Metabolism Revolution

Metabolic Dysfunction and Ideal Body Weight

What you weigh and how well your metabolism is working are not always directly correlated, but in most cases, excess fat storage is one of the most obvious signs of metabolic dysfunction. So let’s talk weight. What do you think you should weigh? Maybe you have a number in mind. Or maybe you have two numbers in mind—the number you would really like to weigh, and the number you think is probably as low as you’re going to get at this stage in your life. Maybe that first number, the number you would really like to weigh, is what you weighed at a time in your life when you felt really good—or maybe you know you used to weigh that much, but you honestly can’t remember because it’s been so long. Maybe that second number, your “resignation number,” is your current weight, or the weight you typically achieve when you go on a diet, although you go back above it again as soon as you go off the diet.

We put so much emotion and worry into those numbers. But what really determines them is metabolism. Let’s spend a little bit of time considering how that works, so we know what we need to do in your body to make the number you want happen for you. Because yes . . . you can make that number happen.

Ideal Weight Calculator

What is your ideal weight? Is it the number you think it is, or is it something completely different? Ideally, I like my clients to have an ideal weight range, because weight fluctuates from day to day for many reasons. For our metabolic dysfunction calculation, however, you will need a specific number, so let’s figure out a range as well as a target number.*

MINIMUM IDEAL WEIGHT

100 pounds +/– 5 pounds for every inch over/under 5 feet = minimum ideal weight

Fill in your numbers based on the above calculation:

MAXIMUM IDEAL WEIGHT

If you are 5 feet 8 inches or shorter:

100 pounds +/– 12 pounds for every inch over/under 5 feet = maximum ideal weight

Fill in your numbers based on the above calculation:

If you are 5 feet 9 inches or taller:

100 pounds + 10 pounds for every inch over 5 feet = maximum ideal weight

Fill in your numbers based on the above calculation:

YOUR IDEAL WEIGHT:

Finally, your ideal weight is somewhere in the range between your calculated minimum and maximum. Choose a number in that range that feels comfortable for you.

Why Not Use the BMI?

There are many ways to determine ideal weight, and a popular method health professionals like is the body mass index (BMI) system. I am not in favor of it because the BMI was originally developed to look at generalized health trends. It was never intended to assess the weight of individual people, and it does not work well for very muscular, very tall, or very short people.

Not Your Idea of Your Ideal Weight?

Sometimes, my clients want to challenge me about their weight range. They think the low end is too high, or the high end is too low. They often have the wrong idea about what people actually weigh, or what people should weigh—or they have a picture in their head, maybe based on someone they know or a celebrity or something someone told them.

Trust me, if you knew what real people really weigh (including celebrities), you would probably not feel so bad about your own weight, but if you really do believe you should weigh less than your calculated minimum, or more than your calculated maximum, I recommend getting some personal nutrition counseling to do this safely, especially if you want to weigh less than your minimum. There are significant health risks to not having enough structure or enough nutrients to sustain your structure. If you are going to alter your structure significantly, you must protect the muscle and the bone through measuring and monitoring by a health professional. So, for example, if you are 5 feet 10 inches tall and you want to weigh less than 150 pounds, I recommend an in-depth physical before I support your desire to be lighter than that. I want you to be healthy, above all.

WHY WE GAIN EXCESS WEIGHT

When we gain weight, our bodies store more energy than they burn. You might be saying, “Duh, Haylie. Everybody knows that.” However, let’s take a step back and look at what that really means. “Our bodies store more energy than they burn” is not the same as saying “Eat less, exercise more.” There are many metabolic forces at work at any given moment in your life that determine exactly where and why your body decides to store energy, and when and why your body decides to burn energy.

If you got a group of your friends and family together, and everybody ate a single doughnut, each person in that group would use that energy a little bit differently. Some might burn it off almost immediately. Others might store every bit of that doughnut directly in their fat cells. Most are probably somewhere in between, all along a complex spectrum of storing and burning, and the difference is metabolism. Everyone has a very particular metabolic process going on inside them, and it is a process that you can largely control, based on what you do. You could be the super-burner, or you could be the superstorer, or you could store some and burn some.

Have you ever wondered why your body would decide to store fat when you clearly have plenty of fat stores already on deck? Have you ever wondered why your body became so resistant to weight loss, even though your doctor told you that losing weight would improve your health? Why would a smart body choose to hold on to excess weight? There is always a reason.

If it has become easier for you to gain weight than to lose weight, your body is in some state of metabolic dysfunction. I define metabolic dysfunction as the inability to effectively burn fat for fuel and the overdeveloped tendency to store fat in unwanted and undesirable locations on or around the body. But your metabolism didn’t get that way randomly. It isn’t working as well as it could because that is how your body is responding to something in your environment. Metabolism dysfunction is a survival mechanism. There is a “why” behind what is going on with you. Maybe your body isn’t getting the micronutrients it needs, so it has to shut down or slow down some systems in order to keep functioning. Maybe you have been under stress, and your body was storing fat for an emergency. Maybe you will never know the reason, but trust me when I tell you that there is a reason. Your body is not stupid, and your body is not capricious. It does its best for you in every moment of living. Now it’s your turn to do your best for your body.

But before we can know for sure what is best for your individual body, we need to assess your current level of metabolic dysfunction. How far off the path have you gone? Where are you right now? This will help us determine what you need to get your metabolism back to full function and robust working order.

PRIMARY SIGNS OF METABOLIC DYSFUNCTION

If you are in a state of metabolic dysfunction, your body is already trying to tell you that. Check the box next to any questions to which you can answer YES:

Have you noticed the sudden appearance of fat where you never had fat before, like belly fat, fat along the bra strap line, protruding hip fat, or fat under the arms or behind the knees?
Are you feeling joint or muscle pain not related to an injury, especially all over, or on both sides of your body at the same time?
Have you noticed that your energy is lower than usual?
Have you been experiencing mood swings you can’t seem to control very well, like sudden irritability, crying, anger, or sadness?
Are you having trouble getting to sleep, or are you waking up in the middle of the night and not able to fall back to sleep easily?
Are you experiencing disturbing menopausal symptoms like hot flashes, hair loss or gain, PMS, irregular menstrual cycles, menstrual migraines, or lack of libido?
Do you feel cold all the time even when other people don’t, or are your hands or feet always cold?
Do you think you get too easily stressed, out of proportion to the situation?

II.

Has your doctor told you that you have abnormal results on lab tests?
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Elevated total cholesterol
- Low HDL cholesterol
- High LDL cholesterol
- Elevated hemoglobin A1C
- Elevated fasting blood sugar
- Elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) or other inflammatory markers

III.

Have you received any of the following diagnoses from your doctor?
- Polycystic ovarian syndrome
- Endometriosis and/or adenomyosis
- Hypothyroidism
- Autoimmune disease
- Diabetes or metabolic syndrome

If you checked three or more of the items on the first list, two or more items on the list of lab tests, or even one item on the diagnosis list, I want you to know that your condition is not normal. Your metabolism is not working like it should, and it is calling out to you for something. Don’t be mad at your body. Be curious. Listen. And most important, don’t be okay with the situation. Metabolic dysfunction is not something that “just happens” with age or overeating or menopause or whatever you have been blaming your weight gain and low energy on recently. There are plenty of healthy people with fast-burning metabolisms who are older, or who eat a lot, or who are in menopause. You probably know them. And you can be one of them. You need to repair your metabolism . . . and fast.

THE SLOW METABOLISM SPIRAL

When I talk about metabolic dysfunction, what I mean is that your metabolism is slow. The degree of metabolic dysfunction directly correlates to the rate of your metabolism. Remember that metabolism is the rate at which you convert the energy from food into the processes your body needs to live life. Rate is about speed. The higher the metabolic dysfunction, the slower the metabolism, and the healthier the metabolism, the faster it burns. This is why I always talk about achieving a fast metabolism—a fast metabolism is a strong and healthy metabolism.

Now let’s think about what a slow or dysfunctional metabolism looks like in your body. When your metabolism is dysfunctional, a few very important things happen that directly impact your weight and health:

You prioritize burning simple carbohydrates. Let’s say you come home after a long day at work and you are exhausted, and then somebody in your family says, “What’s for dinner?” When you are exhausted, do you want to cook something elaborate, or do you want to order something to be delivered? Delivery is easier, of course. So is carbohydrate metabolism. When you are exhausted and stressed, your body isn’t going to hunt around for proteins and fats to convert and metabolize. Way too much work. Proteins and fats take a lot of energy to break down into micronutrients. They provide slow, steady fuel, which is great in theory, but your metabolism is basically throwing up its hands and saying, “Let’s just order pizza!” Simple carbs break down quickly, providing fast energy, even if it doesn’t last long. This is why you are more likely to crave carbs when you are stressed or tired. (The next time that happens, imagine your body metaphorically ordering pizza while the veggies and fruit rot in the crisper.)
You prioritize fat storage. A dysfunctional metabolism prioritizes fat storage because long-term survival is more important than short-term looking-good-in-skinny-jeans. This often happens to people on calorie-restrictive diets, but it also happens when people are under stress. To use food for energy, the metabolism has to convert it for storage, then use those stores for functioning. A dysfunctional metabolism tends to stuff every incoming calorie into fat storage, like a squirrel stocking a tree with acorns for the long winter. If your body thinks winter is coming, then it doesn’t matter what you eat—a candy bar, an apple, even celery and lettuce. It’s all going into the tree.
You aren’t extracting enough micronutrients from food. Imagine you are really good at doing brain surgery. You are the best surgeon in the country. But you wake up one morning with a horrible case of the flu. Or you stay up all night and now you can barely keep your eyes open. This is no time to perform brain surgery. Even if you know how to do it, that doesn’t mean you are in a condition to do it. A dysfunctional metabolism is much the same. Your body knows how to extract micronutrients from food, but the many complex biochemical processes required to do this are not working very well—they are nodding off because they are exhausted. That means all the things you want happening in your body, like burning fat for fuel and hormone production and utilization, all depend on micronutrients, and you aren’t accessing them.

When you can’t extract those micronutrients, your metabolic dysfunction gets more severe because it needs those micronutrients to stay awake and get to work. Then you get stuck in a vicious circle of nutrient deprivation, resulting in even worse metabolic dysfunction. Even the most nutrient-rich foods won’t help you if you don’t have the capacity to break them down.

If you are experiencing metabolic dysfunction and you haven’t been able to achieve the weight you want, it’s not your fault. It’s not a lack of willpower. Intense cravings are not a sign of weakness. You are gaining weight because your body is telling you to eat more due to its perceived lack of nutrition, while aggressively storing energy as fat to guard against further nutrient deficiency. But at the same time, it is not extracting micronutrients that your metabolism needs to function properly, which is what has led your body to feel you aren’t getting nourished in the first place. Theoretically, this is a heroic effort by your body, but realistically, it’s a vicious and negative spiral of metabolic dysfunction. As that dysfunction increases and more metabolic pathways go down, your body continues to compensate to protect itself from perceived starvation, but the price you pay is weight gain, low energy, or even chronic disease.

If this sounds like you, then we need to turn things around. We need to reverse that spiral so we can repair your metabolism and get it burning hot and fast again. That means we have to:

Replenish your energy stores, so your body can summon up the energy to digest protein, fat, and complex carbs, as well as simple carbs.
Convince your body that there is no emergency and it does not need to continue storing all the energy you eat in the fat cells.
After the body is calmed and has energy again, encourage micronutrient extraction with the strategic use and timing of nutrient-dense foods.

CALCULATING YOUR METABOLIC DYSFUNCTION RANK

I know you are ready to start losing weight now, and I know you want to get it off quickly. You might be inclined to say, “Haylie, just tell me what to eat.” My clients say this to me all the time—“I’ve got to get this weight off. I’ll do whatever you say. Tell me what to eat.” My response to you, as it is to them, is that we’ve got to get to know you and understand your body together before we can have the outrageous success you desire. When we know what your body is doing right now, I will have a much better idea of how to get that weight off you, fast.

In general, I find that my clients who want to lose weight fall into one of three categories:

The Magic Zone, where you don’t have much to lose but your weight feels stable, so it is difficult to get those last few pounds off.
The Unstable Zone, where weight loss is relatively easy but so is weight regain.
The Weight Loss Resistance Zone, where you’ve gained a lot but you can’t seem to lose it because it feels like your “new normal.”

I’ll tell you more about these zones when you figure out where you are. To discover which zone you are in right now, let’s calculate your Metabolic Dysfunction Score. You will need your ideal weight goal for this next calculation.

Metabolic Dysfunction Rank

STEP ONE:

STEP TWO:

METABOLIC DYSFUNCTION RANK: WHAT DOES IT TELL ME?

Your MDR will fall into one of three categories:

2 to 7: Magic Zone. This is the zone where your body becomes stable and creates homeostasis. It feels comfortable here, even when you still aren’t quite to your ideal weight. This is where you can eat a lot and party once or twice a week and still stay at the same stable weight. This is the range where your muscle to fat to bone ratio is conducive to a healthy metabolism—that’s why I call it the Magic Zone. But it doesn’t mean you are quite where you want to be. This stability is why those last 3 to 5 pounds can feel so stubborn . . . but don’t worry, we will get them off.
8 to 15: Unstable Zone. Your metabolism is less stable in this zone, so when you are here after losing a lot of weight, you probably have a sense of anxiety about it. You are afraid the weight will come back before you get all the way to your goal. That is understandable, because this is the tipping-point zone. Your body is easily influenced in either direction. People who yo-yo diet a lot tend to do so within this range, chasing a number up and down on the scale. When I have clients in this zone, I advise them to put their heads down and don’t look up for fourteen days, until we get them into the Magic Zone, where they will feel more stable.
Any number greater than 15: Weight Loss Resistance Zone. When you are in this zone, your body favors the metabolic pathways for weight gain over the metabolic pathways for weight loss, making weight loss more difficult. This zone contains a lot of historical set points—numbers my clients tell me they haven’t been able to get below since having their first child, for example. The goal for people in this zone is to change the metabolic environment swiftly and dramatically, to blow past those historical set points and into a more active weight loss state.

What zone are you in right now? This will change over time as you lose weight and get healthier, but what concerns us is where you are today. Knowing this will help us recognize what kind of challenges you have ahead, but no matter where you land, the Metabolism Revolution will be customized to get your weight moving in the right direction and end your weight loss struggles for good. Now it’s time to define the plan that is going to get you out of the place you are stuck in right now. It’s time for a metabolic intervention.