Sunday, April 4, 2010

8 Ways to Speed Up Your Metabolism

Eat lots of calories. This will signal your body to speed up it's metabolism.

Avoid excessive PUFAs. Consuming PUFAs over 4% of your total calories is “excessive” by our standards. Limiting PUFAs to 2% or even 1% is better. That will further speed up your metabolism.

Contrarily to what others have told you, you don’t need to supplement with extra omega-3 to balance out your omega-6s. If you keep your omega-6s to a minimum, then no extra omega-3 is needed.

Be sure to get enough B vitamins from food or supplements. A fast metabolism will increase the need for B vitamins, especially B6. If you can’t get enough from food, then be sure to supplement.

If you supplement with B vitamins, take caution. Many supplements have synthetic analogues of these vitamins. Some synthetic versions will lessen your ability to metabolize the natural versions.

In addition, you should get some of your B vitamins from animal sources. For example, vitamins B6 and B12, which are found in plant foods, are different in chemical structure from the B6 and B12 from animal foods. The plant versions aren’t utilizable within your body, and can actually inhibit your ability to metabolize B6 and B12.

Consume plenty of vitamins A, D, E and K2. These vitamins function like hormones. For example, vitamin A will increase the production of growth factors and testosterone. Vitamin D has a hormone-like function which will help the absorption of minerals. And lastly, vitamin K2 regulates the calcification of organs.

Vitamins A, D, E and K2 interact with one another. They should be balanced. Increased vitamin D levels requires increased vitamin A. Excess vitamin D could deplete K2. You should consume them in the right proportions.

In addition, these vitamins may require some cofactors to activate it. It’s said that vitamin D requires magnesium and boron.

Vitamin E is an endocrine booster. It will increase testosterone levels. In fact, it is required for fertility.

Vitamin K is actually a complex. The two main forms are MK-4 and MK-7. The two forms may have different functions, so it’s probably safe to take both.

Vegetable sources of vitamin A and K have poor availability within the body. Plants contain the beta carotene and K1 forms of vitamin A and K. But evidence suggests that you can only convert 10% of beta carotene to retinol, the available form of vitamin A. In addition, studies have shown that consumption of beta carotene will actually inhibit your absorption of retinol. These could be the same with vitamin K.

Unlike beta carotene, plant-based vitamin K1 do have some merit over its animal counterpart, K2.

Intake of fat-soluble vitamins, which include A, D, and K, should be consumed along with fat. Fat is required for the absorption of these vitamins.

Consume lots of fats, especially saturated fat. Saturated fats have been shown to increase growth factors and testosterone. Monounsaturated fats also do this, but to a lesser extent.

In our opinion, if you're insulin resistant, then fats should be at least 30% of your calories. But remember to keep PUFAs to a minimum. However, if you're perfectly sensitive to insulin, then fats aren't required.

Limit your intake of amino acids cysteine, methionine, and tryptophan. They are found in large quantities in muscle meats. Try to get your protein from other sources, such as organ meats and dairy products.

Do high-intensity interval training (HIIT) once every few days. But be sure to rest well in between. HIIT will adjust you to a more fat-burning mode.

Minimize your lifestyle stressors. Such stressors include: undersleeping, oversleeping, starvation, overtraining, excess fiber, excess PUFAs, excess iron, stimulants, fluoride, aluminum, heavy metals, pesticides, and excess iodine.

5 comments:

turbo said...

Hello, I saw your comment about low PUFA on the 180 site and was interested to find out more. About 2 plus weeks ago I went low PUFA. I ditched the high PUFA nuts and especially the peanut butter (which I do miss) and read the labels for veg oils. I saw a little bit of leaning out originally. I've also cut down on protein in the form of powders and instead drink more milk or other diary along with small amounts of meat. And to round it out butter consumption is up, but so is starch. What do you think the optimal low PUFA lifestyle looks like? Does is resemble low carb? Or are the extra calories coming from carb sources?

Organism as a Whole said...

turbo,

I don't think it matters whether you get calories from fat or carb, as long as you get enough calories. You know that Kitavans eat a diet with 70% carb, and the Inuit eat a diet with 75% fat.

Most people lose weight on a low-carb diet not because they eat less carbs, because eat less carolies. They eat less calories overall because fats are so satiating. But then they go into starvation mode and their metabolism slows down and begin to store fat.

So I don't think it matters if you eat low carb or high carb, but if you have trouble stuffing yourself to get your required calories in a low carb diet, then include some starch.

Matt Stone have some good recommendations. You may also be interested in Ray Peat.

Fructose has shown to cause leptin resistance in laboratory rats. But the evidence doesn't imply that fructose itself is harmful. Leptin resistance may be caused by Candida, fructose malabsorption, or malnutrition, not by fructose itself. I don't know.

Our ancestors have eaten fructose, so I guess fructose is harmless.

Anonymous said...

Isn't Iodine supposed to be good for thyriod (hence, metabolism)? I got this info from reading Dr. Brownstein and listening to some of his lectures from 2006 WAPF conference..... Do you have different information? Look forward to your reply.

Organism said...

Hi, you may be interested in this WAPF article. It argues against some of Dr. Brownstein's arguments.

Too much iodine can cause an imbalance of selenium and zinc. Here are some studies:

Interactions Between Selenium and Iodine
Single and Multiple Selenium-Zinc-Iodine Deficiencies Affect Rat Thyroid Metabolism and Ultrastructure
Dietary Iodine and Selenium Interact To Affect Thyroid Hormone Metabolism of Rats

Excessive iodine may be toxic to the thyroid gland because it creates free radicals and thus may permanently damage the thyroid.

Anonymous said...

Hi, LZ
I see you have a lot of knowledge about nutrition and metabolism, and I would be interested in your ideas about cancer reversal/management, particularly breast cancer. Any ideas or references will be most welcome.

I have seen your comment on iodine, and it's cofusing that some people advocate it for breast health and even breast cancer treatment (Dr. Derry), but others think iodine is poison (Ray Peat). Your comments will me appreciated.

Regards,
Nen