For the last 30 years or so the school of thought has been in order to lose weight and keep it off is to burn more calories than you eat.  They have condensed your weight loss issue into a simple math equation, which would be great, but there are other variable that are often overlooked, which is why losing weight is more than calories in versus calories out.

The cry has been to burn more calories, but depending on where those calories come from can have a major impact to the success of your weight loss program. You can burn calories all day long, but if you are not burning calories from stored body fat…you will probably not only struggle with your weight but also struggle with fatigue, cravings, mood swings, hormonal imbalances, ADD, etc.

The good Lord designed the body to burn calories from the breakdown of either carbohydrates, proteins (lean muscle), or fats.  Those are the only three choices or sources your body has.  You burn calories to produce energy, period!  Just because your burned some extra calories today…doesn’t mean you burned stored body fat.  That is the major flaw or assumption.  You could have burned all those extra calories from the breakdown of carbohydrates and lean muscle, which is what commonly happens and a major reason people hit plateau’s and can’t drop those extra pounds.

What we need to be looking for – is what triggers your metabolism to burn fats versus carbs and lean muscle. The variable to the whole calories in versus calories out are hormones. You see hormones, (guys don’t turn away…I am not talking about estrogen, progesterone and testosterone….I am talking about the hormones that regulate your metabolism) tell your metabolism to burn calories from the breakdown of fats, some hormones trigger your metabolism to burn carbs and proteins, and other hormones tell the body to store fats.

The key in losing those unwanted pounds and keeping them off is to trigger or produce more of the hormones that work in your favor. You need to find out if your metabolism is burning carbs and lean muscle or stored body fat.  Is it working in your favor or not?  Here are a few things to think about…

  • Did you know that what you eat can trigger certain hormones to tell your body to either burn or store fats?
  • Did you know that stress and the over-production of your stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) trigger your metabolism to burn calories from carbs and proteins instead of fats?
  • Did you know that exercise can be both stress reducing and stress producing depending on the intensity of the workout?

This is why it is so much more important than to simply count your calories and subtract how many calories you burned.You have to look at the whole picture, how well is my metabolism functioning?  Is Diet, Exercise and of course Stress…which is what I talk about in “To Burn or Not to Burn – Fat is the Question” helping or hurting my metabolism?

Let’s not forget the individual whose body (adrenal glands) is already exhausted! They may be struggling with adrenal fatigue, which further throws their metabolism out of whack and why they struggle with fatigue and weight gain.

The take-away in today’s message is not how many calories your burned, but rather are you burning stored body fat?  If your metabolism is constantly burning carbs and lean muscle you will always struggle with fatigue, weight gain, cravings, moods swings and so many other issues. Therefore the first thing I would suggest doing is Test Your Metabolism with the “online health quizzes” to see if your metabolism is keeping you in your ‘fat-burning’ zone 24/7.  You might want to also take the Stress Test to see if stress is contributing to your problems.  Once you know that you can begin to address the real cause of your problems. I also hope you realized that adding and subtracting calories does not give you the total picture.