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Health & Fitness

Exercise and the Hormonal Response

Exercise less and eat more. How and why this combination works!

Each one of us has a fat metabolism system that automatically regulates our weight around a “set-point.” This set-point weight is controlled by the hormones insulin and leptin, not by calories-in/calories out. That is why no matter how little you eat, or how much you exercise, you generally end up weighing the same.  Your set-point won’t go back down to normal until you get your hormone levels balanced.  Surprisingly this is accomplished by exercising less, and eating more.

Our fat metabolism system gets unbalanced because of the enormous amounts of low-quality foods that we consume.  These foods (sugars, grains, and dairy) dramatically raise these hormone levels and after years and years of a diet largely consisting of these low quality foods our metabolism gets “clogged”.   Our bodies will begin to believe that abnormally high insulin levels are normal, and then a new higher set-point is created.

You can lower your body’s set point in two ways: By exercising your muscles intensely, and by eating whole, natural foods.   Many people do not exercise nearly intense enough to make any meaningful changes within their bodies.  Walking on a treadmill or going for a light spin on a bike is not going to get the job done.  True exercise must use as many muscle fibers as possible, cause the muscles to burn, and get as close to full muscle fatigue as possible. An example that I like to use with my clients is the following:

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Say you are out walking in the woods. Your body requires a certain amount of muscle fibers to perform that activity. However, you look at your watch and see that you are running late for an appointment, so now you start to jog in order to get to that appointment on time. This movement requires more muscle fibers to be recruited. Hence your body will be burning more energy. Then suddenly, a bear jumps out from behind the bushes. Now your “fight or flight” response kicks in and you run because your life depends on it! At this point, most, if not all your muscle fibers are engaged. This is a deep level of muscular work and requires a lot of energy very quickly.

Apply this example of the bear chasing you to a workout that uses all these muscle fibers and you find that you can’t, and don’t have to, work out for a long period of time.  The body will respond to intense muscular work by releasing fat-burning, clog-clearing, hormones.  These hormones continue to be released because more energy is needed to repair the muscles. This cycle keeps repeating for as long as you are working your muscles deeply, normalizing your “set-point”.

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Any exercise program, despite how productive it is, will not be enough to change a body’s set-point weight without proper nutrition.  The goal should be to eliminate all sugar and processed food and then replace it with a lot of natural food.  Including a source of protein in each meal, along with tons of vegetables, some fruit, and healthy fats, will do wonders to decrease serum insulin levels and burn unwanted body fat.  Once your body stops relying on all the sugar from bread, cereals, pasta, and dairy, it will become very productive at burning body fat without resorting to calorie cutting.  If you can follow this high-quality exercise and nutrition plan, you will find yourself getting stronger, toner, and losing weight!

If you’re interested in finding out more about this topic, I suggest Jonathan Bailor’s book, “The Smarter Science of Slim”. Also, I’d like to thank one of our coaches Dan Bergman for his contribution to this article.

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