**Jim Hill:** Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

**Holly Wyatt:** And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

**Jim Hill:** Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

**Jim Hill:** Ready for the “And” factor?

**Holly Wyatt:** Let's dive in.

**Jim Hill:** Here we go. Today, we've got a topic that could change the way you think about your body and your health, restoring your metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** That's right, Jim. I think our last episode, we talked about how you could reset your appetite. And we actually talked about having a set point and how you could use food to change that set point. And today we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk about your metabolism. So if you've ever felt like your metabolism is making it harder to lose weight, and I know a bunch of you feel that way, you're not alone. A lot of people feel that way. And we're going to show you today that it doesn't have to stay that way.

**Jim Hill:** Absolutely. Many of us think we're stuck with the metabolism we have, the metabolism we were born with. But here's the exciting point. You're not. Your metabolism, if it's broken, it can be fixed. It can be transformed. In fact, your metabolism can be your secret weapon for reaching and maintaining your health and weight goals. It's time to shift the narrative on this.

**Holly Wyatt:** Exactly. You have more control over your metabolism than you might realize. A lot of times we think we're just born with it. That's just the cards we have. We're going to tell you today that you can do something about it. Just like food can change your appetite set point, movement or physical activity can reprogram, or I like the word restore because it's always been there, restore your metabolism. I know you think of it this way, Jim, but I love thinking about activity as the medicine for your metabolism.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, that's how powerful movement is, Holly. And you know the best part? This is something you have absolute control over. You don't have to live with a sluggish or slow or inflexible metabolism. In today's episode, we're going to show you how to make your metabolism work for you to maximize its potential.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So today, not only are we going to show you how to do that, we're going to give you some tools, some practical things so that you can take charge of your metabolism starting right now, starting today. So let's go, Jim.

**Jim Hill:** Okay. Let's start, first of all, maybe with what people might have misunderstood about metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, Jim, I'm going to turn it on you. I already knew this question was coming. What did we get wrong? Let's just start. Let's just start. What did we get wrong about metabolism? And the reason I want you to answer this is I'm going to put it on you. You taught me this. I'm joking. It's been a shift in the field. But what did we get wrong about metabolism that I think has played into people not understanding, you know, metabolism?

**Jim Hill:** I think one of the big ones, Holly, is that people felt like metabolism was just your energy expenditure, just the number of calories you burn. And again, don't get me wrong. We're going to tell you that's critically important. But that's probably not the most important thing about metabolism. So we started out looking at, well, if the energy expenditure is important, maybe obesity, weight gain is due to a problem with energy expenditure. And everywhere we looked, we didn't see that. We saw that energy expenditure was very appropriate. And over time, we recognized we were looking in the wrong place, that metabolism is much more than just energy expenditure. Your fuel metabolism, how you match calories in to calories out, it helps manage your appetite. It does way more than just burn calories. And I believe that it's absolutely nearly impossible for people to maintain a healthy weight without a real healthy metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** We didn't know how to study it. You know, we tended to study it at like one point in time. You know, we would measure it once under one condition and was trying to look and see, is it less than it should be, especially about burning calories? Is it different than other people? But not looking at how it could change the dynamic nature, you know, how flexible we use that term, how flexible it was. We were looking at just an absolute value and not seeing that change that needs to happen. And I think that was, you know, we were studying it, we were getting the data was correct, but we weren't studying it in the right way, maybe.

**Jim Hill:** Right. And, you know, we now use the term metabolic flexibility, and that's an important concept. Basically, a flexible metabolism is a healthy metabolism. It's a metabolism that helps you match the calories you burn and the type of calories you burn to the kind of fuel that's available in your body, okay? So it's matching, switching. During the day, you're constantly switching from burning primarily carbohydrates. So after a meal, most of your metabolism is burning carbohydrates. At night, while you're sleeping, mostly you're burning fat. So during a day, your body is constantly switching between using mostly fats as fuel and carbohydrates as fuel. And a healthy, flexible metabolism is one that can do that switch very quickly, switch from one to the other. Now, why does that play a role? And I'll give you an example, Holly, that a typical, say, male might consume a million calories in a year, right?

**Holly Wyatt:** Right, right.

**Jim Hill:** So that means to keep your weight stable, you have to expend a million calories a year. You have to get it just right. You have to match a million in with a million out. Now think about that. Do you eat the same thing every day? Do you exercise the same every day? You know, you think about that. My gosh, that is crazy how accurately we can do that. If we were only 99% accurate, we could gain 30 pounds in a year.

**Holly Wyatt:** Right.

**Jim Hill:** So you aren't doing this consciously. Yeah, you may be thinking about what you eat and your activity. But the reason that you can do that is if your metabolism is working with you. Flexible metabolism can help adjust energy intake and energy expenditure to achieve this energy balance. Now, don't get me wrong, it can't make up for hundreds of calories difference. But day in and day out, a flexible metabolism helps match those calories in and calories out during times when they're mismatched. So for example, if you were to go out and overeat with a healthy metabolism versus an unhealthy metabolism, you would store fewer calories if your metabolism was healthy. These little differences over time can be hugely important for body weight.

**Holly Wyatt:** And I think also some people are more flexible, maybe even have a wider range, right? Flexibility happens as you decrease your calories too. Your energy expenditure can kind of be pulled down. Also, then as you eat more calories, energy expenditure could be pulled up or you expend more calories and it may impact what you're eating. It goes both ways in both directions. And some people have, may have a really wide range that their body will do it. And some people may have like a narrow range. And that's when I, that's kind of how I think of flexible and inflexible. Flexible is I have a wide range that I can be in, in terms of calories I'm eating and how much I'm moving and my body takes care of it versus some of us may have a very narrow range or maybe in a place where it's just not working at all.

**Jim Hill:** And a lot of research is underway to look at sort of what underlies a flexible metabolism. And it looks like it affects every part of the body. So your muscles are really good at burning fat. Your fat cells are really good at getting fat in and out of your fat cells. Your brain is effective and your microbiome seems to underlie this. So basically, a flexible metabolism is where all of those aspects of your body are working in sync. And what we're going to see is that it's being physically active that makes that happen. And the literature is really clear about how physical activity can improve muscle function, fat function, your brain, your microbiome. And so an active person has all these things working in sync. So their metabolism is helping them manage their weight, whereas an inflexible person is actually working against you.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, it makes sense because we know that people who get in high levels of physical activity or even moderate activity amounts, we know there's so many positive benefits from that. There's not just one thing. It's not just body weight regulation, for instance. We can see so many different aspects and improving stress and improving GI health. I mean, just so much stuff, unlimited list of things. So it kind of makes sense that it's this energy through the system of activity that may impact multiple pathways. Then that's kind of metabolism, right? A large view of metabolism. And it's really about making your body work like I think it was meant to work, basically.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, that's a good point. Think of being physically active as sort of the natural state. That's the state where your body works best. So over time, as people have become less and less active, more and more sedentary. But sedentariness is not the natural situation, it's the unnatural situation. And so as we've learned a lot about how to regulate body weight, what we're learning is you have to get these systems back to working the way that we're supposed to work. Get your appetite regulated the way it was supposed to. Get your metabolism the way it was supposed to. And so being physically active is the natural way that our body works best. Over time, as we became sedentary, our metabolism became sluggish. So if you look at what happens when you become sedentary, again, your muscles become resistant to burning fat, your fat cells become resistant, it affects your brain, your microbiome becomes unhealthy. Healthy so what we've done with our lifestyle over time by being sedentary and actually by gaining weight we've made our metabolism worse but.

**Holly Wyatt:** I think the good news is we can fix it like if we recognize this if we're aware there's a fix to it and it doesn't require medication or surgery or you know anything like that we can actually understand what's happened our activity level has really fallen our environment has produced this situation where we do not have to move very much. We don't have to spend very much energy to get through our day, basically zero almost. Now, if we understand what that's done to our body, we can change it. So I think it's great news, really.

**Jim Hill:** It is. And, you know, people are quick to realize that they have control over their food intake and their diet. And everybody goes to that, well, it's, you know, your weight's what you eat. And that's important. Don't get me wrong. But metabolism is equally, if not more important to the point of where I don't think you can succeed at long-term weight management unless you fix your metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So we talked about an appetite set point in our last podcast. Let's compare the two. Let's say, what do we mean with, let's think about a metabolism set point. How would you define that?

**Jim Hill:** You know, that started maybe back in the 1950s with the work of a very famous nutritionist, Jean Mayer. And what he noticed, I think he was studying workers in Pakistan, above a certain level of physical activity, these people tended to match intake and expenditure very well. So the more they ate, the more they expended, and they kept weight the same. Below this level, people were actually, expending less energy, but eating more. So there seemed to be this regulated zone and unregulated zone. Our colleague, Dr. John Blundell coined that term. And so there's the concept there that there's a set point. Now this is, you know, probably differs from everybody. So it's a theoretical set point. So above a certain level of activity where you're in the regulated zone, your intake and your expenditure are matched. Below that zone, which is the dysregulated zone, your body is not helping you to match intake and expenditure. And that's where weight gain or obesity occurs. And probably the bad news here is that most people in the U.S. Are probably in that unregulated zone. But the good news is you can get in the regulated zone and now have a metabolism that helps you in your efforts to regulate weight rather than works against you.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So what do we know? How much activity do you need to do to reach that set point? Or sometimes I call it a threshold because almost when I'm out there working, I'm moving. I'm like, okay, I want to get above that threshold where my body is going to work like it was meant to do. So how much activity does that take?

**Jim Hill:** So Holly, the answer again, you're not going to like it. It depends. depends on who you are. Genetics play a role. There are some people that are fortunate and they need very little and others that need more and more. But let's concentrate on the people that I think are ones listening to this podcast, which are people that have had problems with weight before. That group we do know a little bit more about from work that you and I've done in the National Weight Control Registry. These are people, if you remember, that have maintained a weight loss for a long, long time.

They've been successful not just in losing weight, but keeping it off. And on average, these people get about an hour a day of physical activity. So I think that's a pretty good place to start to say if you've had a weight problem, if you're struggling to lose weight or to keep weight off, a goal of 60 minutes a day or if you want to do it weekly, 420 minutes a week is a pretty good goal to start. Now, some people may need a little bit more and some people may need a little bit less. But the evidence we have suggests that you're going to be somewhere in that range to maximize your metabolic flexibility.

**Holly Wyatt:** You know, an hour a day, and I know people are saying, oh my gosh, that's a lot. But really, think about it, Jim. An hour a day, and I know we've talked about this before, you can break it up. We think that it doesn't matter. You don't have to do it all at one time. It's really not that much for all the things it could give you.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, people always say, oh, an hour a day, where am I going to find the time? Well, the average person watches, what, five or six hours of television or screen time a day? I mean, come on, it's a matter of priority. We find time for the things we prioritize. And again, Holly, you and I talk about mindset. So is your mindset saying, oh my God, I have to do an hour a day? Or is your mindset saying, wow, an hour a day and I can fix my metabolism and it can help me maintain my weight and it can help me have a diet which is satisfying? It's all in how you look at it.

**Holly Wyatt:** And it does so many other things. You know, we will take medications with side effects to try to fix something. This, you can do it. The benefits are huge. And it's really not that hard. You really can, I think, divide it up, conquer it. We're going to talk about some strategies to do it. But I do think it's getting our minds right and saying, you know what? We can figure out how to get an hour worth of movement in our day. I think we can do it.

**Jim Hill:** And again, for those of you who are listening that are struggling to maintain your weight, you are going to be shocked. At how much of a positive difference it will make if you can incorporate an hour a day into your day and do that permanently. We've talked about all the wonderful things of physical activity. The negatives, if you stop doing it, you lose the benefits pretty quickly. So do not think of this as, oh, I'm going to go three months and get my hour a day and everything's going to be fixed. It's just like the medications. It doesn't work that way. Think of just like you have to take the medications long term if you want to use them to keep the weight off. You have to do the physical activity long term if you want to use lifestyle to keep your weight off.

**Holly Wyatt:** The other thing I want to talk about is 60 minutes a day. I see some people need a little bit more. Some people might get along with a little bit less. So I think that's a great place to start. And then you can kind of dial it in and see, okay, I may have a little bit more and need a little bit less. And there are people, there are people who do not have to do the physical activity. There are people who can maintain their weight without it.

**Jim Hill:** Well, and if you remember in the National Weight Control Registry, that was about only 9% of the people.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yep.

**Jim Hill:** 91% of the people used physical activity to keep their weight off. So do you think you're going to be in that 9% or that 91%? What are your odds?

**Holly Wyatt:** Exactly.

**Jim Hill:** Let's talk for a minute about physical activity versus exercise. You see those terms out there. Some people like exercise, some like physical activity. We're going to use the term physical activity. Planned physical activity. That's physical activity that you plan on doing. That's the same thing as exercise. Those two can be interchangeably. Some people say, I don't like that exercise word. It doesn't matter what you call it. It's movement. And so what we're going to talk about is planned physical activity, which you can see as exercise. What we're trying to suggest is that you figure out a way to get an hour each day or 420 minutes a week. We can talk about patterns in a minute of planned exercise or a planned physical activity or exercise. This is something you intentionally do. It can be walking intentionally. It can be going to a Zumba class. It can be going to the gym, but it's something that you plan for, and it's a time you're devoting to being physically active.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, you're planning for it. You can divide it up. It doesn't have to be at one time, but I do think it's planned activity versus there's other types of activity we may talk about in a minute. And gym, you don't have to get there overnight either. I think there's one thing. I think, you know, some people are like, well, I know I can't do this, and I just want them not to shut down, you know, and realize you can slowly get there over time. And we've seen so many people who thought they couldn't do it, realize that they can.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, somebody that hadn't been off the couch in 30 years and goes out and does an hour of exercise. I'm going to tell you, that's not going to feel good. And that person's going to say, to heck with it. What we're saying is start out slow, walk down to the mailbox two times tomorrow, do it three times the next day, gradually work your way up and one of the things we're going to talk about I think the key thing here Holly is enjoyment you've got to find something you like when you first start doing planned physical activity or exercise it's not going to feel great right out of the get-go i wish it were the case I wish you could get off that couch and go exercise and you say it feels wonderful, Just like you gradually build up to doing more time, what you're going to find over time is the enjoyment you get from physical activity is going to increase.

**Holly Wyatt:** And Jim, what intensity level do you need to do this at? Because we're talking about a volume, 60 minutes. Is that what intensity do you need to be burning calories at really?

**Jim Hill:** Well, what I would say right now is don't worry about that. Just get out and do the time till you work your way up to 60 minutes a day. Then if you want to think a little bit more about it intentionally, you can. But the major thing, don't worry about too many things at once. Just get an hour a day of some sort of planned activity, even if it's planning for a walk. And then what you'll find is once you get comfortable doing that amount and once you find things you enjoy, and we're going to come back to this Because if you don't enjoy the things you're doing, you won't keep doing them. If you get to that point, then you can start thinking about maybe ramping up intensity in some cases.

**Holly Wyatt:** So we've talked about an hour of physical activity a day, kind of planned activity, and that's going to help you reach that set point for your metabolism. But you can do some other things too to kind of help. Let's talk a little bit. What about reducing your sedentary time?

**Jim Hill:** This has become a really hot topic in the obesity research world. Most people sit for six to 10 hours a day, sitting, doing nothing. Your energy expenditure is at its lowest point. So one strategy is to become more physically active. A separate strategy, and this is a different strategy, is to reduce your sitting time. Anything you do other than sitting, other than maybe lying down, is going to increase your energy expenditure and burn more calories. So a strategy that we really like is just like you're doing, adding an hour a day of planned activity, get rid of an hour a day of sitting. So if you're sitting 10 hours, go to nine hours. And by the way, a lot of the experts that we've talked with feel like if you're sitting over eight hours a day, it really can negatively contribute, not just to weight gain, but to poor health in many ways. So reducing sedentary time by an hour a day. And again, just like with planned activity, you can do it gradually saying, hey, I'm going to get up and walk around five minutes every hour. You know, you work eight hours, you can take five minutes here and there to just stand up and don't sit. And that seems to be a separate way of restoring your metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. We did a whole episode on this and it was, you know, they are thinking about being sedentary is kind of the new smoking and it is even independent from your body weight. And it's just in itself being that still being that sedentary for that many hours changes your body in negative ways. So even independent of helping you with your weight, it seems to be decreasing the sedentary time may be important. I don't think we have as much data about like how much of that you'd have to do. You know, this hour a day of the planned physical activity, not only did we find it in the National Weight Control Registry, lots of other people have come up with similar volume of activity required to really manage your weight. But I think adding this in, And I like what you said, one hour. Can you just decrease it by 60 minutes? Could have a big impact and obviously is going to help your energy expenditure. Because if you're not sitting, if you're moving, you're burning more calories.

**Jim Hill:** So it can be at work where most people sit in front of a computer. It can be in the evening if you're sitting in front of the television, sometimes for hours at a time. Just think about breaking up those periods of sitting, simply standing up, walking around. Anything is better than sitting.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So my favorite, and now this is a habit, And I know I've said this probably on the show before, but it works so well. And I really encourage people to try it. If you're on your phone a lot and you're either taking meetings or you're talking to friends and family, I just have a rule. If I can be standing up when I'm on a Zoom meeting, it's a little bit harder. But if I'm just on my phone, I am up and walking every single time. And now I'm used to it. When the phone rings, I get up. Right. That's just my normal way to do it. So now that it's second nature, it's not hard, right? It's just part of how I talk on the phone.

**Jim Hill:** It's a habit. And we've talked before about these behaviors need to become habits. So you don't even think about it. The phone rings, you stand up.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. It's almost conditioned, you know, and I don't have to think about it. But yet now I'm moving more because if I spend at least an hour on the phone a day, and some people do, now I'm moving for that hour. What's next? What's another way to hit that threshold?

**Jim Hill:** Well, one that I really like is increasing your lifestyle physical activity. Okay. This isn't physical activity where you go out and you plan to do some exercise. It's saying, how can I add walking more throughout my day? Again, on the phone thing, you could go from standing up to say, yeah, I'm going to take a walk on my phone. Now you can't do that everywhere. But that would be an example of saying, hey, I've got this 30-minute phone call. I can get a whole bunch of steps in that period of time.

And, you know, we've heard so many creative ways that people come up with to add lifestyle activity. One woman said, yeah, when I go to the bathroom, I go down two floors rather than on my floor. So you're simply looking for ways to put some inefficiency. You get to a meeting five minutes early rather than sit down and walk around for five minutes. And by the way, I love tracking it with pedometers or your phone. There are so many ways now to measure your steps. Most smartphones measure steps. I still like pedometers. I think they're great by measuring your steps. So I think you should strive for 4,000 lifestyle steps in a day. Now, oftentimes you've heard, oh, you should get 10,000 steps. Well, that's everything. And so if you want to look at the addition that lifestyle physical activity could make, 4,000 steps would be a good addition. Now, this is on top of the 60 minutes. So this is finding ways during your regular day. It's not taking 30-minute slots or hour slots. It's five minutes here, five minutes there. Walk a little bit more when you get a chance. And if you could add 4,000 lifestyle steps, that would have a huge impact on your metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So these are all the little bitty things that can add up. And I am amazed at how quick it can add up. You think 4,000 sounds like a lot, but you do 50 extra steps here and 100 extra steps there. And before you know it, it does add up and you can see the significance of it because we do have these trackers. If you use the tracker as a way of watching that and changing your behavior and really looking for opportunities to get an extra 50 steps in whenever it comes, you know, the microwave's going and I'm waiting for my meal to cook. And it's like, can I get some steps in while the microwave's going? I mean, it almost becomes a little bit of a game.

**Jim Hill:** And they become habits. You just normally start thinking about doing it. This can make a huge difference. And by the way, I really encourage people to track your activity in some way, even if it's just your phone. You could get a pedometer. If you're really a techie, you can buy all these spit bits and all these gadgets that track your physical activity, but you don't have to spend a lot. It's simple to track it and just gives you feedback to tell you how you're doing. So you set a goal and the trackers help you see if you're meeting the goal.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, yeah. All right. So here's one more. And this, I think, is we need more data on this, but I think it's becoming more and more important in this hitting this threshold, restoring your metabolism. What about resistance training? Do we need to be specifically look at spending some of these minutes in some type of resistance training, weightlifting, our body weight exercises.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. As you said, Holly, we don't have nearly enough data here, but based on my reading of the literature and the work we've done, I would include it as a strategy that people should do. Resistance training, weightlifting, or pushing back against a wall or something where you basically use your muscles, there are a couple of ways that helps. And those of us that are maybe getting on up in age, it's really important because it helps us maintain our functional capacity. I want to be able to continue to put my suitcase in the overhead and bring in my groceries.

And you lose the ability to do that as you age if you don't use your muscles in a way to do resistance training. Now, personally, I think most of your activities should be cardiovascular, should be cardio, running, walking, treadmill, those kinds of things. But I recommend that people try to do two bouts a week of resistance exercise. And that can even be as little as 15 minutes. So oftentimes what I will do is I try to get an hour a day. And if I go to the gym, I might do 15 minutes of resistance. And then I go on the bike or the treadmill for 45 minutes of cardio. But a little bit of resistance exercise helps. And you know, Holly, we learned from the National Weight Control Registry that these people tell us they do more resistance training than is typical in the general population. So we need more data, but I do believe that a little bit of resistance training is very much going to help you and help your metabolism.

**Holly Wyatt:** And one thing I just want to say is it doesn't mean you have to go to the gym and lift weights. I mean, if you can do that, that's great, but you can do it in your home. Resistance training, you can use your own body weight. It's really functional movement where you're using your muscles, but you can use your own body weight or you can use things at home. One of the things we do, we call them potty squats. And you don't know it, Jim, but you have a piece of equipment in everybody's house. It's the toilet, right? You can do a squat to it. I tell people it's built in wherever you go. And simply sitting down and standing up and sitting down and standing up, that's a squat. That's a resistance movement.

**Jim Hill:** I love it.

**Holly Wyatt:** And I always say we all need to be able to do that, right? That's a functional movement we all need to be able to do.

**Jim Hill:** And again, there are things in your house that have weights to them. It doesn't have to be a true weight. You can find things to pick up in your house that you can use as weightlifting without having to get any special equipment.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So don't be intimidated by thinking or think you have to go to the gym to do the resistance training. All right. One more. I have one more on my list.

**Jim Hill:** OK, go for it.

**Holly Wyatt:** So the concept of mixing up your activity.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah.

**Holly Wyatt:** You know, just like we talked about mixing up, getting a variety of vegetables and a variety of food that might be important in resetting your appetite. I also think getting a variety of activity may also be important in restoring your metabolism, hitting that threshold, making your metabolism work like it's meant to.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah, yeah. We see that oftentimes. Your body is geared to focus on change. If you do the same thing all the time, it gets really efficient at doing that. So in a way, you're kind of fueling your body by making it more inefficient by changing things up.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. And you can see that if you start exercising and you do the same thing, and that's great. I always have my baseline. I always say my foundation. I'm doing the same thing. But even just a little change. I had a trainer that just changed something really small, and I was so sore the next day. Just a little change can make a big difference. And I think being inefficient, kind of giving your body a challenge, it becomes efficient quickly with doing the same thing. And now you kind of change it up and it doesn't know what to do. And it spends a lot of calories figuring it out.

**Jim Hill:** Yeah. Okay. You want to talk about some practical ways people can implement these things, Holly?

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. Let's talk about some practical things they can do. And then I think we also have listener questions. So we got quite a bit still to do.

**Jim Hill:** So the first one, it applies to everyone we've talked about. Every single strategy, start small and build up. Do not go out and start 60 minutes of exercise tomorrow if you haven't been active. Build up and what you will find is you will get more and more enjoyment out of it. You'll get less and less pain if you start small and gradually build up.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. I think the next one is focus on consistency. Don't get bogged down in the details, especially when you start. Like you said, let's not worry too much about intensity. Let's first focus on moving and doing it consistently. Because like we said, if you stop it, you lose the effect of it pretty quickly. So you want to start building it in where you can do it consistently over time daily. So I think that that needs to be something you think about that can be helpful.

**Jim Hill:** Another one is think about prioritizing movement all throughout the day. Yes, we want you to do some planned exercise, but don't stop there. Think about walking during your lunch break. Start a walking group. Standing up every now and then if you're sitting in front of a computer, looking at how you can add these little bits of activity during the day, and you'll be amazed at how they add up at the end of the day.

**Holly Wyatt:** Mm-hmm. And then we were talking about resistance training. You know, you can do small bouts of the resistance training too, but I even like say, be clever and think about where you can put a little bit of resistance training in your day. So I may be out walking and then I come to a playground or a bench or something. Is there a little bit of resistance training I can do there easily and kind of add that in too? It doesn't have to be a full, I'm going to the gym for 60 minutes of resistance training. Can I be clever and think about times in my day I can add that resistance training and incorporate it?

**Jim Hill:** Okay. And next, I think it's real important to track your progress. So look at some way to see how you're doing. Use your phone. Use some sort of device. There are tons of physical activity trackers on the market. You can get a simple pedometer. Usually these are like less than $10. It doesn't matter how you track. You can track with time. You can track with steps. What's important? You set a goal. You track. You see if you're hitting that goal.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, definitely.

**Jim Hill:** I have a couple more I want to mention before we go to questions.

**Holly Wyatt:** Okay.

**Jim Hill:** With planned activity or exercise, find something you like. There are so many things you can do out there. You know, the hot area around here now is pickleball. People love doing that. Find an activity, a dance class, you know, a yoga studio. It doesn't matter what it is. Find something you enjoy and that way you'll keep doing it.

**Holly Wyatt:** Well, Jim, I'm going to be devil's advocate here because this is what people tell me. I don't like to move, Jim. I don't like any of that. I don't like to sweat. I don't like to move. I don't like, I don't enjoy any of that. What would you say to that?

**Jim Hill:** I would say take on the challenge of trying different things. There are a lot of people that didn't grow up exercising. They have no history of exercise. They have no history of enjoying something. There are so many different activities that you can do. And the second thing I was going to mention that's very related, look for interacting with people that are active. So join a volleyball team or a softball team or something. You know, take, I'm making this up, Holly, but take the next three months and try out 20 different kinds of being active and see if there are ones you like. Or maybe, okay, I'll give you this. Maybe if there are ones you hate less, I can accept that. But we want you to do something that you're going to do forever and find some ways to, get positives out of that, whether it's the feeling good of the exercise, having fun, or being around people that you enjoy. Give it a try.

**Holly Wyatt:** We do challenges like that. I'm okay. I'm at least going to, I'm going to do 10 different types of activity this month. And I'm going to try at least five new ones or something like that. And that helps with the variety too, which we talked about, right? Not getting efficient. So keeping your body guessing, that kind of will help with that too. The other thing I tell people who say, I just don't enjoy exercise I never have. And they're really set in their mindset that they never will. And so we have to kind of get through that is I say, okay, do it with a friend. Come out and whatever it is, at least do it with a friend you like or do it with a family member you like that you want to spend some time with. So there's some joy there, right? Enjoyment there. And then do something that involves movement. And that can be a way to start. And you may realize slowly over time that you do enjoy movement. You just have to get out there and try it. And so sometimes the best way to try it is with another person that you enjoy being with.

**Jim Hill:** Find somebody you walk with and you like talking to and people will say, gosh, an hour went by and I didn't even realize I was walking. We were having such a good conversation.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. Take your grandkids to the zoo and walk. You know, I mean, you can be creative and start that way instead of trying to force yourself to do something that in your head you believe you don't like. All right. What's next, Jim?

**Jim Hill:** You want to do some listener questions?

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, I want to I'm going to ask the first listener question to you because you're good at answering this one. And this is one we get a lot. If you exercise, if you increase your energy expenditure and your planned activity, won't I just eat more to compensate?

**Jim Hill:** Oh, Holly, that's a myth that's out there to the point of people say exercise isn't worth it. You're just making it up with calories. Again, our colleague, Dr. John Blundell, who really, I think, is one of the great researchers in this area. He and his colleagues have done a whole series of research on this. What they find when you take overweight people, you have them exercise, they do eat a little more, but they don't compensate for all of the activity. So this idea that you're going to make it all up by eating more is just myth. It's not true. Some people will compensate more than others, but overall, all, it's a myth to think you're going to make up totally the calories you expend in exercise by eating more.

**Holly Wyatt:** We just talked about matching, kind of, and this whole idea that you're kind of going to be in homeostasis by increasing this activity. So there is some compensation, but I think then that's what we're looking for, really.

**Jim Hill:** That's different with weight loss and weight loss maintenance. Blundell's work is primarily with weight loss. So when people are trying to lose weight and they exercise, they don't compensate. Now, once you get into weight loss maintenance, it's a whole different story. Because at that point, what exercise is doing is helping you match calories. And by the way, one beautiful benefit of exercise is you can eat more without gaining weight. So again, exercise has different effects during weight loss and weight loss maintenance.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, and I think that's why people get confused. So if you're actively restricting your calories, trying to lose weight, then you exercise and you won't fully compensate. But if you're in weight loss maintenance, that's when that compensation or that matching is more to occur, which is what you want to maintain where you are. Yeah, that makes sense.

**Jim Hill:** Absolutely. The more you exercise, the more you eat. That's great because we've said over and over, the goal is not maintaining weight with as few calories as you can eat. The goal is maintaining weight with the most calories you can eat.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah, that's what you want to figure out. You want to see how much can I eat and maintain?

**Jim Hill:** That's what's sustainable.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yes. I want to be really flexible that I can eat a lot and not regain or gain weight.

**Jim Hill:** So Holly, how do you know if you have a flexible metabolism?

**Holly Wyatt:** This is a question I get all the time. You have to try it out, right? First of all, you got to get that activity up. We know. So I always say, if you want to see if you have a flexible metabolism, get that activity up, you know, that 60 minutes or 420 minutes a week, at least to really get that going. And then you got to try it. Some people never try. They never allow themselves to eat a little bit more and see what happens. And so they stay kind of what I say in the low area of this flexibility. There's a range, right? And if you don't ever try to push your intake up a little bit, sometimes you never know. Now, what I don't recommend them doing, and this is what people do, go binge, right? Eat a huge amount of calories. And there is a certain amount of calories that you're not going to be that flexible. So what I always tell people to do, slowly start adding some calories in. And we actually go 80-20. So we kind of do a 20% increase and then we do a 30% increase. We slowly add some calories in, test and see how flexible am I, which means how many calories can I slowly, strategically start adding into my diet and not regain the weight? There's a little bit of fluctuation, but overall, stay, maintain my weight.

**Jim Hill:** I always say, if you want to have fun with your diet, you better be metabolically flexible.

**Holly Wyatt:** Definitely. All right, Jim, what about one more? Can I fix my metabolism if it's been slow for years? So let's say we have somebody who's had this has not been active, their metabolism has been inflexible, and they're, you know, in their 70s, or it's just been a really long time that they've had this sluggish metabolism. Is it is there a point at which it's too late?

**Jim Hill:** Well, the good news is the answer is no. It's never too late to do that. I think one of our colleagues years ago did work with 90-year-olds, and exercise had amazing effects on 90-year-olds. So the good news is it doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how slow your metabolism has been for years and years and years. Totally flexible, and it's fixable by movement.

**Holly Wyatt:** That's great news. It's never too late. All right, vulnerability questions. Let me ask you one first. When you first learned about metabolic flexibility, when that kind of concept kind of came up, did you ever have doubts about how much control we actually have over our metabolism? And how did you move past those doubts to fully embrace and teach this concept?

**Jim Hill:** That's really a good question, Holly. You know, one of the things that we forget when we look at overweight and obesity is there are factors that cause us to be overweight and obese, but being overweight and obese itself feeds back on our body's physiology and metabolism. And what I was worried about for a while is that if you had been sedentary and obese for a while, it may be too late to reverse your metabolism. You know, it's like type 2 diabetes. If it's really, really bad, it's probably not reversible. And so the good news is research has shown that, in fact, even if you've been overweight or obese for many, many years and have an inflexible metabolism, it's not over the point of being able to be reversed and to be fixed.

**Holly Wyatt:** Yeah. So you were worried about that, but that doesn't seem to be the case. So that's, that's good.

**Jim Hill:** That's good news. All right, Holly, here's one for you. Is there a piece of advice from today's episode that has been particularly challenging for you to implement in your life?

**Holly Wyatt:** Oh, you know, it's funny as my life changes, different aspects have been harder to implement. I would say right now where I struggle the most is my resistance training. I'm pretty good at getting my planned activity minutes in. I love to run. So I do running and walking and I can get there. I'm really working on my sedentary activity and I've got some things going that's helping me with that. And you know, I live where I walk to work. So I get that lifestyle, I get some lifestyle steps in just by that. But that resistance training, and I guess I would say the variety. I can get into a rut and I can not push myself to go out and try some new things. And so I'm probably right now, those are the areas that I'm the most challenged that I'm working on, a work in progress.

**Jim Hill:** Okay, good. All right, Holly, the take-home message today. I don't think we have to convince people out there that what they eat is important, but it's surprising how many people haven't bought into the idea of the importance of metabolism and physical activity. So my take-home message again, and I can't emphasize this enough, if you're serious about achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, you are not likely going to be successful until you figure out how to fix your metabolism. And fixing your metabolism requires that you adopt a lifestyle that includes regular, consistent physical activity.

**Holly Wyatt:** I agree. It's this whole activity is medicine.

**Jim Hill:** It is medicine and it's doable. And again, back to the National Weight Control Registry, people, you know, I wish I could tell you that people say, oh my God, I exercise and I live to exercise. They don't, but they say, I've incorporated exercise as an important part of my life that I would miss if I don't do it. And I realize it's important. And that's good enough if you can get there.

**Holly Wyatt:** I agree.

**Jim Hill:** Okay, Holly, we will see you next time on Weight Loss And. Thanks, everybody.

**Holly Wyatt:** Bye, everybody.

**Jim Hill:** Bye. And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

**Holly Wyatt:** If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

**Jim Hill:** We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at [weightlossand.com](http://weightlossand.com/). Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

**Holly Wyatt:** And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.