Is My Metabolism Broken?

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve had a client ask me “is my metabolism broken?”

Clients want to know if the dieting, disordered eating or eating disorder has permanently damaged and broken their metabolism.

And it’s not really a surprise that this question is coming up, because talk about metabolism is everywhere.

Eat these five foods to supercharge your metabolism.

Avoid this one type of exercise to spare your metabolism.

These modern foods are why your metabolism is stalling.

So is this true? Are there ways that your metabolism can be slowed down or sped up? And if so, do these changes become permanent? Is their validity to the question of “is my metabolism broken?”

Understanding Metabolic Rate

While the word metabolism is thrown around, I want to explain what it means. Because I think there can be confusion. 

Metabolism is the process by which your body converts the food and drinks that you consume into energy. 

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the rate of energy expenditure that the body uses at rest. Even when you are sitting still or even sleeping, the body still needs energy to keep you alive. 

BMR includes things like breathing; blood circulation; regulating body temperature; cell breakdown, growth and repair; brain and nerve function; and contraction of muscles. 

But the BMR isn’t the only energy demand we have, because the body is doing much more than just being in this rest state. And when we include all these other energy demands it is known as Total Energy Expenditure (TEE). 

Outside of BMR, the three energy demands that makeup TEE are:

1. The thermic effect of eating: the energy expended to digest, convert and absorb food
2. Physical activity or exercise: the energy expended to run, swim, lift weights, rock climb or whatever other sport or exercise is undertaken
3. Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): the energy expended for everything we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports-like exercise. Things like typing, hanging out the washing, having a shower, fidgeting, etc

So, when you eat food and take in calories, it has to cover the basal metabolic rate plus all the additional functions that are part of your life which equals your total energy expenditure. 

What Does A Slowed Metabolism Feel Like?

Symptoms arise with a slowed metabolism because of the mismatch between the energy that is available and the long list of jobs that the body has to do. The below list is far from an exhaustive one but contains some of the more common symptoms:

• Decreased pulse
• Low blood pressure, leading to the occurrence of dizziness and feeling faint (especially when getting up or with exercise)
• Feeling cold
• Poor sleep with difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, increased nightmares, night sweats and restlessness
• Increased irritability
• Increased digestive upset – gas, bloating, constipation, loose stools, undigested food in stools, acid reflux, etc. 
• Decreased libido, often with menstrual cycle becoming irregular or stopping altogether. Reproduction is no longer a priority
• Brittle hair, nails and skin
• Increased craving for salt
• Increased food thoughts, which could be obsessive but also anxiety-provoking
• Increased frequency and urgency of urination
• Cuts being slow to heal, bruising more easily 
• Muscle cramps and pain (which counter-intuitively can be worse with rest or when exercise is ceased)
• Difficulty focusing/concentrating (although in the beginning, the opposite can be true)
• Increased neuroses like depression, anxiety, hypochondria, hysteria
• Immune system changes – for some this means many recurrent infections, for others, this means never getting sick 
• Increased injuries
• Lower amounts of red blood cells. These are the ones that carry around oxygen

For a much longer list of potential symptoms, typically those seen in eating disorders, you can check out this page. 

Why Does A Slowed Metabolism Occur?

When there is less energy coming in, the body can’t keep running at pre-restriction level. There is not enough to power everything, so some systems get turned down and others get turned off. 

In an ideal world, the metabolic rate would be spared. When there is a decrease in calories coming in, exercise or NEAT would be reduced. These are activities that are in addition to basic functions that the body needs to keep up. 

But when exercise does occur at this time, it forces the body’s hand. It is being pushed to use energy on movement and so cuts have to happen in other areas. 

Essentially, the body goes into triage mode and decides the order of urgency based on the limited resources that are available. This is what leads to a slowed metabolism and there is no better example than The Biggest Loser Study. It’s a great way of looking at the question of “is my metabolism broken?”

The Biggest Loser Study

In May 2016 Gina Kolata wrote a piece for The New York Times. The article was based on a six-year follow-up study of 14 of the competitors from season 8 of the television program The Biggest Loser. 

While the study looked at several ideas, one of the big focuses was on what happened to the participants metabolic rate. 

Exercise is often touted as something to “speed up your metabolism”. But as we’ve just seen, this isn’t necessarily true. And when exercise, especially in high amounts, is combined with a restricted diet, as it most definitely is on The Biggest Loser, this can harm metabolism.  

At the end of the television program, baseline metabolism for the participants was on average 600 calories less than what should be expected. 

What is meant here by “what should be expected” is this: If you found someone who was the same weight as the participant at the end of the show, but that other person had never dieted and was naturally at this weight, they would be able to eat on average 600 calories extra a day and still maintain their weight. 

But 600 calories was simply the average. Danny Cahill, who won season eight, had a metabolism so slowed that he had to eat 800 calories less a day to maintain this weight in comparison to a typical man his size. Weight loss as part of The Biggest Loser had drastically slowed his metabolism. 

But what was especially interesting is what happened at the six-year follow-up. Even though all but one contestant was now heavier than when the show ended, the average metabolic rate was even further reduced six years on. Two contestants’ metabolic rate had increased but for the 12 other competitors, it was lower. 

So, while weight had increased from its lowest amount, metabolism had not. And now to maintain this new higher weight they were needing to eat even fewer calories, otherwise, their weight would further increase.  

In fact, those who were most “successful” at maintaining lost weight after 6 years also experienced the greatest ongoing metabolic slowing. Is this proof that the answer to the question “is my metabolism broken?” is yes?

Is My Metabolism Broken Permanently?

As I mentioned at the start, the fear that most people have is that they have permanently broken their metabolism. And when you read the results of The Biggest Loser study, it sounds like this is the case. That after six years, metabolism is still reduced and seems to be getting worse. 

While this is the impression, this isn’t actually the case. Rather than being broken, it is simply slowed. And a slowed metabolism is an adaptive mechanism. When you reduce the energy available because of reduced intake or increased expenditure through exercise, the body only has one option. It has to reduce what it is spending on all the other functions that it does.  

It can often be hard to see this because we are obsessed with thinness and have an incessant focus on weight loss. With the mistaken belief that if I’m now in a smaller body I must be doing something right for my health. But the method by which people achieve this “transformation” is synonymous with slowing metabolic rate. 

How Do You Repair A “Broken” Metabolism?

Metabolism is complicated and many factors can play into it. But there are a handful of things that make a sizeable difference. And this is especially true for people who have restricted and exercised their way to a slowed metabolism, whether through dieting, disordered eating or an eating disorder. 

Food

The most important tool for increasing metabolism is taking in enough food. Calories really do trump everything else. Because it’s the food that is turned into energy that allows your various systems to increase their functioning. 

Don’t get swept up in trying to find metabolic “superfoods” or avoiding metabolically “toxic” food. While different foods can have an impact on health, when energy demands are not being met, this kind of focus is missing the forest for the trees. 

The body needs food to meet the demands of today. But it also needs food to make up for the energy debt that has occurred through insufficient energy from the preceding months, years or decades. This means that the amount of food you actually need can be much higher than what you think you need. 

Downtime 

Alongside increasing food, you want to give your body a chance to rest and repair. 

This is important because it reduces the calories being used for say, exercise, which can then be used for other functions. But it is also important because it changes the state the body is in and gives it the chance to prioritises recovery.

Sleep is when your body is doing a huge amount of repair work, as I cover in this two-part podcast here and here. Upping food intake and reducing energy-demanding activities can greatly assist with this. 

In the beginning, taking time off can leave you feeling worse and like you’ve been hit by a bus. This isn’t because you are doing something wrong; it was always there, you just weren’t noticing it because you kept pushing yourself. 

Energy Flux

What is required to repair this situation isn’t necessarily the same as what you’ll keep up for the rest of your life. Because of depletion that has driven down metabolic functioning, the pendulum needs to swing further in the opposite direction to repair the body. 

As this situation improves, what you are doing can change. But whatever changes are made, the goal should be to increase your basal metabolic rate and your total energy expenditure, where you are now functioning at a higher rate of energy flux. This is something I talk about in this podcast. 

Challenge Your Beliefs About Weight

For all of this to work though, we need to look at and most often challenge our beliefs about weight. 

The belief that if you have a high metabolism, you will be thin

The belief that by exercising and losing weight you are “supercharging“ your metabolism

The belief that everybody is meant to be thin, lean, “ripped” or “comp ready”

Body’s are different and just because the cultural ideal is a certain way, doesn’t mean that this is how your body is going to look.

So often I will have clients who tell me they are “weight restored” or at the upper end of their “weight set point”. And that it must be true that their metabolism is broken. 

But just like you can be sleep deprived and not know it, your body can be repair deprived and you don’t know it. 

If your body feels like it is not getting what it needs, then your metabolism is likely to be reduced. And this doesn’t necessarily mean your weight has to increase (although often it does) but more repair does need to occur first. 

And this takes time. If you start to rest and repair but then become scared and begin reducing food again and upping exercise, then your metabolism is going to stall. And you’ll have a situation just like in the Biggest Loser study. 

Want Help To Repair Your Metabolism?

As I said at the top of this article, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had a client ask “is my metabolism broken?” They fear they’ve permanently damaged it through their current and previous habits. But through working together, they discover that this was simply the state they were in. Their body was effectively responding to the environment and reducing spending to match up with the reduced energy available. 

If you’re stuck feeling like your metabolism is broken, I’d love to help you learn through experience that this isn’t the case. 

I’m a leading expert and advocate for full recovery. I’ve been working with clients for over 15 years and understand what needs to happen to recover.

I truly believe that you can reach a place where the eating disorder is a thing of the past and I want to help you get there. If you want to fully recover and drastically increase the quality of your life, I’d love to help.

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