease just because we're eating less. So, like, your body doesn't need to burn as many calories because there's just less food to consume. Exactly. Bottom line, all of this will decrease, like we said. And if it does drastically increase as we'll get to actually more in the next section here with the more drastic metabolic changes, but in general, with weight loss, everything will decrease. And with that, you'll have to eat less to maintain that weight loss. And you can only eat less for so long before you get burnt out and you just gain all the way back. Yeah. And it's not really that cycling of weight that messes with metabolism a lot because it's just kind of like flying between wide ranges of weight and your body is constantly trying to maintain homeostasis and it kind of freaks out when we're putting it through large changes like that. And your metabolism oftentimes will just come stunted and then constantly trying to adjust. And that's why oftentimes people gain the weight back. And there's studies that show that this crazy weight cycling is worse for cardiovascular health and things like that than just being at a heavier weight at a higher BMI. It is better for your health to be at a heavier BMI, which we know is garbage, a heavier weight in general than to have these ups and downs and constantly putting your body through the ringer. Yeah. Okay, this next one I know is very controversial, so I'm very excited about this one. So our next topic, speaking of, like, decreasing metabolic rate, is the term of starvation mode, which gets thrown around a lot as well. So a question might be asking that we're going to answer is, is starvation mode a real thing? Can you break your metabolism? And the answer is, it depends, which I know everyone hates that answer, but basically starvation mode is just an incorrect name for what's actually known as adaptive thermogenesis or metabolic adaptation, which is imagine if we whip that up. Oh, yeah, you're going to adaptive thermogenesis. And that's why everyone always says starvation mode. But basically what we're talking about here is the more extreme version of what we just described. So like we said, all of this, like the BMR, the meats, the TDF, all going down, that's a natural response to just weighing less and eating less. But it can get to an extreme where we do experience this adaptive thermogenesis. Yes. And this is when your body is not trying to punish you or anything. It quite literally thinks, oh my gosh, we're not going to have access to food or we're losing access to food. It's going to slow down our metabolism. So it can hold on because your body doesn't know what your intentions are, knows what's going on, but the brain doesn't, can only control so much, can be like, hey, Excel, here's the deal. Do not use those calories more efficiently. We're just trying to lose weight to get healthy. Everything is the four one. One. Your body does not know that it thinks that you're losing access to food slows down your metabolism. And that's often times where it's not as simple as a calorie deficit because so many times there have been recommendations for like 1200 calorie programs for someone who like, doesn't have anything chronically going on disease wise, didn't go through any type of surgeries or anything that would require a restriction in calories like that. But it's more so the means of like, let's just really short them of calories and go under the BMR. And that's why it doesn't even always work too. You're not providing a sufficient amount just to keep the day going. So it's not even a calorie at that point. It's like your body is going into it's like starving. Literally. It is starvation mode, but the term is just not quite yeah, legit. And legit also is an illegit word. Yeah. And also your stress levels, this is something I talk about is like when you go into the state, your stress levels increase so much. Maybe not your external stress. I assume you're probably a little bit stressed if you're cleaning so much food from your body, but your internal stress levels go up because it thinks it's trying to survive. Yeah. It's like freaking out. Yeah. Your body is literally not sure if you are doing this to lose weight, to quote unquote, get healthy, or if you are like stranded in a forest with inadequate nutrition. Yes. Your body just knows that it's hungry. And so what it does is this metabolic rate slows down and it becomes more efficient. So every calorie you eat, it's able to do more with one calorie. And so then at that point, your body is requiring less calories because it's adapting to protect you. It's not working against you. But because of that, weight gain often results because your metabolism has slowed down so much, you can't maintain that low intake for very long. So the example I want to give here is if you had $5 up in your. Bank account, you are going to use this $5 much more efficiently and not spend this money on a new Coach bag and other expensive things. So it's kind of similar in a lot different of ways, but same analogy to how your body is going to utilize calories when you aren't eating enough, your body is going to, like, make those calories stretch out. Like, that $5 you're going to make stretch out to do a lot more than if you knew you had a lot more than $5 to spend.

Participant #1:
So again, this is a much more extreme version. We're not saying that every time you eat below your body's needs that you're going into starvation mode or adaptive thermogenesis, but this can be a consequence of extreme dieting, which we know is very common, unfortunately. So it definitely could be happening to some people. I just want to say one last thing with skipping meals. So this one's pretty controversial too. So people will say things like skipping meals or intermittent fasting will slow down your metabolism and, like, lead to this adaptive thermogenesis because you're not eating consistently. Or the flip side, people will say that you have to eat six small meals a day to boost your metabolism. That's not really a thing. It's not really a thing. So it may not be an effective weight loss strategy if that's your goal, which I'm guessing it is if you are thinking about these kind of things. And that's because a lot of it is restrictive nature, that's what's going to lead to the issues. Not like not the nature of intermittent fasting, but the fact that you are restricting so much that you eventually are going to end up binging during your eating period. That's more likely why you're not able to maintain that approach. Yeah. And oftentimes with the six meals a day might not even be a matter of, like, the six meals, but like, more like, are you eating frequently enough like that standpoint and then the skipping meals like that can affect your body.

Participant #1:
It's not like one or the other. You're suddenly in starvation mode. But it's not uncommon that people who consistently, severely restrict could be adding that extra stress onto their money. Yeah, something to be aware of. Hence why we're not really super big fans of restriction. No, I'd say we are absolutely not fans. Let's the option of a fan like a protester. I think we are diet protesters. Yeah. Diet protesters. Yeah. We've got our little signs. We're going out there, right? All right, so now you're probably like, okay, great. Emily and Hannah, now you told me that my metabolism can be decreased. Is there even anything I can do to increase it? We are glad you asked. I think we always get to this part. And I'm like, yes, finally some solutions. Let's talk about it. So first and foremost, there's something called reverse dieting. We're actually going to have an upcoming episode on it and go a lot more in depth into it. But this is slowly essentially like, long story short, increasing calories slowly up toward our BMI. BM. BMI. We are not using BMI. You know what I mean? What would I be doing? It's not making any sense. Increased calories to BMI. I don't know how that would work anyway. Yeah, I don't even know I'm not going to try to break that down. Nonsensical. No. But it's kind of like increasing calories towards your BMR to not like freak out your body in any way. Kind of like conflicting research on this. If you were to do this though, definitely seek out a dietitian. Like, first and foremost, there are some conditions that someone might be at risk of with this. For example, like refeeding syndrome. This is really common with individuals with an eating disorder history. They're a little bit more at risk of this. This is something that, especially with the history of disordered eating, could also be something to be wary about. But that's why supervision of a dietitian would be good for this. Something that might increase metabolic rates. Yes. If you have any history of sort of eating eating disorder, it may not be a good approach because it is very numbers focused still. It's like how many calories per day to the nose and what is your weight reacting to that. So it's often used in bodybuilding. They're the ones who really utilize reverse dieting because they do restrict so much and then their goal is to get their BMR back up by slowly increasing calories. And they're like watching them run the scale very closely the whole time and oftentimes are also assessing their body composition to make sure that it's like mostly muscle they're gaining and not a lot of body fat. So it's not something that just like, you should try to do on your own, nor do you need to. Again, our audience probably isn't a whole lot of bodybuilders and athletes, probably just people who just want to like, be free from diets and like some cake once in a while. And you don't need to do reverse dieting to do any of those things. No. So that is one way to increase metallic rate, but not the only way for the next one, of course, is to stop dieting. You guys had this coming because as we have discussed, these diets and just not eating enough can lead to a decreased metabolic rate, can lead to adaptive thermogenesis, not to mention all those psychological changes that can lead to preoccupation with food. And in my opinion, this is even more important and a bigger reason why diets don't work than just the physiological reasons. But speaking of physiological reasons, we mentioned like metabolism changes, but there are also different hormonal changes that occur when we go on a diet, including the levels of ghrelin and leptin, which I won't bore you to that too much, but ghrelin is our hunger hormone. I always think, like gur, like your belly is growling at you. So our hunger hormone can increase when we restrict calories, making us even hungrier. Which can explain why if you go on a diet, not only are there psychological reasons for you feeling hungry and having more cravings, but also the growing is likely increasing as well, because your body is trying to protect you. It's like giving you the urgency of hunger because you're not eating enough. It's like telling you, like, eat something. Here's the signal to make you go eat something. And then leptin. Leptin is, they say, tidy hormone. I don't have a fun way to remember this. I just know the opposite of girl in, basically. And essentially this is the one that works a lot with appetite in your brain. Kind of let you know we're good, we're full. And this one is oftentimes decreased during weight loss. So that way you're not able to really tell if you're full, which oftentimes that affects like fullness cues in the long run, not even just during dieting. And that also makes it a little bit harder when you might be trying to restrict yourself, but you're like, oh my gosh, I still feel hungry. I don't feel satisfied with anything. Something's wrong. And your body is letting you know that for a reason. It's not trying to mess with your appetite or mess with your metabolism. It's just like, whoa, there's a lot less food going on here. We're not getting enough, essentially. Hence why also growing is probably increasing too, so we got to eat more. So if you've noticed those fluctuations in hunger, whether you're dining right now or have a history of crime dieting, or in a different part of the cycle that could be, why is that satay hormones just not acting like he normally does? Yeah, I can't say it enough. Like, it's not your body trying to sabotage you, it's your body trying to protect you in various ways. There's so many mechanisms that happen when your body doesn't get what it needs and it's going to try its best to make sure you do get what it needs. But because you think that eating as little as possible is what you actually need, it can feel like your body is like sabotaging you, but it's actually not. Yes. And then along with not dieting and eating enough, our very last one I kind of already mentioned a little bit, but incorporating some variation of weight training could be very helpful. We discussed this a billion times on here in this podcast in general. But when we increase or incorporate some version of weight training, that can help us to increase our muscle mass or if someone is trying to lose weight, or if they just are losing weight, hopefully it can help them. Spare muscle mass if not even build more because then we'll be able to maintain, hopefully a higher metabolic rate as muscle mass is more metabolically active than adipose tissue or fat mass. Trainer Me wants to say is to apply progressive overload. So, you know, you can't just, like, do five pound bicep curls for 30 years and think you're going to be building muscle that way. It's great that you're moving, but like progressive overload, you got to go to the ten pound dumbbells and then the 15, and then, you know, get different reps and sets dumbbells the dumbbells. I don't think I've heard progressive overload in years. How about all the time? I've never said that, but why would I say that? That's true. I'm out here, like, do cardio resistance training. Yeah, seek out a trainer for more specifics. I rarely get to because demographic, I mean, I just don't get to talk about exercise a whole lot, but when I do get to, I love talking about some progressive overload. Bottom line, your metabolism is not broken, does not be fixed or boosted. Only case I can note that it might be it would probably be affected is like eating disorders. But that's the case where they're definitely going to be working with the dietitian, so that's not something they'd be on their own for. Yeah, exactly. Your metabolism, rather, is not broken. It's just adaptive, which isn't a bad thing. No, it's adjusting to all those different things we talked about. There's a lot that goes into it, and it's very smart and it's doing the best it can. I was, like, thinking of an analogy. For some reason, all I could think of was, like, how our eyes can adjust to, like, dark light or light light. I can't think of a better analogy. But your body has a lot of compensatory mechanisms. Yes. You know, my eyes are like, where my brain went, so that was so stupid interesting. I have no thoughts. There's not one analogy coming to my mind right now. So we're going to go with eyes. Emily's brain is not compensated by giving her an idea. Nope, that's okay. Math mode. That equal sign really threw us for a loop today. Yeah. Okay, bonus question time. Unrelated to the topic in any way, where do you put the cheese on a cheeseburger? If you're making it yourself at home or if you're at a restaurant, like, where would you like them to put it out? And I have a part two question, but I thought we could save for another bonus question, and that is like, what's the best cheese on a cheeseburger? I feel like we're going to fight about this one. Or the type of cheese. Yeah, we're going to fight about this one. Okay, what's your answer? I would put the cheese in this package and leave it there. What? You like a cheeseburger? I hate cheese. Oh, you like your melty cheese. Gosh dang it. Here we go. I put it back in the fridge. I was like, Where's she going with this? No, keep it in the store for someone else. For me, give me like four slices of cheese on a birdie on my cheese. That's why I put it. Do you like pickles? I love pickles. Okay. I was just thinking if we went out to eat, I would get your pickles and your cheese. What all would I love? Pickles. I eat other pickles. Pickles. It's just the melted cheese. I don't know. I didn't think about that before I put the stupid question on here. I should have thought about that. But if I were to have an opinion, it would definitely not be on the bun. It'd be like connected to the meat. Even though I've never seen that. Oh, you're saying it was like patty, vegetables, Ben cheese. You would never do that. No. Yeah, me neither. I know you hate this, but it has to melt on the meat. Yeah. I feel like that's the best place for it to be. Like go ahead, go ahead. I was thinking were you thinking like, under? I was going to say, would you care if it was like under or above the patty? Honestly, I probably want it above so I wouldn't taste it as much. OK, you're disqualified for this question. I'm canceling you. The news are out. I don't like cheese or cheese on anything. You're going to hate me for this. Oh, no. Where was I? I was eating with Bobby's. Oh, no. This is like no, what was I eating? Oh, I got my first McGriddle. Oh, you never had a McGriddle? No. Oh, my gosh, I love it. It was so good. It's so good. Like the syrup. I was like it was so fluffy and like I've been missing out. I was eating a McGriddle and I was peeling I was using the rapper to peel the cheese. Oh, I don't like cheese on literally melted cheese on anything except for like nachos or something. Like queso. I think that's different. Different texture. I can see that. I don't like when it's like it's like a dip. Yeah. All right, tell me your answer because I'm just upset. That sucks. Over. No, but if I had seen you take a bite off the Mcgredo, I probably would have just had to walk away. Bobby was giving me some look. Okay, good. Thank you, Bobby. You can't let for me it doesn't have to be on the patty. I agree with that. I love cheese in general, but I love melted cheese on things, so I always want it to be melting on the burger if I make them at home. I do try to put the cheese on the burger while it's still cooking. So it does get nice and melty. Yeah, and I agree with it. Under. Also. If you put it under, would it be bun, then cheese, then patty, and then other toppings bun than cheese? I guess. Or else would it go a bit longer? You could do, like, bun, lettuce, tomato, cheese. Whoa. It's wild. But normally you put on the burger first, so it's definitely going to hit a bun. I don't know. I've seen places do, like, bun and sauce, then patio cheese. Yeah, like sauce on the bottom. Or like, bacon. If it's a bacon burger, they'll do bun. Bacon and patty. I've seen that. I don't know. I've been different. I don't think I would care if it was under the patty or on top of the patty, as long as it's on there. On the patty, we have someone who doesn't want it, or we have someone that does not care. The answer was pointless. Today is I will put my slice under and then your slice can go on top of your yeah, then we won't have to decide. It's going to, like, encase the whole patty. It's like an orange patty. It's like, racking so good. I didn't think about this. I should have known. I'm embarrassed when I saw the question, I was like, uh oh, there's a fight of brewing. We'll keep it in for the entertainment value. Yes. I'm sure you guys love hearing us bicker about melted cheese. Okay, well, I'll just give you my cheese. When we ever order out together, I'll be like, I don't want cheese, but can you put it on? Put it on. My friend's burger some looks extra pickles. Do you like bread and butter or dill? That could be a bonus question, too. Dill pickles. Bread and butter pickles. What have you heard of those? I've always heard of dill. Wait, what are bread and butter? The sweet ones never had sweet pickles. I thought they were just called sweet pickles. No, I call them bread and butter pickles. They're sweet. It's like an Indiana thing. Are you googling it? Yeah, they just look like normal pickles. But you add they're sweeter. They added chutney jalapeno. Okay. Next time you go to the grocery store, you need to get I guess I'm not really looking at the labels. Have you had them, though, like, eating them? They're like the flat ones. Well, they could also be, like, in sticks, but yeah, they're usually flat. I think I ate dill pickles. There's also flat dill pickles, though. Like, the ones you get on a burger are usually flat. Like the disks. Are those dill or are those bread and butter? It can be either. If they taste like a dill pickle, they're dill. If they taste sweet, they're bread and butter. Sauce and I are divided household. We have both at our house because Ross likes dill and I like bread and butter. We have both at my house. So when you come over, I guess we're doing no idea. I have no idea what I'm eating. I think it's dill. They're probably dill. Dill is way more popular. Dill is like, more sour and salty. Yeah, you're eating dill. Have I had a sweet bread and butter pickles. I thought everyone knew what those were. This is so cool. Now I'm going to ask everybody what to do a poll. I really want to know. Like, yeah, I might do it right now on Instagram. We should start posting our polls on Instagram. I know. We're just so bad about Ted's Instagram because you guys know our beef with Instagram. We relearned that Emily hates melted cheese, and we learned that the pickles that I love are not a universal thing. Maybe I just don't have expansive pickle knowledge. Even though I'd be kind of embarrassed because I'm kind of like a pickle lover. This is not great for my pickle ego. This could get weird. Have you heard, like, a spicy pickle? I think so, yeah. So you've had the spicy ones without the fresh butter. Okay. I feel like I've had a bread and butter pickle, but someone described it as a sweet pickle. Yeah, I've had bread and butter. That's so funny. I don't know why it's called that. I literally thought you were asking me if I have bread and butter, and I was like, who serves pickles as an apple? Bread, butter and pickles.

Participant #1:
Wow. I don't know how well I go over. People don't like pickles. Yeah, it's very controversial in general, which is good for us. Yeah, more for us. But it stinks that we're together because none of us get extra pickles. You'll get extra cheese, though. That's true. I'll take it. So thanks for tuning in about our metabolism episode. I don't really think we linked any other episodes, so that leaves me with nothing else to do besides checking out our course. That is our call to action today. And then also other call to action is giving your body a break about its metabolism. Delete, my fitness pal. Yes, that is our call to action. Do you like grilled cheese? I actually ate a grilled cheese yesterday. Okay, you got to give me slack for this question and not immediately know. I don't like when it stretches, so it has to be a perfect level of melting. Yeah. So it's still kind of firm. That's so weird. I don't like to make choices or it's melted so much. Like, there's barely anything. There's mostly bread and a little bit of cheese. Not a grilled cheese. I had a grilled cheese with jalapenos and tomatoes. That sounds good. I put honey on a grilled cheese the other day. My honey is all the way right now, and I feel like I shouldn't get it because if I do, I'm added to literally everything. You would like it on your avocado toast. That's what people have been telling me. And I'm like, I don't know. I've been eating the same thing for two years. I don't know how you do that. I have that, like, once, and I'm like, okay, what's tomorrow? I got to mix it up. That's why I can't meal prep. Okay. All right. We should let them know this is over a little bit too long. Once again, Happy episode is about his question. Answer yes. Okay, we will see you in episode 75, three fourth of the way to our centennial. Yay, centennial. Have a good rest of your day. Bye, guys. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning in on this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians with your host Emily Krause and Hannah Thompson. We appreciate you all so much for continuing to support us. In order to support us and sustain the success of this podcast, please subscribe and leave a rating and review. If you'd like to provide us feedback for future episodes and guest stars, follow us on Instagram at The Up-Beet Dietitians. Lastly, you can show us support by providing a monthly donation using the link at the end of our bio. Once again, thank you so much for listening today and stay tuned next Wednesday for a new episode. Until then, we hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.