How to Reset Your Metabolism to Break Weight Loss Plateaus

If you’ve been struggling to lose more weight but the scale keeps displaying the same numbers, your metabolism could be to blame. When your metabolism slows down, it becomes much more difficult to burn calories and lose weight. This plateau is a common occurrence for many on their weight loss journey.

Fortunately, there is a way to reset your metabolism and break through pesky weight loss plateaus. In this blog post, we’ll discuss some valuable techniques for how to reset your metabolism.

What is Metabolism?

Metabolism is how your body processes the foods you eat. It is responsible for converting those foods into energy (measured in calories), which your body uses to perform essential functions like breathing and digesting food.

Throughout the day, the body burns that energy through a process known as thermogenesis. Any excess energy (extra calories) is stored as fat.

What are the Components of a Healthy Metabolism?

Metabolism is made up of 4 components:

1. Resting Metabolic Rate

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) is the number of calories the body burns while resting and performing movements for low-effort tasks, such as using the bathroom. It is the largest component of metabolism, making up 60% to 75% of one’s energy expenditure.

RMR also includes basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is the amount of energy (calories) burned to maintain the body’s functions while at rest. BMR does not include low-effort tasks or any movements.

2. Activity Level

Activity level refers to the calories your body burns through exercise. This can be anything from strength training to aerobic exercises to walking 10,000 steps a day.

3. Thermic Effect of Food

The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the amount of energy used during the process of digestion.

4. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis

Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) refers to energy used through spontaneous actions. Examples of this include actions such as wiggling your fingers and bouncing your leg.

What is a Set Point?

Some experts believe in the set point theory, in which our bodies have a preset weight baseline due to genetics.

However, some proponents of this theory suggest a slow metabolism isn’t set in stone and that it is possible to move that set point, as many factors affect one’s metabolism and weight. Addressing those other factors is key to successful weight loss.

Lifelong Metabolic Center recognizes that genetics is an important factor for anyone trying to lose weight. That’s why DNA testing is part of our weight loss program.

The information we learn from a DNA test can help us discover the best ways to help you lose weight and boost your metabolism.

What Factors Affect Metabolism?

Over time, your metabolism can slow down due to factors such as:

Age

Aging is one of the most commonly cited reasons for a slower metabolism. However, age is often compounded with other lifestyle factors affecting metabolism.

For example, post-menopausal women produce fewer hormones and have less muscle mass than younger women. This, along with health issues like arthritis, can lead to lower activity levels, which can, in turn, slow metabolism.

Sex

Men tend to have higher metabolisms than women. This can be attributed to testosterone production, additional muscle mass, and generally being bigger than women.

Body Size

Larger people tend to have a larger basal metabolic rate and higher metabolism, as their bodies contain more fluid and larger organs. This may allow bigger people to eat more food without putting on a noticeable amount of body weight when compared to someone on the smaller side.

Muscle Mass to Body Fat Ratio

Body composition varies from person to person, and the ratio of muscle mass to body fat can affect one’s metabolic rate. Muscle burns more calories than fat does, even when a person is resting.

Exercise

The type and frequency of exercises you perform affect the number of calories you burn. In many cases, burning more calories than you consume (a calorie deficit) leads to weight loss.

Drinking and Eating Habits

What you eat and drink affects metabolic speed, but so does when you eat and drink. For example, eating a large meal before bedtime or having a midnight snack can slow metabolism and lead to additional weight gain.

Keep in mind there’s a large difference between eating 2,000 calories a day in junk food versus 2,000 calories in healthier foods, too. The quality of food matters, too.

Medications and Hormones

Certain medications can impact your metabolic rate, just as unbalanced hormone levels can. In fact, we’ve had clients struggle to lose weight on other weight-loss programs due to hypothyroidism, which causes hormone imbalances. Despite that, our metabolic weight loss program has helped many reach their goals.

Rest

One large component of metabolism has to do with rest. This does not mean you should give up on improving your diet and lifestyle with additional exercise, but it does mean it is important to get enough sleep.

What Can You Do to Restart Your Metabolism to Lose Weight?

While you cannot control every single factor to change your metabolism, there are things you can do to increase your metabolism:

Increase Exercise Amounts and Approach

Different types of exercise may be more effective based on factors like genetics or muscle or fat. For example, if you want to build muscle, then you might want to include strength training as part of your weight loss plan.

Strength training with the goal of building muscle is a great way to not only rest your metabolism (vs. cardio)but also improve it. Building muscle demands a lot of calories.

Cardiovascular exercise keeps your heart pumping and healthy as you burn off extra calories, so it also is good to work in the proper amount.

Metabolic Reset Diet

Making changes to you the foods you eat can help you reset your metabolism. A metabolic reset diet often includes the following dietary recommendations:

Reduce or increase calorie intake
Cut down carbohydrates
Increase protein intake

Intermittent Fasting and Meals — No Snacks

Intermittent fasting can be a great tool for resetting your metabolism. It can make you more mindful of when and what you eat.

Intermittent Fasting (or “IF”) requires you to eat at a specific timeframe each day and only during that timeframe. The selected timeframe for eating does matter and may in fact be key to a higher metabolic rate.

One study from the University of Alabama (1) found that prediabetic men who ate early meals between the hours of 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. and fasted for the rest of the day experienced the following health benefits:

Reduced insulin levels
Improved insulin sensitivity
Improved blood pressure
Increased metabolism
Decreased appetite

Another study found that fasting through breakfast and eating later in the day could result in better eating habits overall (2).

On the flip side, wandering downstairs for a midnight snack or eating right before bed has been linked to diabetes and weight gain.

Quality Sleep

As it turns out, a full 8 hours of sleep per night is still considered the gold standard and can help reset your metabolism.

How Long Does It Take to Improve Your Metabolism?

The amount of time it takes to rev up your metabolism can vary. For some, it can take weeks; for others, months.

During that time, however, it can be easy to fall off track. Joining a weight loss program with daily check-ins and support to help you push through weight-loss plateaus and help reach your goal. Lifelong Metabolic Center offers these services to support weight loss clients and much, much more. Contact us to learn more.

Boost Your Metabolism with Lifelong Metabolic Center’s Weight Loss Program

Lifelong Metabolic Center recognizes the role metabolism plays in weight loss journeys, and that’s why “metabolic” is in our name.

If you’re wondering how to reset your metabolism, contact us today for more information.

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