Meta-Persona

My metabolism has a personality - and so does YOURS! And 'meta-persona' is what I call my metabolisms persona.

No I am not going crazy; other than my psyche profile, the way my body creates and uses energy has a personality. I wish I had this information years ago; I would have had more success with my weight loss earlier. Let me share what I have learnt as we DROP IT together.

Prevention magazine September 2013 edition cites a Dr Holly Wyatt (coauthor of State of Slim: You’re your Metabolism and Drop 20pounds in 8 weeks on the Colorado diet) as categorizing the human metabolic personalities as:

 

Easy Gainer

You gain weight so easily and it’s almost an uphill task maintaining any weight loss.

CAUSE: Weight loss battle is as a result of personal physiological, metabolic and genetic challenges you struggle with.

ANSWER: Get moving & keep moving! Plus reduce your portion sizes and calorie intake to make the most of your metabolism.

I have been an easy gainer all my life!

 

Healthy Overfuel-er

You eat good foods and exercise but aren’t seeing any appreciable weight loss.

CAUSE: Your energy intake and output is balanced, and you are not working off what you’re taking in. You need to tip the scale on this, so that you expend more energy than you are taking in by way of food/drinks/snacks.

ANSWER: Either cut down your intake of calories/food portions OR ramp up your activity/exercising. Give aerobics a try as a means to up your activity level.

 

 

MIDLIFE GAINER

Never had a problem maintaining your ideal weight…until now (after hitting a certain age)

CAUSE: At a certain age, we tend to lose muscle mass and gain fat, and this all adds up to tip us the wrong end of the scale.

ANSWER: Changing how you eat may give you some minimal results. Eg eat more proteins and fiber. But the best thing to do is to change the type of exercises you do -working with weights can help build muscle and keep metabolism revving on high.

 

After reading this, a few questions may arise; so let me see if I can head you off with some answers [things I do now to keep burning excess fat and keep my weight loss going].

Q What type of exercise is right for me?

Before embarking on my current path, I HATED exercising. The most I would do was walk from my car to my office, and up the stairs at work (which frankly I avoided)…no mystery how I piled on the pounds, right? I tried early morning walks, aerobics, treadmills etc but could not sustain any of the regimes to the point where they became habit (which is the goal – exercising as a habit, not a fad).

Anyway, the first thing to do is get clearance from your doctor that you CAN engage in vigorous exercises – we don’t want anyone to kneel over during a workout.

Find out what works for you (it has to be fun), start it and stick to it.  I have discovered that I will not get my butt off my bed to work out if I do not personally enjoy what it is I am doing. So after a period of trial and error (I still have like 6 months paid up membership at a gym that I never use, coz I HATE it) I found that I really loved working with weights (specifically kettlebells) and swimming. No one is too old to learn how to swim- I learnt how to swim in May of this year (see me below doing my thing J).

 

Q How often do I have to exercise?

Again, I think it all depends on you, and what your weight loss goals are. When I started, I needed to lose 80kg – so from April to July 2013 I worked out (swimming) every week day – sometimes for 2hours at a time. I’ve gotten lazy in the last few months so now I swim laps twice a week, and work with 6kg kettlebells every other day (although I had intermittent periods of no physical activity at all – which I paid for).

Weight loss guru’s I’ve listened to have recommended no less than twice a week 20-45minutes workouts if you want to drop it.

Q. What can I eat?

I know you hear them say that everything is bad for you – red meat, eggs, cheese, rice, bread….you name it, someone has a reason why it is bad for you. I’m of the opinion that it’s not so much what you eat, but how much of it you consume that is the problem.

Prior to now, I could consume an entire pack of Rich Tea biscuits in one sitting. Does this make them bad? No. And I still love my biscuits, but I try to show some restraint these days J. If you have not read them, please see my ‘sound of music’ and ‘cravings’ posts – I hope it helps you figure out portion sizes and such.

Q. Carbs or Proteins, which is the better choice to eat?

I had a period early this year, when I got it in my head that carbohydrates were bad, and proteins were good; so I stopped taking carbs altogether. After a few days, you could have knocked me down with a feather – I was so weak & dizzy! A Doctor friend of mine (Seyi) set me straight, according to him (and I have come to agree) your body needs carbs as much as it needs proteins. So we have to get some balance, if not our bodies’ will just pack up – and you could end up getting ill.

Personally, with the help of a nutritionist (Dr Fiona) I try to ensure that I take in more proteins than carbs (a rough ratio would be 3:1 when that is possible). However, there are some high carb meals you will not catch going into my mouth like African Melon soup (Egusi) – I just can’t reconcile myself with the fattiness of that dish (personal preference). I’m doing more fish (this is a major achievement, coz I never used to like fish before), seafood (prawns), beans, cheese, milk, peanut butter etc.

I found out that your minimum daily protein requirement is calculated as: 

Your Weight in Kg x 0.8 = Min Protein (in g).

So if you weigh 120Kg, you need 96g of protein daily to live optimally. To put it into perspective, an ounce of meat or fish has about 7g of protein.

 

Someone just asked if with all my blogging and blabbing I am seeing any benefits from my program. Well, judge for yourself… and yes I cut my hair recently...


What's your meta-persona? Are you an easy gainer, over fueler or are you a mid-life gainer? What have you decided to do about it?

 

Have do you have any other questions you want to ask? Or want me to share some of my high protein- low carb recopies with you? Send me an email, and I’ll see what I can do to oblige you. Please drop a comment (below) and share let’s all learn from you.

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