A Metabolism Story
Imagine it’s a cold, wintery night and you feel chilled to the bone…
There’s a wood pile stocked to the brim in the backyard and you are looking forward to building a warm, cozy fire. The wood needs to last the entire winter, but you’re not worried. How could you possibly run out of wood with all that is out there? With that in mind, you build a raging fire that heats up the whole house making you in turn feel happy, comfortable, and safe.
Flash forward three months later. It’s been a particularly rough winter. The wood pile has thinned significantly, in fact, there’s not much left. It would be crazy to get more wood – wasn’t it supposed to last the whole winter? The fires you’ve built lately are meager at best, one or two pieces of wood that generate only about as much warmth to heat your toes. You know you need to use more wood to heat the house, but you’re worried you might run out. You hoard what is left, only using what you absolutely have to in order to survive the cold.
One day, you receive a knock on the door. Your neighbor is moving to a tropical island and has a bunch of wood she won’t need anymore. You gladly accept the gift and feel relieved, but can’t shake the experience you’ve just had. You vow to never let it happen again. From that day on, you are extremely considerate of how much wood you are using. You’re terrified to build a raging fire because it’s too dangerous, better to be safe than sorry. Despite having enough wood to fuel a large fire, all of the fires you build are small and inefficient.
Years later, you receive another knock on the door. You’ve won the firewood lottery! A lifetime supply of wood will be provided for as long as you own your home. At first, you feel skeptical. Will I really keep receiving wood when I run out? After a while though, you start to feel confident that the claim is real because the wood keeps showing up. You start building larger and greater fires until you eventually settle on the perfect size that keeps the house perpetually warm, and the fear you once had completely dissipates.
By now, you’ve probably realized this story is not actually about wood in a fireplace but rather metabolism within the body. The sturdy house represents the body, the fire the body’s metabolism, the wood a placeholder for food, and the “you” a stand-in for the brain. Winter, of course, is used as a metaphor for the energy demand placed on the body. When the body does not receive enough food to sustain its energy needs, the brain becomes a hoarder. Its main goal is to keep the body alive, so it will turn down the metabolism’s flame in order to stockpile a fat reserve. If food is sometimes allowed but at other times restricted (such as with yo-yo dieting), your body will no longer trust you and will continue to operate in a “survival” fashion. It will be conservative in its decision to utilize calories efficiently and will fight the good fight to keep you at the same size it deems safe and “healthy”. Unfortunately, this is probably not the size you dream of being and thus, the cycle of restriction continues.
Forget metabolism “boosters”. The only way to increase your metabolism is to consistently feed your body enough food. By consistently I mean always, and by enough, I mean more food than you think (or have been told) your body needs. Only then will your body begin to trust you again, and feel comfortable enough to start to build larger and greater “fires”.
I realize that although this concept makes sense, it’s difficult to accept. I spent years ignoring this truth as I sought to eat less and less food (and only “nutritious” food) in an attempt to continually shrink my body. What happened as a result? I became anemic, my IBS symptoms were unbearable (if I can even attribute them to IBS as opposed to disordered eating), I experienced lots of brain fog, and my preoccupation with the foods I was eating as well as my constant observation of what others were eating was distracting. When I would allow myself to splurge (I.E. eat normally), I would immediately gain weight and would consequently blame my “slow” metabolism for not allowing me to eat like other people did. Sadly, I repeated to myself for a long time that I was just unlucky and that I would need to perpetually work hard to keep my figure. Like, forever until the day I die? I can picture myself now using my walker to do a modified burpee, lol. Not practical for one, and quite sad for another to live a life endlessly concerned with how your body looks.
When I finally worked on my relationship with food and fed myself an appropriate amount, guess what? My body had trust in me again. My body size doesn’t fluctuate much (not that I touch a scale outside of the doctors office) despite daily variations in the type and amount of food I eat. I eat when I feel hungry, and that allows me to meet my body’s needs, whether they be increased after going for a run or decreased when I’m feeling anxious.
I understand the desire to manipulate the body - it’s natural given the diet culture heavy society we live in. What I don’t understand are the means people subject themselves to in an attempt to achieve a certain body type, and the blame they assign themselves when the punishment doesn’t yield success. If you could look ahead and see that that these drastic measures wouldn’t work, and could possibly place you further away from your goal, would you still try it? Ask yourself this the next time you want to cut carbs, go on a sugar free detox, fast for hours on end, or only eat “unprocessed” foods for a month. The answer might be surprising, and if it is yes please know that I am here to show you another way!
