Is your metabolism to blame for weight gain?
What the research says
In August last year, a paper was published showing evidence that the human metabolism didn’t slow down until the age of 60. What’s more, they found that this remained true even in puberty, pregnancy and menopause.
Herman Pontzer, an evolutionary biologist and other researchers found that our bodies didn’t quite slow down its metabolism like we had once believed and that our RMR remained steady from the age of 20 to 60. From the age of 60 onwards, it slowed down by 1% annually.
Now if reading this really makes you want to smash the screen, bear with me. Just because the science says the “average” human metabolism doesn’t slow down until we turn 60 doesn’t mean your metabolism hasn’t slowed down.
So here’s the catch: although the science says you might not experience real metabolic changes until 60, the bad news is that you may have unknowingly caused your metabolism to slow down. More on that later.
Why this latest research is so important
Latest research shows evidence that our metabolism doesn’t slow down until the age of 60.
It means that we can no longer blame our metabolisms for weight gain from the age of 30 onwards, and although that might not sound like the answer most people want to hear, it’s actually good news. Blaming your hormones and weight gain after 40 isn’t just down to our bodies any more, it’s down to habits too.
This means that we are in control of our bodies. Being empowered with this knowledge can help you make better choices and put systems in place that can allow you to be in control of your lifestyle.
What could be affecting your ability to lose weight?
A history of chronic dieting may impact your metabolism
Your lifestyle can and probably has massively affected your ability to lose weight.
If you are a regular reader of my blog you will have time and time again come across blogs that talk extensively about diet reversal. This is because long periods of low calories will eventually slow your metabolism down.
Why?
Because when you lose weight, you also lose lean mass (muscle and bone mass and anything that isn’t fat) and as a result, you also lose your ability to effectively lose fat because leaner bodies cost more energy to sustain, so the more fat you carry (relative to muscle mass) the less you “burn”. Its a catch 22 situation.
Now, imagine constantly going in and out of diet phases, increasing your cortisol levels, probably messing with your sleep cycle and confusing your natural ability to learn when to eat and when to stop.
That my friend, is a recipe for weight fluctuations.
2. Our perceived rate of exertion has changed
As we get older, our responsibilities change and so do our priorities. Even if fat loss was one of your goals it likely isn’t going to be as important as taking care of your aging parents or making sure your kids are safe when they go off to college.
When we experience significant life changes, our bodies ability to manage stress indirectly effects our energy expenditure.
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When our perceived rate of exertion is high, we think we are exerting more energy than we actually are.
“I’m doing everything the same…”
If I got paid a dollar every time I heard this argument I’d be rich woman. While technically yes, you might be doing exactly the same things as you did before, you are likely not expending energy like you did.
Weight gain and weight loss can only happen at the back of a calorie deficit or a surplus. Nothing in this universe can break this simple law of physics. So while you might be doing exactly the same thing you did 6 months ago and suddenly you are finding your body is no longer compliant, the explanation is simply; you are no longer in an energy deficit.
You might still be eating and tracking the same way, maybe even exercising the same way, but you will be somehow expending less energy. This may be from how your body moves due to over fatigue or it might be something out of your control like how your body absorbs food. All of these things will ultimately impact on how your body stores fat or uses it for energy.
3. Stress management
Stress comes in many forms; physical, emotional, environmental, relational you name it. We are under stress the moment we wake up until the moment we go to bed. It’s a part of life.
Some are good, some are not so great.
The stress that we experience impacts the decisions we make on a daily basis. Here are some of the things that could be affecting our energy balance as a result of “life” happening:
Hyper palatable foods, that are dense in energy are being chosen as a way to cope with stress
A decrease in energy expenditure through out the day as a result of injury/pain or a sedentary lifestyle
Changes in our sleep schedule that could have an impact on our energy output
4. Incorrectly calculating energy expenditure
People are often under the misconception that if you eat a mars bar, you can simply “burn off” the calories by going on a run. Specifically 38 minutes of running (I mean, if only it were that simple). Sadly our bodies don’t work that way. If you want to understand the science behind calories in vs calories out and how very wrong we have been about it, read this blog 5 reasons why “calories in vs calories out” violates the laws of physics.
Exercise makes up a 5% of our total daily energy expenditure. So if you run for an hour but spend the rest of the day stuck at a desk from 9-5 you likely won’t be able to lose the weight unless you make changes to your overall lifestyle and your diet.
Not to mention, thinking about exercise as only a way to “burn off” what you ate is not only unhelpful but an inaccurate understanding of the whole picture and often leads to disordered eating behaviours.
During an interview, evolutionary biologist Herman Pontzer said:
“If we want fat loss to happen, then it has to be a diet approach. So you say ‘maybe I’ll just do one or the other, it sounds like like exercise and diet have the same effect because one’s energy in and one’s energy out, I could just decide to focus on one or the other. And that really isn’t what the science says. The science says that diet is going to do all the heavy lifting and exercise to add on to that is fantastic, and can do all kinds of good things, but it’s the diet piece that is actually going to change the number on the scale.”
Next, the scapegoat that takes the blame for everything.
5. Misunderstanding your hormones
Blaming hormones related to the female reproductive system on weight gain won’t solve your problems. Here’s why: these hormones don’t actually make you gain weight, they simply affect the way your body expends energy, or “burns” energy. In other words, they can affect our energy balance.
I might be playing with semantics here but hear me out.
When we blame our hormones for the sudden weight gain, this could lead to unhelpful decisions like trying to adhere to ridiculously strict diets that will just end up making us more miserable, wanting more food and eventually giving up altogether.
Here’s the thing, our hormones are intertwined with our overall energy expenditure and indirectly affect bioenergetics, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can’t be in control of your body.
Understanding the science and energy balance will empower you with the choices to make suitable adjustments to your food choices, your lifestyle and exercise routine.
Remember that our NEAT (non exercise activity thermogenesis) amounts to more than your weekly exercise. This means simply making better food choices, increasing your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) will help you regain back that control.
If you are a female masters athlete already feeling the effects of menopause and experiencing fatigue, increasing your training intensity and entering restrictive calorie deficits isn’t necessarily going to help. You need to find a strategy that works for you and most likely that is going to be adjusting your overall energy expenditure both inside and outside the gym and making simple changes to your diet.
Increase your TDEE
Increasing your total daily expenditure outside of your training session can help you both recover from intense training sessions and increase your overall energy expenditure helping you to remain in an energy deficit without over working your body.
Takeaways
I get it, being an over 40 something year old athlete and feeling as if you are losing control of your body, only to learn that it’s not your metabolism can be a real bummer, but look on the bright side, it means you do have control. Doesn’t having that knowledge make you want to do something about it?
The bottom line is this: if your goal is fat loss at any age, the answer is a calorie deficit. If you aren’t losing weight on the calories you are at, it may take more time to determine what your calorie needs are. Be patient, adjust the numbers, decreasing it by 250 calories at a time or find a balance that you can sustain for a reasonable amount of time before reversing.
Eating whole foods will not only give you more volume, but it will also help you manage your satiety, not to mention provide you with more nutrients.
Great habits to practice…
Mindful eating and consistency aren’t sexy habits when it comes to fat loss, but they are the cornerstone to healthy eating behaviours and when done right, will give you sustainable results.
Comment below what your biggest struggles are right now and what you’ve tried so far to help you address them.
