Many people who “can’t” lose weight blame their metabolism—but they’re secretly eating cheat meals or missing workouts. Others stick to their diets and exercise plans meticulously—then cut more calories or stay at the gym longer when they don’t see results. Whether you’re the former, the latter, or somewhere in between, you may not know just how much your metabolism affects your weight. Worse, damage to it may be causing those other symptoms that seem completely unrelated.

Maybe It’s Metabolic Damage 

Weight loss seems very formulaic for the most part: calories in vs. calories out ultimately determines if you lose or gain. Add in some exercise, and you’re good to go. But metabolism, the interaction of hormones and organ systems that store and burn fat, is estimated to be responsible for between 60–70 percent of your fat-burning capability. Clearly, a problem with your metabolism is going to affect your weight, no matter what you eat or how much you hit the treadmill.

If you’re a nutrition nut who’s clocked more hours in the gym than you’d care to admit yet you’re still not seeing results, you may have metabolic damage—the most severe form of weight-loss resistance. This hormonal disorder involves the nervous system (brain), endocrine system (thyroid, adrenals, and sex hormones), and immune system, and can cause bothersome symptoms, including fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, upset stomach, bloating with meals, low sex drive, and more.

Who Gets Metabolic Damage?

The tricky thing about metabolic damage is that it can happen TO you or BY you.

Chronic dieters and over-exercisers risk causing metabolic damage 

If you’re a chronic dieter and/or exerciser, you may have caused metabolic damage.
If you’re a yo-yo dieter, or you’re regularly doing long-duration cardio exercise while on a super-low-calorie or low-carb diet, you may have missed the warning sign of metabolic damage—metabolic adaptation. In the face of what it sees as a life-or-death situation, your body initiates a stress response that mobilizes your energy stores, effectively shutting down your fat-burning ability and muscle gains. The longer you live with metabolic adaptation, the worse health effects you’re likely to endure.

Take participants of “The Biggest Loser” televised weight-loss competition, for example. Several years ago, researchers studied the body composition and resting metabolic rate changes in 14 of the show’s competitors who were classified with class III obesity. They found tthose with the greatest weight loss at the end of the competition experienced the greatest slowing of resting metabolic rate, and those who maintained the weight loss after six years also wound up with a slower metabolism. These observations show definitively that metabolic adaptation is a very real response to extreme dieting and exercise.

If you have an undiagnosed/untreated metabolic condition that spreads, metabolic damage may have happened to you.
Imagine your metabolism is an orchestra playing a song. If the flutes are off key or out of time, the other instruments will likely wander off as well. The result? Everybody’s out of whack, and it’s a terrible song. This is how metabolic damage can develop as well. Because metabolism is an intricate system of organs communicating together, an undiagnosed health condition (say, low T3 syndrome) can negatively affect all other systems, shutting down your metabolism.

There are warning signs before you reach metabolic damage, but you must be in tune with your body to recognize them.

The Warning Signs of Metabolic Damage

Adrenal Fatigue and Low Cortisol Levels – As metabolic damage begins, your adrenal glands get stressed, produce an over-abundance of cortisol. Once cortisol levels have been elevated for quite some time they fall to dangerously low levels, causing adrenal fatigue.

Low Thyroid Levels – Drops in T4 and T3 (the body’s major fat-burning hormone) can directly (or indirectly) result in a slow metabolism, fatigue, and/or low energy levels. In fact, the common clinical disorder, low T3 syndrome, is often seen with metabolic damage.

Low Testosterone – Low testosterone levels are common in men and women (except those with PCOS) with metabolic damage. If you’re suffering from metabolic adaptation or damage, your adrenal glands get pushed to their limit, creating a stress response that shuts down the production of testosterone.

Imbalanced Progesterone to Estrogen Ratio – When stress is out of control, your body will steal valuable resources to make stress hormones (including cortisol) instead of healthy thyroid and sex hormones, causing low or high estrogen levels, and most commonly low progesterone.

Low Leptin/Leptin Resistance – When you restrict our calories, your metabolism compensates by decreasing our metabolic rate with leptin, the fat-locating hormone. When leptin is high, metabolism is high; when it’s low, our metabolism rate plummets, often creating leptin resistance (or “blind fat”).

Immune System Overdrive – In a stressed state, your immune system gets overly excitable and attacks things it shouldn’t, such as ingested food and the body’s own organs. This contributes to food sensitivities, autoimmune diseases, and sensitivity to chemicals and the environment.

How You Miss the Signs…And What to Do If You See Them Now

It’s easy to miss the warning signs of metabolic damage when conventional medical providers aren’t looking for them. More often than not, they’re solely looking and testing for diseases they can treat with medication or surgery. This leaves you (and millions of other Americans) in the medical black hole—living with hidden metabolic disorders that spread and worsen over time.

If you suspect you have a metabolic disorder, we have some good news. Twin Cities Metabolism has the tests, answers, and solutions waiting for you. Contact us for a consultation to discuss your symptoms, get the proper testing, determine if you have a metabolism problem, and ultimately have the help you need.

Ready to take charge of your health? We have the tests and customized nutrition programs you need. Get in touch.