Keeping the metabolism guessing?

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ultimuttginge
ultimuttginge Posts: 58
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi All!

I spotted a comment on a different topic and thought i'd throw it out there as a main subject.

If you stick to your daily calorie allowance every single day, does your metabolism get lazy?

Would it give your metabolism a kick start if you allowed yourself one day where you eat more than normal?

I'm not looking for excuses for my binging weekend (although...ok maybe 40% looking for an excuse if i'm honest!)

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  • joolywooly33
    joolywooly33 Posts: 421 Member
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    bump - interested in this topic!
  • LivingtheLeanDream
    LivingtheLeanDream Posts: 13,342 Member
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    I hope you get some great feedback cos I'd be interested to know..though I'm sorta finding out that it DOES get used to us eating low and we have to up the cals a bit sometimes to stop plateaus.
    Its the same with exercise, it needs changed around a bit or our bodies gets used to the same workouts...

    Anyway, I'll be watching out for comments too :-D
  • vorgas
    vorgas Posts: 741 Member
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    I don't know about the metabolism getting lazy from eating enough food. But a cheat day now and then will ramp it up briefly. So will exercise. If you really want to increase your metabolism, gain some muscle. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat.

    However, there are a number of folks on MFP who seem to think that 1200 calories a day is enough food, even with exercise. For these folks, their metabolism is definitely slowing down. Imo, they don't need a cheat day, they need a cheat month. Just like a fire, without enough fuel it burns low.

    If a constantly churning metabolism is your goal, eating smaller meals throughout the day is a good trick. Be aware, though, that doing this can cause problems of its own. Specifically, the production of ghrelin/leptin which regulate hunger can get thrown off. You will basically be hungry all the time. This can lead to overeating. And if you give in and binge, you can end up eating A LOT.

    That being said, meal timing for most people has very little effect. It can help squeeze out that last 1%, but there are other much better things you can do.

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