Metabolism Makeover: Ditch the Diet, Train Your Brain, Drop the Weight for Good by Megan Hansen, RDN

Written by For the Novel Lovers on November 5, 2023. Posted in Current News

Book Review

Title: Metabolism Makeover: Ditch the Diet, Train Your Brain, Drop the Weight for Good by Megan Hansen, RDN

Genre: Non-Fiction, Medical, Science

Rating: 4.25 Stars

The introduction of Metabolism Makeover simply sets out the goals of the book which aren’t to provide set meals and exercise plans like most self-help books but rather to help understanding of how our bodies work regarding food and the processing of food. If we understand this better than we can better met our body’s needs while also maintaining the ideal weight loss.

The author also relates to this struggle as she had her own issues with weight and food while studying and by her own independent research – not by what the mainstream taught – she learnt that she could lose weight without depriving her body of what it needs to survive.

Chapter One focuses on introducing us to the metabolic system and how it functions when we eat and how it responds differently depending on the types of food we consume. Hansen makes it clear early on that the diet industry and culture often set people up to fail as it doesn’t provide them with the right tools for their goals.

In most cases, people start with the physical aspect, such as increasing exercise and restricting their calorie intake which does lead to weight loss temporarily.

However, it also leads to an unhealthy relationship with food and a wretched metabolism. Hansen’s approach is the reverse; it starts with fixing the metabolism and creating a healthy relationship with food which ultimately leads to sustainable weight loss in the long term.

Hansen walks us through the metabolic ecosystem and the six pillars it contains: blood sugar control, movement, muscle, good sleep, stress management and healthy gut as well as looking at your relationship with food. These six pillars in harmony create a productive ecosystem but she works on the 80/20 rule meaning that if 80 percent of these pillars are good you can give yourself some grace with the remaining 20percent. For me personally, my lowest score was in muscle and movement because I live a sedentary lifestyle but score highly in all the other areas.

Chapter Two moves on to managing our blood sugar which is something many people struggle with since they don’t recognise the signs of their blood sugar rising or falling. This where most of the science kicks in as Hansen explain how the body metabolises different types of food and the effects these have on our blood sugar.

Carbs will cause your blood sugar to spike and when the converted energy is stored in muscles and fat cells, this causes a drop in blood sugar leading us to feel hungry again. The easiest way to prevent this is to slow down the metabolization of the carbs by balancing them with proteins, healthy fats and fibre.

Throughout this chapter Hansen gives many different examples of different foods you can use in meals with carbs to slow down the drop in blood sugar meaning you stay fuller for longer. She also provides a few different meal plan options but leaves it open because everyone is different and has different dietary requirements.

Personally, this chapter was useful as it helped me understand the amount of these foods, I should be eating for the size I am and the effects these will have on me. Moreover, Hansen doesn’t believe that the BMI index works because it doesn’t consider muscle and bone density, which can affect weight or factors like race that might contribute to someone’s weight. Her advice is we should ignore BMI indexing and follow other methods of measuring weight instead.

Chapter Three focuses on muscle. Hansen discusses here the role muscle and muscle mass plays in weight loss. Most people don’t seem to know that having more muscle mass means you burn more calories at rest because your body must expend energy to maintain those muscles, even when not actively trying to enhance or grow them.

Training muscle instead of focusing on doing cardio work outs means your weight loss might be slower and less noticeable on the scales at first, but in the long term you are going to burn more calories at rest; acquiring muscle effectively means less need for intensive cardio workouts to control body fat.

This doesn’t mean we should cut out cardio. It is just a shifting of our perspective to make our body more efficient at burning calories in the long run. For most people this will lead to a sustainable weight and more metabolic flexibility.

Chapter 4 moves onto living in motion which is aimed at people like me that have a more sedentary lifestyle or don’t actively workout. Much like the previous chapter, Hansen drives home the point that some movement is better than no movement, so even if you can’t hit the gym three times a week a 20 minute walk a day or twice a day if you can manage it is more than sufficient to begin your weight loss. Looking at the varying accounts of people Hansen has helped permits us to see the real results because – after all – we are not all the same. Even for me – living a sedentary, cozy lifestyle – I can incorporate the right food, good sleep and a small walk a day and still expect to lose weight over time.

Chapter 5 focuses on sleep. Most of us underestimate the role sleeps plays in the body and how sleeping poorly impacts our overall health. A lack of sleep or low-quality sleep not only affects our moods but impacts how we eat and metabolise our food. As such, poor sleep can lead to weight gain over time. Having suffered with poor sleep for years I completely agree with Hansen on these points. In  recent months I have fixed my sleeping pattern and will even take day time naps, which has not only improved my mood and productivity, but has helped me cut back on daytime snacking.

Chapter 6 addresses stress management. Much like sleep, how you manage or don’t manage stress can have a huge impact on your body over time. Hansen details how stress can affect us physically including weight loss. This is due to raised hormone levels at times of stress; while small amounts of stress are useful, prolonged periods can be damaging. The advice here is to aim to remove the small stressors in life and manage the ones that you can’t remove.

Chapter 7 focuses on gut health. The state of your GI tract plays a huge role in weight loss. Obviously, there is a lot of bacteria in your gut, most of which is extremely useful to your body but when the GI tract is thrown out of balance by illness, poor diet there emerges a lot of negative effects. This is because the body’s efforts are focused on prioritizing those issues, so weight loss is virtually impossible during this time. This links to Chapter 6 because we know that stress can suppress the immune system leading to illness which can completely derail any planned weight loss.

The final two chapters are intertwined so I will discuss them together. These chapters focus on the mental mindset you need to have to get effective and sustained weight loss and how you can use the information in this book in order to achieve it. The mental mindset is probably the most important part of this book because we form a lot of subconscious habits and when we try to break these habits and it fails many see it as a lack of willpower when it is a subconscious habit. With any habit, these are easy to form and a lot harder to break and must be dealt with first before you can use any of the other information in the book. Overall, I found so much information in Metabolism Makeover to be useful. If you’re like me and have struggled with weight loss using conventional diets, then I’d highly recommend picking this book up – but do use your own judgement before putting anything into practice since everyone is built differently.

Buy it here:

Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk                                  amazon.com

Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk                                            amazon.com

Source: Forthenovellovers

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