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Is Your Metabolism To Blame? · Your Strongest Body

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You are listening to your Strongest Body.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Betsy Foster, a certified strength and conditioning specialist and certified nutrition coach.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: I've worked as a personal trainer for over a decade, helping people build strength, speed, muscles as well as a deep appreciation for their bodies and confidence that helps them live their life to the fullest.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness, nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello, welcome back to another episode of your Strongest Body.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: As always, I am your host, betsy Foster, and today we are talking about metabolism, and I figured let me get started with how this came up in my mind.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: In the last week-ish or so, two week-ish, two weeks-ish we've been running my eldest daughter around for her dance recital.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Now she is very young still, she's six years old but in running around to the dance recital, you're going to these rehearsals all the time and you see these.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I mean you see kids her age, but you see kids a little bit older and into their teens sort of running around.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: They're in like six or seven dances and you know they're coming from school or when school was in session they were coming from school and they have jobs and they've got like busy lives and they're working hard, and I remember that as a teenager.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I actually think about it a lot now.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I think about how, like, oh my goodness, I don't know that I could maintain that same schedule and it's not to say that I'm not very busy now, but it's a different kind of busy, it's a different kind of physical energy, and I think often about how women in particular I don't know if it's as common amongst men, because I don't work with as many men who specifically talk about this, but for women definitely Women are always like oh my gosh, I wish I had their metabolism.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: When talking about a young woman, we have it in our mind that young people have these speedy metabolisms that allow them to eat all the food regardless of calories, regardless of nutritional density, and never change how their body looks, and one.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: I think I understand where this comes from for sure.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I also think we sort of neglect the fact that there are also a really wide variety of bodies of young people and for so many young women, they're thinking about their bodies and their metabolism at an age where we're hoping.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: They're just thinking about like, how do I have fun today?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: How do I learn a little bit more?
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: How do I learn to socially interact with people?
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: It breaks my heart but that's another story for another day the plight of young women and their body image at such a young age.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: But it is because we have been told for years and years and years that your metabolism declines and that that is the reason why you may struggle to lose weight.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: The question we're going to ask today is your metabolism to blame in terms of changing your body shape?
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: So we're going to talk about that and, as always, I'm going to provide some hopefully some insight and some tips to turn the tables for you and to give you some actionable strategies if your goal is to change your body size, shape, how it looks.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure that you have heard the idea that your metabolism slows down as you age, and when we think about that slowed metabolism, we usually associate it with the idea that we're burning less calories as we get older.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Is this true?
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Technically, yes, but the amount and the time when it does begin to slow down is going to shock you, I think.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's really gonna shock you.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: So the bottom line is that metabolism, and our slowing metabolism, isn't as much the thing to blame and I hate the phrase blame because, listen, we are all human beings but if your mindset is stuck in the way that your metabolism is the reason that you are having difficulty losing weight or changing your body composition, I want you to know that is not as responsible as you thought.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: If anything, it's like the last thing that is responsible, and for a healthy individual without any metabolic disorders.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Now, I will say that because there are anomalies, of course, to any of these things and you may have something that is affecting your metabolism, but for the average individual, this is going to maybe blow your mind because in researching it I kind of knew this, but then I wanted to look at the specific data and it is really, really interesting.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So the numbers for you your metabolism is working hard in your first year of life and then it is increasing in your childhood and your adolescence.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: From the years 1 to 20 years old, we see a plateau meaning no change, no significant decrease from ages 20 to 60.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: 20 to 60.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: So I don't know about you, but I have friends who are in their 30s who believe that their metabolism has begun to slow down, women in their 40s and their 50s, and I'm not saying that things aren't changing for you, but the idea that metabolism and your total daily energy expenditure so the amount that your body burns at rest is plateauing and it is not decreasing until around age 60.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Age 60.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Then what is also so fascinating is that at age 60, it's only dropping by 0.7%, around 0.7%.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So even when we hit that 60-year-old mark, we're only decreasing by about 0.7%.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So I have to break it to you that that is not the reason why your weight has plateaued or you have gained weight, or your body shape has changed or you've gained fat.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: And this is not me pointing my finger at you.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: If you know me, I do not point fingers.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: I'm saying let's take this as a huge win.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: The idea that metabolic decline is keeping you from changing your body shape and changing how you look and feel is a passive.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: You know, oh gosh, I had a good sentence and then it just totally left me.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: The idea that metabolic decline I'm going to say it again is the reason why you are struggling to lose weight, change your body shape or feel better is something that is out of your control.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So if you're feeling that way, you have probably felt like there's nothing I can do, because my metabolism is just slowing down.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: This is an inevitability.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Take this as a win, because it's not, because it is not declining.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: First of all, if you're between the ages of 20 and 60, it's probably plateaued.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: You are probably burning around the same, and then if it is after 60, it is a very small amount.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: So it simply means that there are other things we can do actively to change that.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Now, if you're thinking to yourself, yeah, but I have seen, I've seen myself put on weight as I got older.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I have seen my body shape change as I've gotten older, let's do some deep thought around why that could be happening, and this is what the research tends to say.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: A few reasons why.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: When you were age 20, even age 20 to 30, or let's say you were age 15, like those young women I was talking about in the dance recital, you had after school activities, you had physical activity in school.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: You had a ton of extra energy to run around and do things and burn more calories.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You just simply did.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Even age 20, age 30, that's what was happening for you.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: It Even you know.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Age 20, age 30, that's what was happening for you.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: It starts to change.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but as a caretaker, as someone who has young children, I get less sleep.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I have a ton of to-dos.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: So I went for many people.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: You switched into a sedentary job.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Even personal training and running your own business at home is a more sedentary job than when I was in high school, going to 17 dance classes a day and people were doing different things.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So you stopped moving as much.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Then you think that you're moving a lot because you're tired and this is a little bit of a brain opener.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh my gosh, I can't do that.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I must be still moving a lot because I'm tired all the time.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a dangerous cycle in that you are more tired because you aren't moving a lot, because the tasks that you have to do now are like greater mental load.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: It doesn't always feel like I have a free minute to go do something active, because there are lots of things to do as an adult that I didn't have to do as a younger person.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: I'm standing and doing dishes and it is exhausting me, but I'm not getting steps or extra movement from it.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm not getting a ton from doing the laundry, one might say.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: That's why I leave it in the dryer and don't put it away because, like you know, the calorie burn from walking it from the this one is just for my husband because I know he listens going from the dryer to the closet, you know that isn't really worth my time, just kidding.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: But those things that fill our time these time fillers aren't the same kind of active, energetic, re-energizing things.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: So you've got a ton of to-dos, you're moving less and you feel more tired.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: That is a recipe for less calorie burn and it has nothing to do with your metabolism.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: You've got a job, you've got home tasks, you care for others.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: All those things make us feel tired.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Then let's take into account that we're going to lose muscle mass.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Okay, so after 35, we're starting to lose muscle slowly over time.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Guess what affects our metabolism and or the amount that we're burning, losing muscle?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: So, while our metabolism, you know the amount that we are burning at rest doesn't technically change.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: If we had more muscle, we would be burning more.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Also, let's think about this If you have less muscle and you are moving less, you are likely in more pain and or things are harder, more difficult.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: So the same kinds of tasks that used to be in your younger body very easy to accomplish really energizing are not anymore because you have lost muscle, you have less energy and all those things feel harder.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: You have less energy and all those things feel harder.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You are going to move less if it doesn't feel good to move and so we associate that with our slowed metabolism.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: But in fact it is our inactivity and our neglect of our muscular strength that is contributing to that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Now you hear me.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying I've got a perfect answer for you because, like I said, when I finish my workday I have to think about what my kids are going to eat and then, once we get them bathed and into bed, we have to do the dishes and I have to look at the laundry and not put it away and like all those things still have to get done.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: So I don't necessarily have a solution for you other than an acknowledgement that it's hard.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: And then let's kind of troubleshoot because we can figure out some things.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You know I have figured out a few ways to get some more movement.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: You know I have figured out a few ways to get some more movement, but it isn't necessarily my metabolism that has changed.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: My lifestyle has changed.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Same thing, you know and like women who are going through menopause and I'm not going to go into the depth of that kind of conversation but think about how your body is changing and feeling and you may have less energy to move.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So, even if, technically, your metabolism has not changed, your ability and effort and energy to get things done has changed.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So where can we, where can we intervene?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Where's our intervention point and how can it be effective?
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: One, I think one of the best interventions is to acknowledge that.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, you know, my age doesn't have to be a limitation.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: One of my, like, biggest goals and I know it's maybe silly, but I love it is that I'm like I want to age in reverse.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I feel in a lot of ways like the movement and the exercise I choose to do has helped me feel younger, and when I think about the fact that my metabolism is probably around the same that it was, the energy burn is about the same I was when I was 20, it opens my mind to the fact that I can feel like I'm 20.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: I can feel like I'm 20 and still have all the new added things and responsibility of an adult, but there's nothing about my body that can't achieve that feeling.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So what do we do?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Well, we got to build muscle, we have to build muscle.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: We got to stave off that decline and we do that with resistance training.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: And we do it with the kind of resistance training that's focused on full range of motion, functional movement and specific, hypertrophic, isolated exercises for different muscles.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: We don't do just running around and sweating, we're actually focusing on building strength and building muscle and that will help us stave off that decline If we focus that training on not just like wiping ourselves out because that's also what we've been taught, at least for women.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: It's like work hard, work hard, punish yourself with exercise, sweat, sweat, sweat, feel awful, and that's what's going to give it to you.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I tell you, if you're already tired and if you already have life tasks, that is a you're just like pulling yourself down harder and faster.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Instead, if we can focus the stress because exercise is a stressor but if we're choosing the stimulus that's going to create the greatest effect, impact with the least cost and support our ability to recover, re-energize and re-approach life, then we are hitting the jackpot.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So we're going to focus on building muscle in that way.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Then we're going to focus on moving more in general, and I want you to think about this.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I want you to think about this over the week.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: I want you to think about yourself at age 17.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Gosh, there are so many things I would not want to go back to, but sometimes I think about how there were very few moments where I was just like sitting and not doing anything at all.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Where in your day are you taking a moment you feel totally drained and you could move a little more?
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: It's very hard to get started.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Starting from stopped is very, very hard.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Inertia is helpful, but I promise and you may have noticed this as well when you get up and get moving and give it enough time, it does help feel better, you know, and so maybe that's a brisk light walk, you know, and maybe it's only five minutes at first because that's the only amount of time you can fit in, but maybe in two weeks you'll be able to fit in eight minutes or 10 minutes.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: I can appreciate the importance of that as well as realize that the longer I sit and stew in that, the harder it is to get moving.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And if I can find opportunities to move, more often than not I feel better.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So it's not all the time, but if I want to feel better it's not all the time, but if I want to feel better and if I want, if I am a person who wants to change my physical appearance and or body composition or weight or anything like that, I've got to choose that movement in some circumstances, and I've got to choose more than I did before, because that's all we can do is accumulate more movement.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: So that's something I'm going to think about.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to think about.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I'm going to think about where can I move more that will burn more calories, especially if my body's not changing how many calories it's burning at rest.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: The next one is get more rest.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Now, I know you're going to be like, but at rest I'm not burning anything.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: The reason why you're not moving as much is because you're so tired.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: The last time I asked an adult how they were doing and they didn't say they were tired was like I don't know, pre-covid maybe and they were probably saying they were tired.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Then I used to make this joke that I was like as a trainer.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Every time I asked a client how they were doing, they would tell me they were tired.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: They would ask how I'm doing, and I bite my tongue because I think that nobody wants to hear their trainer is tired.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: They want to hear like I've got energy, I'm here for you, but like I was tired too.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But basically that's the default answer for everybody.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Are we all tired?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I think in some cases we are because we try to fit in too much in the day.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: If you prioritize rest, you will feel more energized in the day to do a little more than you've done before, and that is a real, tangible thing that is changing as you're aging, because you have more responsibilities, because you have more on your plate, because your body is changing, prioritizing rest, rest seems to be the thing that is going to help you move the needle, and that goes with the last thing, which is eating nutritious foods.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Same thing If we want to have energy, if we want to be able to do things, move our body more, which is going to be the thing that increases that overall calorie burn, the energy burn of ours, especially if from 20 to 60, it's staying around the same place and at 60, it's only dropping by 0.7% a year.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: If that's the case, we got to have foods that nourish our body so that we have energy to move more.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Now there are probably again, there are exceptions to this, but I want you to take it not as a me telling you this is your responsibility.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: It's me telling you that some of this is in your control, in an empowering way.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: You are empowered to do some things in your life, to make these changes, and these changes will also make you feel better, like who wants to spend their days thinking that we are just doomed to an inevitable decline.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I hope not.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: I really really hope not.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Oh gosh, I hope not.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: I really really hope not.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I hope that in 20 to 30 years, I've got maybe not boundless energy, but the energy where the bounds?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I can't see them necessarily, and I want to be able to do fun things and I want to wake up energized and I don't want to always say I'm tired and I want my muscles to make me feel good.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: I want to be able to reach down and grab things.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I want to be able to not be in pain all the time and I also want to feel youthful.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That number is just a number.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: We're changing all the time.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: You know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, I was an old person because people weren't living past 40.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's have our most energized years ahead of us.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Let's have our most energized, happiest, most like I am loving what I'm looking at in the mirror years ahead of us, and we can do that because metabolism isn't the big factor, the big monster that's holding us back.
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I hope this is helpful for you.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: If you've got questions about it or you want to chat through it at all, I would be happy to do that.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: You can always reach me, betsy, at BeFosterStrongcom that's the letter B, fosterstrongcom or you can send me an Instagram DM at Foster underscore strength and, as always, ratings, reviews, shares always help the podcast.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: So if that's something, that is something you'd like to do, you are more than welcome to.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Until next time, go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you later.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Bye.