Metabolic Efficiency

Ever heard the term metabolic efficiency?  If not, that's ok, a couple of years ago I hadn't either.

I was fortunate enough to hear a nutrition/exercise speaker today to learn more about the body, don't be too jealous.  The best way for me to learn is to take my notes and de-brief them so here you go.

Speaker info: Bob Seebohar MS, RD, CSCS and many others- was a vegetarian for 10 years, now a carnivore, he is also a writer and ultra marathoner  
www.bobseebohar.blogspot.com and www.fuel4mance.com 

Plain and simple, we need to teach our bodies to burn more fat and preserve carbohydrate stores.  
We store in our bodies: 
1,200-2,000 calories of carbs 80,000 calories of fat  (super lean athlete still stores 35,000) 
If you control your blood sugar, you use fat for energy.  Different factors that limit your fat burning are age, gender, activity level and sleep.  Fat Burning is what Bob called metabolic efficiency.  He will work/test people all the time that cannot even effectively burn fat.  The only way to truly know if they are burning fat is through metabolic testing.

If you want to change your metabolic efficiency you can through exercise (25% of your results) and nutrition (75% of your results).  When you improve it you will improve your body composition, reduce GI distress (gut health) and change your nutrient use. 

Controlling Blood Sugar to burn more fat!
Blood Sugar varies every 3-4 hours, so you should be hungry that often and eat 5-6x a day. 
It takes a body 4-8 weeks to adapt to a new nutrition plan and then we plateau.  It will take 12 months to really create a change.  After just 2 good weeks our body will start burning more fat.  After just 1 bad week it will revert back to old ways though.

If we fast then eat a lot it creates a high blood sugar, when our blood sugar is high we produce more insulin, insulin turns off fat burning (lipolysis)! 

Protein, fiber, and fat are what help regulate blood sugar and keep us from producing/releasing a lot of insulin.  Burning fat will help you look good on the out side and from inside out... 

Everyone always wants to know, What should I eat and how much?  Here are some tips:
-Diets consisting of 25% carbs have shown to lower cholesterol, lower triglycerides and increase HDL 
-Diets 65% fruits/vegetables, 35% protein, better controlled blood sugar/energy 
-Eat your foods in this order: Protein/fat, fruits/vegetables, whole grains (quinoa/brown rice), misses (everything else)
-No cheat days, they promote bad things
-When you feel like you need it, have it in minimal amounts ex.Chocolate 
-Cravings happen when your blood sugar is low, control your blood sugar to limit cravings 
-CHANGES ARE TOUGH, it takes 7-10 days to acclimate, when you go through carbohydrate "rehab" you will be crabby 
-Only need to eat during exercise if it is over 2 hours of activity 
-Focus on around 20g of protein post workout, more wont be useful
-Eat to train, don't train to eat 
-Only supplement he has found to immediately increase metabolic efficiency/fat burn is generation ucan, I haven't tried it yet so wont personally recommend it 
-My new favorite trick for when I am asked how much/what to eat:

Look at your hands, your left hand is how much protein to put on your plate and your right hand is how much color!


Hope you learned a couple things, I learned some new tips/tricks I am excited to teach all of you!


How aggressive do you want to be in changing? If your ready and can answer that without hesitation let me know!