The Metabolism Miracle, Revised Edition

PART ONE

Your Metabolism Is Different

1

A Proven Program to Change Your Life

You know who you are.

You have suffered through liquid diets, portion-controlled diets, calorie counting, point counting, fat-free diets, carb-free diets, grapefruit diets, cabbage soup diets, and even medically supervised diets—only to regain every pound you lost. You sit at weight-loss support meetings next to people who succeed while you do not. You are truly an expert in dieting. You can recite the calorie content of foods without glancing at a book. You have tried, over and over. You really have tried.

Yet you have known for a long time that something is very different about your body. Others eat twice the quantity of food that you consume and weigh much less than you. No matter what the doctors and nutritionists say, you insist that you must have a different metabolism.

You are right.

I know this because, like you, I have this different metabolism, and it confounded me for many years of my life. The Metabolism Miracle is the culmination of my life’s work in treating people with stubborn weight and weight-related issues.

The story of the Metabolism Miracle began with me. Even before I became a registered dietitian I knew there was something different about my body. Despite my best attempts at weight loss, I always regained every pound I lost, my energy was sapped, I felt older than my age, and I had difficulty with focus and concentration.

It took many years as a registered dietitian specializing in weight loss to find and acknowledge the problem. To date, I have spent more than thirty-five years as a registered dietitian specializing in weight loss, obesity, PCOS, metabolic syndrome, insulin imbalance, and type 2 diabetes.

But it wasn’t until I put it all together based on my own and thousands of patients’ weight-loss issues that I could clearly see the flaw in the standard diet. And this previously unrecognized diet flaw continues to impact approximately 60 percent of people trying to lose weight, keep it off, and get healthy.

The Metabolism Miracle changed my life and continues to change the lives and health of the millions of people who can’t lose weight or keep it off without this program.

A Personal Story

As a registered dietitian, trained in the traditional approach to nutrition, I have counseled thousands of people over the years and worked equally hard with all of them. Yet early in my clinical practice I noticed something that deeply concerned me: more than 60 percent of those I counseled never achieved their desired results.

In the traditional school of thought a person will gain weight if he or she consumes more calories than are burned off. Most weight-loss diets are based on this “law of calories.” The fewer calories a person consumes, the less he or she will weigh. Add physical activity to the equation, and weight loss accelerates. But what if the law of calories didn’t apply to all people?

For years I used a universal formula, the Harris-Benedict equation, for all of my weight-loss clients to determine the number of calories they should consume in order to lose weight. I dutifully plugged my patients’ gender, height, desired weight, age, and physical activity into the formula and came up with a calorie allotment that should have guaranteed their weight loss. If the patient’s cholesterol was elevated, I added a saturated fat and dietary cholesterol restriction. If they suffered from hypertension, I added a sodium restriction. The formula then configured a nice, neat diet package with precise calorie allotments. This is the same diet many physicians, dietitians, and nutritionists provide today.

The patients followed the diet, weighed and measured food portions, kept detailed food journals, and exercised regularly. But many of them returned for their follow-up visit disillusioned and depressed: nothing significant had happened! They had lost little weight and had no real change in their blood lipids, blood sugar, or blood pressure. They remained on medications, and worse yet, their medications increased over the years.

I sympathized, but I also wondered whether they had truly followed my instructions. Perhaps they wrote what they believed I wanted to see in their food logs. Maybe, in reality, they didn’t follow the plan or exercise. Perhaps they were overeating or sneaking in snacks. The diet worked for some of my clients, so why didn’t it work for all of them?

As time passed I realized that if I were to help these patients, I would have to challenge some of the principles that the medical community had written in stone. There had to be a reason for the obesity epidemic. Why was type 2 diabetes afflicting more and younger people? Why were so few people succeeding at diets despite the billion-dollar weight-loss industry? Why were we becoming a nation reliant on prescription medications? Something had to be very wrong with the theories.

Then something alarming happened to me.

As a nutrition counselor with a thriving practice, I knew everything there was to know about diets; I could configure them in my sleep. I prided myself in following a balanced, healthful diet. I exercised regularly and practiced what I preached. But as I entered my thirties my body changed.

At a routine physical exam a nurse told me that my consistently low blood pressure had increased to the normal zone. Shortly after, my cholesterol and triglyceride levels began to rise, regardless of exercise and my low-calorie, low-fat, low-cholesterol lifestyle. Soon, even as I counted every calorie that passed my lips, the numbers on the scale began to creep upward. Worse yet, I noticed a roll of fat forming around my middle!

I followed the guidelines I had been taught were the key to good health. I lived the traditional, standard diet programs. Like my patients, I monitored my calories, fat, cholesterol, and sodium, and I exercised faithfully. Despite all of this effort, I continued to gain weight and eventually needed medication to help control my blood pressure and cholesterol.

Finally, just before my fortieth birthday, I developed type 2 diabetes. What had happened? It seemed as if nothing I did would stop this train! Despite my attempts to do everything by the book, my body did not respond appropriately. I finally felt the full force of the frustration and emotional pain my patients endured.

The experience led me right back to the traditional nutrition theories I had been teaching my patients. I started to keep detailed data on their blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose as they followed their diet program. I dug into the latest research on metabolism and weight loss. What was different about the patients who succeeded on the traditional diet and those who were unsuccessful? I tested different approaches, threw out those that didn’t work, and came up with confirmation of what I had come to suspect: one segment of dieters responded to the traditional approach, but the others needed a very different and new approach. The Metabolism Miracle is that new approach.

The new program worked. Within the first few weeks on the program I felt like a new person, with higher energy, looser jeans, and no cravings. Within the second month my doctor eliminated my hypertension medication and decreased my medication for cholesterol. Eventually I no longer needed any of my medications, and my blood pressure, cholesterol, weight, and diabetes remained under good control! I felt great, and friends told me I looked ten years younger.

Not only did the program work for me; it worked for the patients who fit the profile for and followed this very different way of eating. There are definitely two very different styles of metabolism. In order to succeed losing weight and getting healthy for the long term, everyone needs to know their metabolic type to point them in the direction of the right diet and lifestyle plan for their body.

A Different Kind of Metabolism

Most weight-loss advice recognizes only one metabolism, the version every medical and dietetics student is familiar with. I refer to this “universally” recognized metabolism type as Metabolism A.

Weight-loss diets have traditionally been designed to work for those with Metabolism A, as the medical community assumed that we all have the same type of metabolism. Diets based on “calories in minus calories out,” low in fat grams, with a focus on complex carbohydrates are designed for so-called normal metabolism, or Metabolism A (Met A).

If a person metabolizes food differently from the universally accepted Met A way, standard, traditional diets will not match their metabolism. Trying to follow a traditional weight-loss diet based on Metabolism A when a person has a different metabolism type is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole—it simply won’t work.

I failed to lose weight and retain my good health following standard diets designed for Metabolism A, and I watched so many of my patients go down the same path. I began to refer to our alternate metabolism as Metabolism B (Met B). This alternative metabolism requires an entirely different approach for long-term weight loss and health benefits, and that is how the Metabolism Miracle began to take shape.

Before we discuss how to know if you have Metabolism A or Metabolism B, it is important to understand the term metabolic syndrome. Those who eventually develop metabolic syndrome have the genetic predisposition to Metabolism B.

Doctors first began to recognize metabolic syndrome way back in the 1920s. Not a single disease, metabolic syndrome is a cluster of health conditions. Think of Metabolism B as the precursor to metabolic syndrome. You are born with the genes for metabolic syndrome (Met B), but life’s stressors cause it to manifest.

The National Institutes of Health has defined metabolic syndrome as a metabolic disorder in which a person has three or more of the following:

       •  a waist measuring at least forty inches for men and thirty-five inches for women

       •  triglycerides over 150 mg/dL

       •  HDL cholesterol less than 40 mg in men and less than 50 mg in women

       •  blood pressure of at least 135/80

       •  fasting blood glucose over 110 mg/dL

Simply put, the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome is based on such factors as being overweight, having a large waist circumference, high LDL (bad) cholesterol and triglycerides, low HDL (good) cholesterol, hypertension, and higher than normal blood glucose. When metabolic syndrome is diagnosed, the combination of genes and assorted lifestyle factors that include weight gain, inactivity, hormonal changes, high carbohydrate diet, certain medications, emotional stress, illness, and chronic pain are already present.

Dr. Margo Dente, professor of medicine at the University of Texas, noted that being able to identify metabolic syndrome can go a long way to improving it. “This is one syndrome that is exquisitely lifestyle-sensitive—it’s an area where we can get people to pay attention and if they do pay attention, there are big rewards,” she said.¹ And Drs. Melissa Conrad Stöppler and William C. Shiel point out the surprising prevalence of the syndrome. “Metabolic syndrome is quite common,” they write. Approximately 32 percent of the total adult population of the United States has metabolic syndrome, and a full 40 percent of American adults over sixty are affected, while 85 percent of those with type 2 diabetes have metabolic syndrome.²

Although a patient may clearly have the lab work, weight distribution, and blood pressure to diagnose metabolic syndrome, most physicians and healthcare professionals fail to diagnose their patients. And although metabolic syndrome has been recognized for years, no diet prior to the Metabolism Miracle has ever covered all the contributing factors that force the progression of metabolic syndrome. The Metabolism Miracle takes the whole package of symptoms, labs, and weight issues into account, stops the fat-gain train in its tracks, and even helps to reverse some of the health consequences of this previously uncontrolled metabolic progression.

Individuals with Metabolism B will never succeed at following a traditional weight-loss diet based on lowering calories and increasing activity because their unique carbohydrate metabolism follows a different set of rules from those of the standard metabolism. In fact, attempting to lose weight using a traditional approach can set off the downward spiral of unchecked Metabolism B.

The split between dieters with Metabolism A and Metabolism B is slanted toward Met B. Over 60 percent of those struggling to lose weight are born with the genetic predisposition to Metabolism B. The onset of their symptoms is slow and progressive and may be expedited by a number of life events, including stress, weight gain, illness, and hormonal changes.

Take heart. You do not lack willpower! You are not a lazy dieter! You are not lying about what you eat or if you exercise! Your body simply responds to carbs differently from how science originally claimed. Once you understand your body, you can work with your unique metabolism instead of against it. By identifying whether you have Met A or Met B, you can easily make the right food choices to lead a healthy life at your healthy weight.

Because other diets haven’t worked for people with Metabolism B, permanent weight loss can feel overwhelmingly difficult and often downright impossible. Add a health issue such as type 2 diabetes to the scenario, and the extra weight becomes downright scary. I know because I’ve been there.

If you have the genes that have set you up for a lifetime of struggles with weight, the Metabolism Miracle will absolutely work for you. Before the Metabolism Miracle, you had little to no chance of permanent weight loss. With this lifetime lifestyle program you can reach and maintain a healthy weight, your lab data will improve, the dose of medications you take to control weight-related health problems will decrease or disappear, and you may avoid health risks down the line.

Best of all, you will look and feel great!

2

Is This You?

Anyone can lose weight with the Metabolism Miracle, but the program is designed specifically for people who have Metabolism B—those who have a slim chance of long-term weight-loss success with any other diet plan. They will, for the first time, lose weight and successfully keep it off for the rest of their lives because this comprehensive lifestyle approach, unlike other weight-loss programs, matches their unique metabolism.

You may be thinking, I must not have Metabolism B because only two years ago I could control my weight with no problem. Keep in mind that people with Metabolism B have always had the genetic predisposition for this alternative metabolism, but it is only when outside triggers—such as emotional stress, weight gain, inactivity, hormonal changes, or illness—flip the switch that Metabolism B begins to manifest itself in symptoms such as weight gain around the middle, hypertension, or high cholesterol. Some people show symptoms as children, and others show symptoms during the teen or adult years. The longer a person has unknowingly lived with unchecked Metabolism B, the more progressive their weight gain and weight-related health issues become. (See Trouble Triggers, page 32.)

Thankfully, finding out whether you have Metabolism A or Metabolism B is very clear-cut.

To start, answer the following descriptive questions. Most people with Metabolism B see themselves as they answer yes to questions on the list. If you recognize yourself in a number of them, you may have Metabolism B and should move on to the easy personal symptoms checklists that follow. You can see the genetic link by looking at your family’s medical history. Finally, if you’ve recently had fasting lab work done, you can see whether your lab work is consistent with uncontrolled Met B.

A Look in the Mirror

       ____  Have you dieted for years, perhaps successfully in the past, but now even tried-and-true diets you once relied on for weight loss fail you?

       ____  Do you notice that you can only stick to a diet for a short time and then the dismal results, constant hunger, and overwhelming cravings discourage you so much that you abandon your good intentions?

       ____  Are you gaining weight regardless of your efforts, and is this weight shifting into a roll around your middle?

       ____  Does the fat around your midsection look and feel spongy, loose, and watery?

       ____  Can people around you eat more and yet weigh less than you?

       ____  Is your overall health—physical, mental, and emotional—declining as your weight increases?

       ____  Do you need medical prescriptions for weight-related health problems such as hypertension, cholesterol, triglycerides, acid reflux, insomnia, depression, anxiety, or arthritis pain?

       ____  Despite diet and exercise, has your doctor been forced to increase your medication dosages or add new prescriptions to maintain your health?

       ____  Do cravings sometimes gnaw at you like an addiction, and do you feel a strong urge to eat carbohydrates such as candy, sweets, bread, ice cream, pasta, or chips?

       ____  Do you feel depressed, irritable, unattractive, and undesirable?

       ____  Are you fatigued, even after a proper amount of sleep?

       ____  Do you miss the “old you”?

       ____  Do you look and feel older than you feel you should?

If you found yourself answering yes to several of these questions, go directly to the following simple checklist of symptoms to learn whether the Metabolism Miracle can help you regain your health and well-being and enable permanent weight loss. If you answered no to almost all of these checkpoints, it’s quite possible that you have textbook metabolism, Metabolism A, and can lose weight on any good weight-loss program.

Clues to Metabolism B

This list of symptoms is one of the first pieces of information I use when trying to identify Metabolism A or Metabolism B. It still surprises me that when people with Metabolism A read the checklist, they only identify with a few of the symptoms, whereas people with Metabolism B relate to many if not most of them.

Check off any of the experiences that describe how you usually feel:

       ____  You are frequently fatigued, even upon awakening.

       ____  You feel mildly depressed.

       ____  You feel an energy slump in the late afternoon.

       ____  You frequently feel anxious and jumpy.

       ____  You crave carbohydrate foods—bread, chips, sweets, ice cream, pasta, fries, chocolate.

       ____  Your midsection has a roll of fat and the waist on your jeans is getting tighter.

       ____  You gain weight easily and find it difficult to lose weight.

       ____  You have trouble sleeping—falling asleep or staying asleep

       ____  You are often forgetful and worry about your short-term memory.

       ____  You have racing thoughts, even when you are in bed trying to fall asleep.

       ____  Your sex drive has declined. Along with a decreased libido, you may be experiencing erectile dysfunction (ED), frequent yeast infections, vaginal dryness, or feel too exhausted or disinterested to initiate sex.

       ____  You find it difficult to focus and concentrate and are easily distracted.

       ____  Bright light or headlights at night bother you.

       ____  You are irritable and have a “short fuse.”

       ____  You have increased sensitivity to aches and pains.

       ____  Your eyes frequently tear up and at other times feel dry and irritated.

       ____  You get dull headaches, usually across your forehead.

       ____  You feel slightly dizzy, flushed, or “weak in the knees” after even a small amount of alcohol.

       ____  Coffee or caffeinated beverages have less of an impact.

If you have identified with many of the items on this symptoms checklist, you likely have Metabolism B.

You may have looked at the symptoms checklist for Metabolism B and thought they could be attributed to many different conditions, including menopause, chronic fatigue syndrome, getting older, dealing with a young family, or working a high-stress job. But at the end of eight weeks on Step One of the Metabolism Miracle many symptoms from the checklist will disappear along with weight because your symptoms stem from untreated Metabolism B.

If after eight weeks of Step One (plus time added for slip-ups), your symptoms persist, they are related to something else and should be addressed from another angle. For example, if after eight weeks a patient still has weight gain with no change in belly fat, it would be prudent to discuss this with his or her physician.

Blame It on the Genes