RESET your Metabolism and BURN FAT FAST! (training)

If you've been told your metabolism is broken or doomed by genetics, it's a lie. You can reset your metabolism and when you do, you will be amazed. Your fat loss will accelerate, your energy will skyrocket, and you'll actually be able to keep the weight off for good. So today I'm going to dive into eight proven strategies to help heal a broken metabolism. By the way, I'm Dr. Ashley Lucas. I am the owner and founder of PhD Weight Loss, where we have helped to date over 11,600 people drop more than 466,000 pounds nationwide. And my goal with this channel is to give you the information you need to actually drop the weight and keep it off.

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So let's talk about why having a speedy metabolism really matters. Obviously, when you have a slow metabolism, it makes it hard to drop weight and it's going to make it easier to regain the weight that you do drop. As you likely know, supporting your muscle mass, sleep, stress and your food choices all significantly impact the speed and the health of your metabolism. Now, if you feel like you have done everything and the weight just doesn't drop off and the scale actually moves in the opposite direction than you feel like it should, then you should check out PhD weight loss where we will create a customized meal plan for you and guide you on exactly what, when and how much to eat throughout the day. We will take out all of the guesswork. It doesn't matter if you cook, if you don't cook, if you dine out, if your spouse doesn't need to drop weight, or whatever the situation is around your family and lifestyle, we can support you. So just check out. If you're listening to this on a podcast platform, check out my PhD weight loss.com or or if you are on YouTube, just go into the description and we'll include a link there that will guide you to find more information. All right, let's dive into the key tips on resetting your metabolism. Number one is to prioritize protein to support your muscle mass. We know that muscle mass is the main predictor of your metabolic speed. The more total muscle that you have and the healthier that your muscle is, the, the better your metabolism is going to work. The two go hand in hand. So you want to make sure, especially if you're over the age of 40, that everything you do is supportive of maintaining and growing, if you can, the amount of muscle that you do have. We can support our muscle mass through a few different avenues. And as I go through these key tips today, I'll make sure I come back to how it's supporting your muscle mass. Why it's so important to focus on muscle mass is because as we age just naturally we tend to lose muscle. We do this because we tend to become less active, we sit more, we don't participate in the same type of activities. So the first step is just being aware of this. And I recommend focusing on how many steps you're getting through the day to make sure that as you're potentially dropping weight or aging or shifting your activities that your at least your number of steps don't significantly reduce. The first step is to prioritize protein and muscle mass. And basically everything that I mentioned going forward also pertains to supporting muscle mass. The amount of muscle that you have is the main predictor of your metabolic speed. So what I mean by this is the more muscle you have, the more health, wellness, vitality that you're going to have. The two are linked together. Your muscle mass is your metabolic engine. And naturally, as we age, our muscle mass starts to decline for a variety of reasons that I'll get into later on. But in general, the way that we eat is one of the primary ways that we can support muscle. So you're going to want to focus on eating high quality animal protein foods if you're open to it. We can absorb a lot more of the protein when we are getting it from our animal protein sources. What I mean by that is red meat, poultry, like chicken and turkey, fish eggs, Greek yogurt, those are good options because your body's going to absorb the most of that protein as compared to plant sources of protein, where you're not getting high quality, you're absorbing maybe 69% of it rather than a higher percentage that you get from an animal protein source. As for the amounts of protein that you want to be aiming for in a day, it really depends on the individual. It depends on your body size, your height, your age, your level of activity. So I'm just giving a very, very broad range, around 0.8 to 1 gram of protein per pound, optimal body weight. So let me define this a little bit more. Let's say you're sitting here watching this or listening to this and you weigh around 250 pounds. Let's say your optimal weight where you have no more belly fat, you're within a healthy body composition and notate that. I said body composition. BMI is not a good indicator of health. You guys. If you go to your doctor and they tell you that you are overweight because you have a high bmi, that isn't indicative of good or bad health because BMI only looks at height and weight. So you could weigh more than the average person your height, but all that weight could be muscle. If that's true and you have a low body fat percentage, but you have more muscle and you weigh more, you still could have a high BMI but be perfectly healthy. But if you go to the doctor and you have a high BMI because that excess or additional weight is, is coming from fat, then that indicates poor health. So that's why we want to look at body composition and we want to look at body fat percent over bmi. I hope that that makes sense. If you have any questions on BMI versus body composition and body fat percentage, drop it in the comments. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to this on podcast, come on over and drop your questions in the comments and we will answer. So let's say again, you're at 250 pounds and let's say 180 is really where you need to be. 180 pounds. Then you're going to take 0.8 and multiply that by 180 and that's going to give you how many grams of protein you want to shoot for in a day. I'm going to do the math. Just a second. I don't have like this whiz math brain, so I have to use my calculator. 0.8 times 180 equals 140 grams of protein. So this would be for a man who's about 6 foot, maybe 511 and pretty muscular. He's going to be eating about 144 grams of protein a day. So you would take that 144 grams and you would divide that up in your meals throughout the day. I've done videos on this before and it's confusing, so I just want to make sure I'm giving you the math correctly. Okay. The first and the last meal that you eat in a day are the most important meals to get adequate protein in. So, for example, your Breakfast could have 30 grams of protein and your dinner might have 30 to 50 grams of protein, again, depending on your body size. Now, if you're a PhD weight loss client and you're thinking, what, these aren't the recommendations or what I've been told to eat by my coach? Well, that's because your recommendations are extremely specific to you and where you are in your weight loss journey. As you slim down, your dietary needs change and we continue to tweak them. So just please be aware of that. Always do what your coach says because those are the perfect numbers for your body and where you are in your fat loss journey. But for those of you listening to this and you're like, what is she talking about? It's just most important that you get about 0.8 grams per pound, optimal weight, and that you get the biggest bolus of protein with your first meal and last meal of the day. And looking for animal protein sources if you can. All right, number two tip is to move smart and not be excessive about it. The best type of exercise is resistance training. It's best for maintaining muscle. That's why. So again, we're prioritizing muscle. If you feel like you just need to burn calories, you need to get on the elliptical machine, or you need to go pound the pavement and just run your little heart out, it is not going to benefit your body, especially if the goal is to drop fat weight. Instead, if you're used to chronic cardio and you feel like, oh, I just have to do some kind of cardio. Number one is if you already are walking 30 minutes a day and you're lifting something heavy, then and only then would you add in some cardio. Because those two are the most important things. That's why I'm prioritizing those. And then after that, you could add in some high intensity interval training. What that means is, for example, use a stationary bike as an example here. Get on the bike, warm up for five minutes, sprint hard for 20 to 30 seconds, pull back for a minute, and then repeat that 20 to 30 second sprint and pull back. Do those intervals six to 12 times, cool down, and you're done in 25 minutes. So those are like the top three forms of exercise that you want to do to speed your metabolism. And after that we could add different things and add more zone to cardio, for example, but we're not going to get into that today. If you feel like exercise is your Achilles heel, it's your weakness. I have quite a few episodes on the topic of exercise, one in particular where I really dive into it. So if you need that support, just head on to the description of this video on YouTube and click the link to that video and you can learn more there. All right. Tip number three is to stay hydrated. You want to make sure that you stay hydrated for many reasons during your fat loss journey, especially if you feel like your metabolism is slow. If you are dehydrated, it will slow your metabolism. It just won't be able to crank at the highest speed, which we all want. When I was earning my PhD in sports nutrition and Chronic disease, I was a part of a weight management lab. And in that lab we were conducting a study looking at two groups of individuals. One group was consuming 16 ounces of water about 30 minutes before a meal and the other group was not consuming water. It was the control group. They didn't drink anything 30 minutes before the meal. They consumed the same amount of calories and the group who drank the water lost significantly more weight than the non water group. We didn't look into the mechanism of why, but it's a thing. So make sure that you're staying hydrated. And oftentimes during a fat loss journey, just water is not enough to support the body, especially if you have reduced carbohydrates, which is a healthy way to go about dropping weight. But when you reduce carbohydrates, your body needs more electrolytes. It actually needs more sodium. Always. Please check with your doctor. This is not meant to be medical advice. Check with your doctor before adding any kind of vitamins or minerals or additional salt to your diet. But likely if you're feeling tired or sluggish or kind of flu like, it's because you're not getting adequate sodium salts and electrolytes in your diet. This is exactly why I actually started my supplement company called Dr. Ashley Wellness because I wanted to create an electrolyte mix specifically for individuals going through a fat loss journey and for those maintaining their fat loss because your metabolic needs are completely different than someone who's not dropping weight. So especially, especially if you are listening or watching this and you are on a GLP1, your needs for electrolytes are significantly higher. And the same goes for anyone dropping weight through any route. But if you're on a GLP1, you're at extremely high risk of being depleted. So if you are on a fat loss journey and you are not utilizing electrolytes, you should consider it. And you're always welcome to check out my Dr. Ashley Wellness electrolyte plus mix. Just head over to the description on YouTub, click the link and you will get a special discount. I hope that you enjoy. So we're all pretty aware that we do not eat always out of hunger. I don't know, what do you think I would be so interested to learn from you? What percentage of your eating is out of true hunger? And I like to say that true hunger would eat a hard boiled egg. So what percentage of the time are you eating out of hunger where you're like, oh yeah, hard boiled egg sounds really great. Drop that in the comments on YouTube here and let me know. Because the rest of the time we're eating out of usually social pressure emotions like, you know, celebration or loneliness, depression, fear, anxiety, all of the different happiness, all of the different reasons that might trigger us to want to eat. And one thing that I think is important to recognize is that the actual physical action of eating is calming. We know that when we swallow it actually helps to calm the body. It stimulates the vagus nerve. So you might actually go for food and just need to calm the body. Like the body is requesting to be soothed. So it tells you go eat something. So I just want you to be aware as to when you think you're hungry and when you're going for food and go drink some water or put some electrolytes in your water and just allow the body to be soothed through that swallowing action in a way that also isn't consuming calories because you really don't need calories, you're not hungry. Just something to consider there. Also when we are thirsty, a lot of folks can't decipher or tell between when they're hungry or when they're really thirsty. So the next time that you think you're hungry, drink some water, put some electrolytes in there or the next time you go for food, I want you to stop and think, are you truly hungry or are you trying to soothe yourself? Is your body asking for something else but you're just going for food to mask it? Next thing is make sure that you're eating enough, but not constantly. We do not need to eat every three to four hours. That is a myth. If we actually eat adequate protein and healthy fats and we Eat under our unique carbohydrate tolerance level. You will not need to eat all the time like a cow, you know, grazing all the time. It's really not how we're meant to eat and consume the body. Really. The digestive system would love to have a break. So stop forcing yourself to eat all the time. You do not have to eat every three hours. But also if you're undereating, it can slow the metabolism. So I urge you not to go frequently below 1200 calories. You want to teach your body how to burn fat for fuel. When you can do this, it feels beautiful. This is what we do at PhD weight loss. We help you learn how to burn fat for fuel. And oh my gosh, it is amazing. No food noise, no food chatter. It feels so good to be liberated from food naturally. You really don't need medications to feel this way. All right, next is to make sure you get adequate sleep. You want to make sure that you're sleeping at least seven hours a night. Now, there was a big study looking at two groups. One group of individuals that slept more than seven hours and another group who slept less than seven hours. The group who slept more than seven hours actually ate more and weighed less than the group that slept, slept less. Short sleep is considered about six hours of sleep a night or less. And it will dramatically negatively influence your health. When you sleep, it restores your metabolic balance, restores your hormones. You're not going to be as hungry, not going to have as many cravings throughout the day. So you'll ultimately likely eat less. And I guess if you do eat more, your metabolism going to be more efficient. Next one, target the belly fat. I talk about belly fat, I talk about the deep visceral fat in the belly. It is active, it is hungry, it makes you crave, it slows your metabolism, it makes you lazy when you're really not a lazy person. But the last thing this active fat mass wants you to do is go expend a ton of calories. Remember that we don't get fat because we eat. We eat because we're getting fat. When we have this fat mass, we have to feed it because it's hungry. When you consume food or calories and you have this belly fat, there's a dysregulation of the energy, which basically means when you take in these calories and you have this fat mass in the belly, those calories are going to go feed the fat first. That's what that means. And the muscle cells, your brain cells, are not going to be fed in the way that they should be fed. So physiologically you think that your cells starving, you're still hungry, your brain and your body saying I haven't been fed because it's all feeding that tumor like fat in the belly. So we need to make sure that we shift the metabolism, we target the belly fat and we get rid of the belly fat. Getting rid of the belly fat is the key for long term success. We also want to manage stress daily. And I'm here with you on this. This is a hard one to do. Stress hormones like cortisol help to store belly fat. They lock it in place when you have high insulin levels, which most of us do when we're carrying around belly fat and we've got a lot of stress. It is the perfect storm for accumulating more belly fat. But the good news is you can get rid of it. The way that you perceive stress is key. And I actually have done a deep dive on the topic of stress and the hormones and how to shift your perception around stress. So just go into the description on YouTube, click the link for that stress episode and have a great time listening to it. I loved recording that one. And then lastly, you want to make sure that you fight inflammation by the foods that you are consuming. So sugar, for example, and seed oils like canola, soybean, safflower, corn, cottonseed, all drive inflammation. When you consume them together, they are a perfect storm for inflammation. And we know that inflammation is the root of all disease. I've done a lot of videos on this topic of inflammation as well. Instead, you're going to reduce sugar, you're going to drop sugar as much as you can and then you're going to swap those unhealthy oils. If you are cooking right now, I want you to think about what's in your kitchen. And if you have canola oil, even if it's organic, soybean, safflower, corn, cottonseed, vegetable oil. If you have vegetable oil in your cabinet, you need to go throw it away. I go to my parents house and I have to have an intervention every six weeks and throw all their oils away because it's just a habit. They're in their 70s and 80s and they were told that this was healthy. And so my mother will just go to the grocery store and I say, I swear, just buy it out of habit or out of spite. She wants to drive me crazy and I go and I throw it away and I replace, I kindly replace it with some avocado oil that's going to be the best bet. I do like tallow. I do like olive oil, but I like it for cold use, not for high heat cooking. All right, you guys, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you are listening to this on a podcast platform, please leave a review. It really does matter. And if you are watching this on YouTube, drop your comments. Drop your thoughts below. If you're using canola oil, still vegetable oil, you are not alone, but together we can make a change. Subscribe to this channel and remember, you have to step up to make the change. Lead with your heart, train your mind and do not negotiate with your body. I'll see you next time.