Overweight? Maybe You Really Can Blame Your Metabolism

Some folks maybe missing the point of the article. 

By now, many have come to terms with the fact that everyone's TDEE/BMR is slightly different based on their genetics & body composition. What is new from these studies, is that differences in metabolism may not be only about how much your base/equilibrium burn rate is, but also how efficiently your body deals with overages and underages.

The researchers are suggesting that two people may have the same equilibrium TDEE (let's say 2000 calories). The average person may process additional calories at a rate of 3500 calories over to gain one pound. However, these new studies suggest that people's bodies are more or less efficient at dealing with extra calories at a chemical level. For some people, 2500 additional calories generates a pound and for others, 4500 extra calories generates a pound.

As an analogy, think of a car.
- Some cars weigh a lot. Some cars have a better aerodynamic shape. These are the factors affect the forward force that is necessary to keep a car moving at a given speed.  Think of these factors as TDEE. 
- Now let's say we want to speed up the car, so we apply more gas. However, some cars have a more efficient engine than other cars. Those engines can create more forward energy from the same amount of gas.
- In this way, the gas mileage our car gets is a factor of two things: the weight/aerodynamics of our car PLUS the efficiency of our engine.
- Our ability to gain or lose weight may be a function of both our TDEE and our body's efficiency rate for our calorie deficit.

The hypothesis from this research is that 3500 extra calories does not always equal a pound.

This would be a huge insight for people that are working on losing weight and are getting frustrated by the scale not reacting as they anticipate. Right now, we tell those people that they must be doing it wrong. If you were REALLY cutting 3500 calories out of your diet, you would have lost a pound. You must be lying about what you are eating. You must be lying about your exercise. Quit cheating. But what if they are not?  If that person is actually not cheating, that's a pretty demoralizing message. Telling people things have happened that haven't and making people question their sanity is a form of torture used to break war prisoners. Imagine the impact that has on a person trying to get healthy. If we could tell people that their personal formula is actually 4750 to lose a pound, then the person could say "hey, sucks to be me, but now I know what to do" and get on with their weight loss program.

None of this changes the fact that people still need to commit and take responsibility to make lifestyle changes. Or that we may need to reconsider our nation's food chain. It just may mean that the current mathematical formulas for weight management are not as fixed as everyone wants them to be.

So, the current formula is:

TDEE + calories consumed - deficit / 3500 calories = pounds lost or gained

These researcher suggest that the formula is actually:

TDEE + calories consumed - deficit / (3500 calories * your body's chemical efficiency) = pounds lost or gained

As for the insulin spiking... Blocking fat-burning... Where do I begin? The thing we have to understand about our body is that there is an energy balance. We are constantly building up and breaking down, 24/7. This is why if we eat before bed it doesn't ruin us, because the fat that is laid down will just be used up later when the net absorption of nutrients in the GI tract is below what the body needs to remain running at that time.
So taking this into consideration, it is fairly irrelevant to talk about insulin. In fact, it is fairly pointless to talk about adjusting any hormones in the body unless A) you have a medical condition that means your choices DO have a significant impact on your body's ability to regulate itself; or you are injecting performance enhancing drugs.

This is where science differs from your perception of the digestion-absorption cycle. Yes, the body does cycle through aerobic and anaerobic processes--but an assumption of what you ate yesterday is what you are using today is not necessarily true. It depends not only how much you ate, but also how many of those calories were sugar.

Once sugar goes into storage (i.e. fat), it is not the first place your body goes for energy. Only when you create a situation where there is a deficit will the body go looking elsewhere and the body will go looking to breakdown muscle as well as fat storage.

Your body will only use what it needs and because sugar is toxic to our organs the body uses insulin to carry it into safe storage for later. This is happens relatively quickly (~2 hrs when eaten without fats, fiber, or protein). The problem is that this "for later" storage is not the first place your body goes when it needs more energy. Chemicals are released to trigger hunger, so you eat more. And if what you eat is more sugar than complex carbohydrates, fats, and proteins, then more of that sugar is going to storage. And so on, and so on.

BTW, if insulin was irrelevant to the process of digestion & absorption, then the whole understanding and treatment of diabetes would be undone.

I think that metabolism is a big factor in gaining weight but there are easy cheap ways to speed up your metabolism. For example I have a pretty pants metabolism, I just look at food and put weight on, so I drink green tea a lot. There are supplements out there for metabolism but some are a bit pricey.