High metabolism is bad

Today I have for you a snippet of a real-life conversation that comes from a longer conversation from a group of people. I decided to share this part of the conversation because many people misunderstand this concept.

    “… so, the interesting thing about that question ‘aren’t fat people more unhealthy?’ …it really depends on why they are fat, right? Garbage in, and garbage out. So, if they are eating a bunch of garbage and eating way too many calories, then their body is being programmed to pack on fat and produce fat cells. But you can actually reprogram your body to not produce fat cells, and that’s what most people do when they go on a diet. They start eating healthier foods. One calorie is not equal to another calorie. Think about eating a calorie of spinach versus a calorie of sugar, your body is going to do drastically different things with the two. So, it’s not about calorie counting, it’s about content and the actual quality of the nutrition you are putting into your body. Think of what you are putting in your body as data. If you put bad data in your body then it’s not going to function correctly, if you are putting in good data, then your body will function better. Increased function is what leads to healthier people.

    OK, so this brings me to a very interesting point, with the question ‘aren’t fat people more unhealthy’. Let me give you an analogy and I will translate that to the human body. This is how things function in general; you want the highest gas mileage in your car, you want to put a gallon of gas into your car and go the furthest distance. So, what you want is fuel efficiency. You want to not put in much gas but be able to drive a long way and for a long time. That’s how you want everything to run, as efficiently run as possible. That means less wear and tear to the engine, less cost, higher quality engine, higher quality of vehicles are being made then. So, this is a goal with all of this. Now if you transfer this to the human body, you want the same thing. You want to put in the least amount of food, the least amount of input into the body: food, nutrition, diet. We want to eat the least amount possible and have that last the longest amount of time possible. So, what that means is with someone whose body is fuel efficient, just like a fuel-efficient car, they only need a minimum amount of food to function really well for a long period of time. This is the healthy way to be.

    This is why you hear about the centenarians, the people that live to be over a hundred. This is why you hear about them in books, like blue zones for example, you hear that they don’t eat many calories. It’s because their bodies are fuel efficient so they don’t wear down as fast, they have better emissions if you will, last longer, are able to take a little bit and make a lot of it. So, highly functioning, what can happen with people like that is that when they constantly eat just a little bit more than what they need then they actually put on weight faster because they are not burning through those calories because their bodies are efficient. Their bodies can store some up and then only use a minimal amount. Now, with people who are naturally skinny, those people’s bodies are inefficient, they burn up way more calories doing the same things as the other person. It’s like getting 3 miles a gallon in a car, that’s not good. What happens with those people? They typically will have shorter lifespans because their bodies are not functioning well, they are inefficient. What takes 10 calories for the fuel-efficient person to do, as far as like an action, it will take 40 calories for the fuel inefficient person. This is hard on your body over time. It’s like driving on a bumpy road and not getting good gas mileage. It is just going to wear out your body faster. So, for those people who are naturally skinny and can eat whatever they want, those are not necessarily people to be envied. Now if their bodies look nice, well good for them. However, you don’t want a fuel inefficient body because that means your body is going to wear out faster, what you want is a fuel-efficient body where you don’t have to eat very much, and it lasts you a long time. So, a high metabolism means 1 of 2 things either your body is very fuel inefficient, which is not good, or it means that you built up a significant amount of muscle mass and muscle resting eats up a lot more energy than any other tissue at rest. If you have a lot of muscle, GREAT, then yeah you can have more calories. However, you can still be fuel efficient with a lot of muscles because that’s a more relative thing. What you want is a low and slow metabolism because that means your body is efficient, and then you want to eat an appropriate amount for your body type.”