The 7 Ways to Fix a Slow Metabolism

Hey, everybody. Welcome to my weekly house golf. Your chance to ask me your questions. And this week's question is about metabolism. One of my efat get then challenge participants asked, hey, no matter what I do, I can't seem to lose weight. I think I'm cursed with a slow metabolism. Help. Okay, well, this is a common problem, but there are ways to fix your metabolism. You see, each of us was born with these little energy factories that provide the fuel to run everything in our body. These energy factories are called mitochondria, and each cell in our body has hundreds to thousands of them. And they convert oxygen that you breathe and the food that you eat into energy that's used by your body. It's like having trillions of little combustion engines in your body. Now, when scientists talk about metabolism, we're often talking about the mitochondria. And if your mitochondria are effective, well, they are burning calories, and you have a fast metabolism. And if they're ineffective, they're not burning calories and you have a slow metabolism. Now, some of this is genetically determined. If you have a parent or a sibling who has type 2 diabetes, then your mitochondria are 50% less effective at burning calories than the average person. I'm sorry. Even if you're thin, this predisposes you to weight gain and eventually type 2 diabetes. Now, the good news is that you can increase the number and the function of your mitochondria. Now, there are many things that can affect the number and the functioning of your mitochondria that you actually can control. The biggest damage to your energy system comes from your diet. When we eat lots of sugar and processed and inflammatory foods or refined vegetable oils, or we simply consume too much food, we overload our energy factories, and they get damaged. See, environmental toxins also hurt them, like pesticides and mercury. There are hidden infections that can hurt them. Stress can hurt your energy system, even your gut. Microbiome can be a problem. If the unhealthy inflammatory bugs outweigh the good bugs, these bad bugs release toxins called LPS or lipopolysaccharides. I know that's a big word, but lps, you can remember, and those get absorbed. They cause inflammation in the body, and that inflammation damages the mitochondria. Essentially, anything that causes inflammation, which also causes oxidative stress, damages the mitochondria. Aging itself and most chronic diseases are related to mitochondrial dysfunction, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, dementia, and more. In fact, all the tricks and studies that have shown increased longevity Taking people up to 120 years like in animal studies are all based on helping the mitochondria work better. Now, luckily we know a lot about how to keep your mitochondria healthy. Again. Overeating, processed food, not eating enough powerful plant based phytonutrients, these are all bad habits for a good mitochondria. So overeating the wrong foods or under eating the right foods can damage your metabolism. But if your body is constantly in starvation mode, it's going to hold on to fat. So something our bodies are very good at doing. And if you've been yo yo dieting or under eating or doing any calorie restricted diets, this can cause your body to store fat. You need to make sure you're eating enough of the right kinds of foods. So eating plenty of healthy fats like wild avocados and nuts and seeds and wild fatty fish, these fats are actually the preferred fuel for your mitochondria. And there's a super fuel for your mitochondria and it's called MCT oil or medium chain triglycerides and it comes from coconut oil. Be sure to consume lots also of colorful antioxidant rich plant foods and lots of good proteins. But avoid sugar and flour, they're toxic to the mitochondria. Also, high glycemic, high carb foods of any kind stress your mitochondria. The biggest driver of damage to your energy system is quickly absorbed carbs. And if you want to know how much you should be eating in a day, you can easily calculate your rmr, which is your resting metabolic rate. This is the total number of calories your body needs to survive if it's at complete rest, that's if you're asleep or in a coma. The reason this number is important is simple. If you eat fewer calories than you RMR than your body actually needs, then your body thinks you're starving it and it starts to shut down. So calculating your RMR is also fairly simple. If you're the average size, you take your weight in pounds and you multiply by 10. So I'm 180 pounds, my RMR is 1800 calories. Now if you're very muscular, then you should multiply by 13. Like if you're Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime and you like have big muscles, you multiply by 13. If you're very overweight, then you probably multiply by eight because you have a lot of fat and not a lot of muscle, which burns hotter. Now if you eat less than your rmr, your body goes into starvation mode. Also move more and move faster. And here's why. Interval training, which is high intensity, interval training and strength training are the best ways to make new and better mitochondria. See, by boosting your exercise, especially this interval, the burst training everybody's talking about, where you go all out for 30 to 60 seconds and then you go slow for a few minutes and you use strength training. You can actually increase the number and the function of your mitochondria. When you do strength training, you build muscle and you create more mitochondria. And when you do interval training, you improve their functioning, which is how fast they burn oxygen and calories. That's called your VO2 max. Super important. Finally, you should take energy boosting nutrients that help your mitochondria. Things like CoQ10 alpha lipoic acid, N acetylcysteine, B complex, vitamins, omega 3 fats like EPA and DHA. These supplements can aid in speeding up your metabolism and lowering inflammation. So that's how to boost your energy metabolism. Love your mitochondria. Now, I don't want you to think you're stuck. There's always something you can do. I want to hear from you now. Have you tried anything that I said? What has exercise done for you? What's worked? What hasn't worked? I want you to share your thoughts on our Facebook page below. And if you like this video, be sure to share it with your friends and family on Facebook and submit your questions to drhyman.com and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you.