The Metabolism Miracle

Excerpted from "The Metabolism Miracle" by Diane Kress, RD, CDE. Available now from Da Capo Lifelong (www.dacapopress.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.

You know who you are. You have suffered through liquid diets, portion-controlled diets, calorie-counting diets, point diets, fat-free diets, carb-free diets, grape­fruit diets and doctor 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 an expert in dieting. You can recite the calorie content of foods without glancing at a book. You have tried, over and over.

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 they 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 much of my life. I have spent more than 25 years as a registered dietitian specializing in weight loss, prevention and management of diabetes and cardiovascular nutrition. Only after my own health declined and I pieced together clues from years of personal trial and error, the experience of thousands of patients, and current medical research, did I finally find the answer.

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 a 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 small roll of fat around my middle!

I followed the guidelines that I had been taught were the key to good health. 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? Nothing I did would stop this train! Despite my attempts to do everything by the book, my body would not respond. I finally felt the full force of the frustration and emotional pain that my patients endured.

The experience led me right back to the traditional nutrition theories that I had been teaching my patients. This time, I dug into the research, analyzed the nutrition "wisdom," and looked at the patterns that fit my successful patients and unsuccessful patients. I tested out new approaches, threw out those that didn't work and came up with confirmation of what I had come to suspect: It was clear that one segment of dieters responded to the traditional approach. The other needed a very different and new approach. The "Metabolism Miracle" is that approach.

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 the law of calories didn't apply to all of my patients. I have counseled thousands of people over the years and worked equally hard with all of them. Yet I noticed something that deeply concerned me. More than 45 percent of those I counseled never achieved their desired results.

Most weight-loss advice recognizes only one metabolism, the version every medical student and dietetics student is currently taught. I call this Metabolism A. But as I failed to lose weight on standard diets written for Metabolism A, and as I watched many of my patients fail to lose weight on those diets, it became clear that we were working with a different animal, a metabolism that I refer to as Metabolism B. This alternative metabolism requires an entirely different approach and that is how the "Metabolism Miracle" program began to take shape.

You may be familiar with the labels metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance. Together with a host of other signs that may seem unrelated, including fatigue, sleeplessness, mild depression and anxiety, these conditions point to Metabolism B. The split between dieters with Metabolism A and Metabolism B is almost even. More than 45 percent of those struggling to lose weight were 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.

Individuals with Metabolism B will never succeed at following a traditional diet because their alternative metabolism follows a different set of rules than 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.

Within the first few weeks on the "Metabolism Miracle"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.

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