Metabolism 101

The Basics of Metabolism  – A Lesson for my HCG Diet Patients

This is a little lesson that I review with all of the patients who come to me for help with weight loss via the HCG Diet protocol and other methods.  We must remember we were never meant to be living in a world where food was so readily available. Our genetic design to eat food when it was available, when it was in season and not too much of it. In fact, it was not uncommon for thousands of years to go a week or two (maybe more) with very little to no food.

The Basics of Metabolism in Our Bodies

Every moment of every day, you’re burning calories. You need calories for every activity, from thinking, dancing, meditating, eating, talking and walking.  You even burn calories while you’re sleeping as our bodies continue to miraculously keep our metabolic functions alive for us.

Where does the caloric energy come from?  FOOD!!!

At mealtime, we ingest a large number of calories.  Where do these calories go?  Clearly, we don’t need all those calories at the exact moment we decide to have our big dinner! If our bodies didn’t have a way to store those calories for future use, we’d be extinct.

How the Body Stores Calories for Later

Fortunately, the body has wisdom! We store carbohydrates in the liver and in the muscles as  glycogen, and we store fat as something called triglycerides.  These calorie storage tanks (glycogen and triglycerides) wait patiently until the body needs them for fuel.

These two sources of fuel known as fat and sugar (more technically, fatty acids and glucose) are the primary sources of energy (calories) that our bodies run on.

Your body can store about a gazillion calories in your fat tissues (triglycerides).   When it comes to glycogen or sugar storage, the body will store about 1800-2000 calories. That’s because sugar should only be used sparingly if we were in an emergency! Sugar is the perfect fuel if you need a quick burst of energy lasting under 30 seconds.  The body can use that sugar instantly while it takes up to 20 minutes for the body to mobilize a significant amount of fat.  Back in our early days as human beings, we used glycogen readily if we had not eaten in two weeks and then we needed to run from a tiger or a bear.

The Sustained Energy of Fat for Fuel

Sugar is great in a pinch—but if you want sustained energy, you’re much better off using fat as your primary fuel.  Mother Nature knew what she was doing when she gave you the ability to store fat for fuel.

There’s an added bonus to shifting your metabolism to burn fat: Fat is a “clean burning” fuel. When you burn fat, it doesn’t produce as many of the chemicals that cause inflammation and oxidative damage, which are at the core of virtually every degenerative disease we know of, as well as the process of aging!

That’s why moving from a sugar-burning to a fat-burning metabolism reduces your risk of the following:

• Pre-diabetes/metabolic syndrome/type 2 diabetes
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Cancer
• Quicker aging—more wrinkles, declining skin condition and appearance, etc.
• Exhaustion/ fatigue/ lack of energy and endurance
• Low sex drive and/or stamina
• Poor mood—depression, anxiety, anger
• Hormonal imbalance
• Loss of lean muscle mass

In the HCG Diet process that we offer at The Natural Path we see extreme health improvements when our patients shift into burning fat stores for fuel!

Categories: Body Composition, hCG Diet, HCG Diet Weight Loss, HCG Weight Loss, Weight Loss