In our last blog post, we met Sandy and Danielle, a pair of over-achieving health fanatics suffering the effects of metabolic adaptation. Sandy’s low-calorie diet and Danielle’s vigorous exercise regimen aren’t producing results because their metabolisms have adapted, making it impossible to lose fat. Try as they may, cutting more calories or adding in more exercise only makes things worse. Why? When metabolism adapts and you don’t make the right changes, metabolic damage is just around the corner.

Metabolic Damage – A More Severe Form of Adaptation

Until something changes, Sandy and Danielle are at risk of experiencing something much more distressing than weight-loss resistance – they can develop a hormonal disorder involving their immune, nervous, and endocrine systems. They’ll experience fatigue, irregular menstrual cycles, upset stomachs, bloating, and low-sex drives due to hormonal imbalances (which we’ll delve into in our next blog post), including:

• Adrenal fatigue and low cortisol levels
• Low thyroid
• Low testosterone
• Imbalanced progesterone to estrogen ratio 
• Low leptin/leptin resistance
• Immune system overdrive leading to gastrointestinal problems, food sensitivities, and more

But you don’t have to be like Sandy or Danielle to suffer from severe metabolic adaptation. Plenty of people aren’t aware of their underlying metabolism issues, making their road to damage subtler. Because metabolism is an intricate system of organs communicating, an untreated condition (like leaky gut syndrome) can negatively affect all other systems – and your overall metabolism. The pressure that chronic dieting and exercise or an underlying metabolism problem places on the body eventually causes your metabolism to shut down. And it’s easy to feel like it will never recover.

Case in Point

Source: Public Domain Pictures, via Pexels

Several years ago, researchers investigated the body composition and resting metabolic rate changes in 14 people with class III obesity undergoing intensive diets and exercise interventions as part of “The Biggest Loser” televised weight loss competition. The result? The participants 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 indicate that metabolic adaptation is indeed a response to extreme efforts toward reducing body weight.

Another research study showed the full hormonal impact on athletes who strive to achieve low levels of body fat while retaining lean body mass. As the athletes in the study created energy deficits and achieved fat loss, their weight-loss efforts were counteracted by changes in hormone circulation creating a number of persistent metabolic adaptations negatively affecting their ability to maintain weight loss.

Are You on the Road to Metabolic Damage, Too?

Today, severe metabolic adaptation often goes undiagnosed because medical providers are simply not testing for it. Instead, they’re solely looking and testing for diseases they can treat with medications or surgery. Because of the medical miss, you may walking around with a hidden metabolic disorder that’s just waiting to wreak havoc on your body.

But there is hope! At Twin Cities Metabolism, we understand and test for the hormonal shifts that can occur within the body. You no longer have to accept feeling tired all the time, lacking a libido, or fighting with your favorite foods. We provide the fastest and easiest way to get all your metabolism tests completed and analyzed by a professional, so you can have real answers and concrete solutions – once and for all.