What is METABOLIC Resistance, and How Does it Differ from Metabolic Compensation? 

Written by Mike Over

Image provided by Kyle Johnson on Unsplash

Metabolic damage is a widely misused and misleading term. To truly have a damaged metabolism you'd honestly have to be pretty close to death from malnourishment, nutrient deficiency, muscle wasting, and other things 99.9999% of people wouldn't encounter in their lives. Even if they did, fat loss would be the least of their concerns.

What people are often referring to when they talk about a 'damaged' metabolism, is actually metabolic resistance or metabolic compensation. The two are very similar in that they involve - to put it simply - the slowdown of your metabolic rate. However, there is a key difference.

Metabolic compensation is the body's natural response to dieting, fat loss, and periods of lower calorie intake. As you lose weight and lower calories, your body adapts to having less mass to carry around; while also becoming more efficient at using less energy due to the decrease in food availability. Again, this is natural. It's a survival mechanism to help keep us from starving and wasting away.

Metabolic resistance is similar in that it also involves those same mechanisms of dieting and calorie deficits, but is also exacerbated by other factors as well, including excess cortisol production, stress, poor sleep, too much exercise, nutrient deficiencies, or things like poor hormone production, autoimmune diseases, and metabolic diseases like diabetes, PCOS, etc. Metabolic compensation is normal when losing fat. Metabolic resistance is what we want to minimize at all costs.

So, why is this important and why are we talking about it? Because, metabolism is a key factor in not just fat loss and losing weight, but your overall health as well.  When you lower your caloric intake, your body learns to run on fewer calories, you move around less, and you exercise more efficiently. This means that BMR, NEAT, and calories burned from exercise are reduced. Your TEF also decreases. Less food = less energy used for digestion, absorption, and elimination.

This is where metabolic compensation can turn into metabolic resistance. Dieting stresses your body. This stress increases the production of cortisol. In a positive environment, cortisol is good to help break down muscle tissue during training, so it can be built back up stronger and bigger during recovery.

However, too much cortisol has the opposite effect. Not only does it prevent tissues from recovering, but it also decreases sex hormone production, impairs digestion, and decreases thyroid output.

Most cases of hypothyroidism not involving an autoimmune disease are usually a result of excess stress and cortisol production for too long which then leads to gut issues and energy/sleep disturbances.

In short, you can only overproduce cortisol for so long before everything tanks, which is why ONE coffee turns to two, three and so on, and you end up at 7 cups getting the same effect you used to have at one. This isn’t tolerance, it’s you shorting your adrenals too often and too long. Which then potentially leads to decreased Lipolysis. There is nothing worse than being in a negative state of being able to burn fat. Your body is smarter than you think and it will adapt to the demands you place on it whether you want it to or not. If you feed it more, it will adapt. If you feed it less, it will adapt(negatively). 

So, now that you know that losing weight will result in compensation since your body will require less calories at 200lbs vs 250lbs, it’s why many get stuck and blame it on a plateau, but in reality, they just can't be eating what they did or following the same plan that worked at 250lbs. 

Your body adapts, so should you. That’s why having a good coach to anticipate and react before this happens is key. Personally, I love to BOOST metabolism in a few ways: I enjoy cycling low and high days, stepping weeks (increase slightly weekly), mini cuts, and even things like: 

• 3 days in a deficit, 3 days in a surplus
• 2 weeks in a deficit, 1 week in a surplus
• 1-2 higher calorie refeeds every 7-10 days.
  

Another thing to remember is to set timelines for deficits. This one is HIGHLY dependent on the individual person. However, at some point, regardless of if you hit your goal weight or not, you need to pull yourself out of a deficit.

Chronic dieting can cause all sorts of problems—low energy, mood issues, hormonal problems, and increased stress, to name a few. So, if you're in a fat loss phase on your own, set yourself a deadline of 8 weeks. After that, spend at least a week or two eating higher calories before dropping back into a deficit. The longer you're in a deficit, the more time after you need to spend feeding yourself up. Your body is not meant to be in a calorie deficit a majority of the time.

Now you might be asking “what are the bad levels I should be concerned about”? This is dependent on what you are looking for but generally, I always start with fasting insulin and work to the gut as well. 

High fasting insulin: Fasting insulin should be < 5. High levels contribute to weight gain and weight loss resistance and may make reverse T3 levels higher. 

Elevated CRP: Indicating inflammation is present in the body, optimal levels should be as low as possible. 

High serum leptin levels: High levels make TSH less accurate and promote high reverse T3 levels and also contribute to weight loss resistance.

The liver enzyme ALT and another test called c-reactive protein can be high with insulin resistance, and sometimes, blood glucose and hemoglobin A1C (or HbA1c) can be high. However, quite often, glucose and HbA1c are normal with mild to moderate insulin resistance

Signs of insulin resistance include fatty liver, weight gain in the upper body and around the middle, skin tags, and another skin condition called acanthosis nigricans. A healthy fasting insulin should be less than 10 mIU/L or 60 pmol/L, depending on the units. One to two hours after the glucose challenge, a healthy insulin should be less than 60 mIU/L or 410 pmol/L. Of course, it’s normal for insulin to rise after the glucose challenge and after a meal. That’s its job, but if it doesn’t come back down, you may have some deeper level issues to address. 

As insulin sensitivity improves and insulin comes down, metabolic function is restored, and weight loss can occur. In general, it’s probably not possible to lose much abdominal weight, or abdominal fat, until fasting insulin comes below 8 mIU/L, which can take several months, depending on how high insulin was to start with. However, the thing to understand is that you could be achieving significant metabolic improvement, IE. Reversing insulin resistance can take several months before you notice significant weight loss. Which means, you should not get discouraged if you don’t lose weight right away. As long as your insulin is coming down you can know that things are in the right direction and soon you can have more metabolic flexibility. 

To fix you must be strict, but in the end, the goal is to improve mitochondrial health so you can have the nuts and bolts of your system put together and added in ways that allow you to eat more freely without fear. 

When the connection between mitochondria and your cells are confused and dysfunctional, the disruption can cause more toxic burden, inflammation, nutrient deficiency, circadian disruption, and gut issues. All those metabolic insults seem to be having an epigenetic or transgenerational effect which means that each of the last two to three generations is more prone to insulin resistance than the generation before. Which means your insulin resistance is a negative effect of your environment and/or your parents’ or grandparents’ environment. It's not necessarily something you’ve done wrong. At the same time, you can still make changes to reverse insulin resistance and regain a healthy metabolism.

Overall, some keys to consider to fix it: 

• Moving the body to build muscle.

• Eating enough protein.

• Avoiding ultra-processed food, including what are called “acellular” carbohydrates.

• Fixing any underlying gut problems because inflammation from the gut can cause or worsen insulin resistance.

• Supporting a healthy circadian rhythm with morning light and protein.

• Eating at the same time every day, which also helps circadian rhythm.

• Getting enough sleep.

• Reducing stress and enhancing parasympathetic tone and heart rate variability.

• Boosting oxytocin by, for example, getting a massage or spending time with friends.

• If you’re a woman, maintain a good level of estrogen and progesterone, which enhances insulin sensitivity.

• And, if you’re a woman, not having too much testosterone, or not taking a progestin with a high androgen index, because too much testosterone can reduce insulin sensitivity.

• If you’re a man, the opposite is true. Too little testosterone can reduce insulin sensitivity.

Other strategies include:

• Gentle intermittent fasting, especially fasting overnight, which is called time-restricted eating.

• Supplements such as magnesium, taurine, myo-inositol, berberine, silymarin, and choline. Silymarin and choline work primarily by improving fatty liver, and that brings us to the strategy of avoiding high-dose fructose.

• Chromium and Fish Oil and Zinc 

Now, the bigger picture here is to always remember WHAT your overall goal is. I often give the analogy of a car with clients.  Many times you feel like running that car without oil. You can get going and get somewhere but you eventually will break down and crash. 

Same goes for your body when you are trying to perform without carbs. You may last for a while, but eventually you will flatline if you are trying to train with performance goals and using more than endurance based activity.  Your body will also switch to a state that makes AMPK very difficult, which is a cellular state for Fat Loss. 

I always say, you can’t practice being a goalie by playing striker, so don’t tell me you are “unable to eat carbs without gaining weight” if you don’t practice either.  Just get smarter on your approach, and if you need help, I am here and you can book a free strategy blueprint call where I’ll map out your plan here.