Metabolism Makeover: Ditch the Diet, Train Your Brain, Drop the Weight for Good

Introduction

How We Got Here

I remember the (first) time I ate an entire jar of peanut butter on my bedroom floor.

I was 19 and in college, studying to become a dietitian. That semester, I was working on a class project that replicated how we’d walk a patient through a weight-loss program:

Step 1: Determine how many calories the patient requires to maintain their current weight.

Step 2: Determine the patient’s goal weight based on their height, using a Hamwi ideal body weight chart.

Step 3: Determine how large of a calorie deficit they’d have to sustain, based on how much weight they had to lose. Since 3,500 calories convert to one pound of body fat, one must sustain a 3,500-calorie deficit to lose one pound.

Step 4: Create a calorie-intake goal (food!) and a calorie-output goal (cardio!). If the goal is to lose two pounds per week, the total deficit for the week would need to be 7,000 calories, or a 1,000-calorie deficit per day. This often would look like eating 500 fewer calories and doing enough cardio to burn 500 calories each day.

Step 5: Track calorie intake and output in a food and exercise journal to stay on track.

Step 6: Watch the weight come off precisely as it should, according to the above formulas.

Our assignment was to put ourselves through these calculations and keep a food journal for a period of time. In theory, this was a great idea because by experiencing what our patients would experience, we would easily be able to show them empathy and grace throughout this major life change.

We were given the option either to reduce our own calorie intake if we felt that we wanted to lose weight or to eat at a maintenance level of calorie intake (i.e., the number of calories your body needs to maintain its current weight). I chose the weight-loss route, because according to the ideal body weight charts we were using, I could lose another five pounds.

One night, after weeks of barely eating 1,200 calories and squeezing in 60-minute runs every day, I came home after eating dinner and was out-of-control starving. Ravenous.

I grabbed a jar of Jif peanut butter out of a roommate’s cupboard and stuck my entire hand in it. And I didn’t stop. I took down that peanut butter jar with my bare hands.

Afterward, I sat on the floor in a daze, wondering WTF just happened. I felt sick, gross, and embarrassed. My roommate was going to be pissed. Mostly, though, I felt the fear creep in as I started to add up the calories I’d just consumed. I got into bed and lay there, wondering how tomorrow I’d make up for all those extra calories I just ate. I could get up earlier to work out before class, skip breakfast, miss dinner and a night out with my roommates, or cut out carbs for the rest of the week.

None of these options would solve the actual problem, because the problem was never the calories⁠—the problem was right inside my head. Overexercising and starving myself only made things worse by creating a constant obsession with food and my body. It also made me more hungry, which added fuel to the binge-restrict cycle I had found myself in. I could have saved myself years of playing out this scene over and over again if I had just asked myself why I’d do something as bizarre as manhandle a jar of peanut butter in the first place.

Instead, I spent the next five years doing strange things because of food. I skipped social events when I wouldn’t have control over my food choices. I ate a roommate’s Pop-Tarts in the closet late at night. I cut carbs out of my diet Monday through Thursday so that I could binge on vodka and gyros all weekend long. I took a can of beets to a kegger to curb my hunger so I wouldn’t eat the pizza. To sum up, I lived in a constant cycle of shame about who I was⁠—a person who was studying to help people with food and their weight but who had no control over food or her own weight.

I finished college with a 3.9 GPA and was placed in my first-choice dietetic internship program, where I graduated at the top of my class and passed my boards on the first try. I was a brand-new, model dietitian who had completed her studies with a 25-pound weight gain and a severely disordered relationship with food and her body.

I’m not quite sure what got into me as I approached rock bottom with my eating and weight issues, but shortly after passing my boards and becoming a registered dietitian nutritionist, I came across an article that claimed lifting weights for just a few hours per week was a more effective weight-loss strategy than hitting the treadmill every day. This made no sense to me, because an hour of cardio easily burned more calories than an hour of weight lifting. After reading the entire article, I thought the whole thing sounded suspicious, but man, I hated running.

What happened next changed the entire trajectory of my life.

I dropped cardio entirely and started lifting weights at my local gym. Within a month, I had lost five pounds. But it wasn’t just the weight loss that shocked me⁠—there were other dramatic changes too. My body was less inflamed, I was less bloated, and I no longer woke up feeling like I had been hit by a truck overnight.

And it made me wonder, What else have I been doing wrong?

I started to question the calories in/calories out theory that my entire weight-loss education was based on. So, I went looking for answers. I pulled out my human metabolism textbook and notes from college. I had loved this class! I remembered it being the aha moment in my studies when everything I had learned in my biology, biochemistry, anatomy, and physiology courses finally came together. I looked at this 600-page textbook that covered how our bodies metabolize protein, fat, carbohydrates, fiber, vitamins, minerals, and electrolytes and how each system in the body communicates throughout the process. It covered the importance of caloric balance, yes, but I now knew⁠—from experience!⁠—that there was clearly more to the story.

For example, there are hormones in the body that control your appetite, and these hormones are turned on and off based not only on how much food you eat but also on what types of food you eat. This is because the types of food you eat affect your blood sugar levels, the speed at which you digest food, and the signals traveling from your gut to your brain⁠—all of which play a direct role in your appetite regulation.

So, back when I was attempting to subsist on oatmeal, fat-free yogurt, salads, and cardio, it made perfect sense that I would eventually end up on my floor with my face in a jar of peanut butter at 9:00 p.m. Ghrelin, my hunger hormone, skyrocketed, while leptin, my fullness hormone, plummeted to protect my body from starvation while eating these low-calorie foods. My body was screaming, Feed me!

Not Another Diet

Every year, 45 million people in the United States go on a diet. Dieting is a $73 billion industry that asks us to count, track, eliminate, eat less, and exercise more; yet, depending on the study that you look at, we know that around 90 percent of these diets fail over the long term. But we keep dieting because the immediate weight loss we experience on our first diet creates a positive association in the brain that’s difficult to shed. And dietitians⁠—the professionals you’ve trusted with your body⁠—are learning to promote the same weight-loss strategies that have an abysmal success rate. The global influence of the diet industry is so powerful that it’s even infiltrated our education systems.

As I started to study more and more about how our bodies metabolize food, how they burn and store fat, and what drives hunger and satiety, I began to completely change the way I thought about food. And while I was still very much focused on weight loss, I ditched calorie counting and the rules the diet industry told me I must follow. Instead, I focused on discovering which foods kept me satiated, which foods triggered cravings, which foods energized me after a workout, and which foods helped me sleep better at night. I went from asking How much less can I eat? to How much more can I support my own body? And over the course of the next year, not only did I shed the weight I had gained but I also healed my relationship with food and my body in the process.

Your story may look different from mine, but I’m guessing you picked up this book because you live with one of these three beliefs:

I can’t stick to anything, diet or otherwise. My willpower sucks!

I can stick to a diet and exercise program like glue, but it doesn’t matter because nothing works for me. I never lose any weight!

I want nothing to do with diets⁠—I know they don’t work. But I still feel like crap, and I’m not sure how to change that.

And like peanut-butter-binging me, you may be feeling frustrated by the fact that you can’t get the results you want by following the rules of the diet industry. You might feel like a failure. Or that your body is broken. You might be discouraged and ready to give up. And if you work in the health industry like me, you might even be feeling like a fraud.

If this describes you in any way, stay with me. By the end of this book, you will have the tools not only to lose weight but also to never have to go on another diet again.

I’ve had the honor of witnessing people from various age ranges and backgrounds repair their metabolism, lose weight, and heal their relationship with food. And here’s what I can tell you about them: when they made the decision to ditch the diet industry’s rules, they⁠—quite literally⁠—changed their lives. Sure, they lost the weight and felt confident in their own skin, but I also watched them

stop obsessing over food and wasting time tracking every morsel of food that went into their mouths;

get hired for dream jobs they never would have applied for while in their past bodies;

eliminate polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) symptoms and go from an 84-day to a 32-day menstrual cycle;

put themselves on dating apps⁠—and meet their dream partner;

go into remission from bulimia and binge-eating disorders;

take a picture in a swimsuit on vacation for the first time in 25 years;

reverse diverticulitis, insulin resistance, and prediabetes;

achieve clearer skin, drop the afternoon energy slump, and eliminate chronic bloating;

easily get down on the floor to play with their kids.

Past Dieter Profile

When Sarah first came to me, she was done dieting. She had given up and had decided to accept the fact that she would probably just be depressed and obese for the rest of her life. But the ditching the diet approach appealed to her, so she decided to give it one last shot. Within a week, Sarah noticed she was feeling better. Her energy increased and thoughts about food decreased, and even though it took her some time to begin to see physical results, she began to feel something she had never felt in her life⁠—confidence. In two years, she went from a size 22 to a size 10. She is now maintaining that weight easily, and more importantly, she has absolutely no fear of gaining the weight back.

You have the power to change your body and your entire life in the process. The key is both learning how your body’s metabolism works and understanding the starring role your mind plays in all of this.

Just to be clear: this is not a weight-loss blueprint or another diet book in disguise. Instead, it’s a road map that will educate and empower you to make decisions about what to eat, how to move, and how to live in a way that supports your body, no matter what season of life you are in.

How to Use This Book

This book is designed for the seasoned dieter who has the nutrition facts of every food item in the grocery store memorized and for the person who is about to learn about macronutrients for the first time. It’s for personal trainers, people who have not yet picked up a dumbbell, and everyone in between.

This is also a book that you can use at your own pace. You may decide to upend everything and make over your life in three days after reading this book, or you may decide to start with breakfast. Both options are beautiful and can lead to permanent positive changes in your body and your life. No matter where you are in life, every step you take toward your metabolism makeover will gradually realign your body and restore it back to metabolic health.

In the upcoming chapters, you’ll learn everything you need to know about how your body burns and stores fat, how your appetite is regulated, and how gaining a deep understanding of your metabolism and the role your mindset plays in controlling weight is a critical factor for your long-term success.

I’ve included several sidebars throughout the book to highlight topics you may find interesting, as well as short client stories in hopes that you will see that some of the women and men who have worked with me are no different from you. Some of the names have been changed for privacy, but all the stories are real.

Let’s look at a quick overview of what you’ll learn.

Chapter 1: The Metabolic Ecosystem

We start with science. In chapter 1, we’ll unpack the concept of metabolism and how it affects you. You’ll discover the number one reason you’ve failed every diet you’ve ever started, why willpower was never the problem, and how dieting eventually caused your metabolism to break, for lack of a better term. You’ll then be introduced to what I call the Metabolic Ecosystem: blood sugar control, muscle, movement, good sleep, stress management, and a healthy