We hear the term ‘metabolism’ all the time – but what does it really mean and how does it impact the way we lose or gain weight? Your metabolism refers to complex chemical processes that your body goes through, to keep your body ticking along – things like effectively burning the food you eat for fuel or repairing damaged tissue. In terms of weight loss and management, your metabolism impacts how much energy your body burns at any one time..
One way to get your metabolism functioning well again is adopting a very low calorie diet (VLCD), which is also low in carbohydrates but contains an adequate amount of protein to maintain essential lean body mass. This type of diet is designed to induce mild nutritional ketosis meaning your body switches from using carbohydrates as fuel, to using your stored body fat. Using body fat as fuel can help your metabolism to function better through stabilising blood sugar levels, improving the blood lipid profile (cholesterol and triglycerides), and helping improve insulin sensitivity – a precursor to Type 2 Diabetes1. This is what we refer to as a metabolism reset. Alongside these internal changes, a metabolism reset can help to rapidly reduce your body weight – improving your motivation and encouraging you to stick to a weight loss program long-term.
Resetting metabolism seasonally is vital as healthy habits tend to wane every 60-90 days. Regularly implementing a metabolism reset helps counteract the natural decline in commitment to healthy choices, ensuring sustained progress towards health goals.
Each Be Fit Food meal is designed to provide a range of essential vitamins and minerals, whilst being scientifically formulated to provide an optimal carb to protein ratio for sustainable weight loss. The meals are made from high quality, wholesome and fresh ingredients including a wide array of locally sourced vegetables as well as wholegrains such as quinoa, brown rice and wholemeal pasta. Our meals also contain healthy fats and high quality protein sources including lean beef, chicken, fish and a variety of pulses and legumes.
Complementing a metabolism reset, intermittent fasting methods like Time-Restricted Eating (TRE) and alternate day fasting (ADF) can further boost results by promoting fat utilisation, supporting metabolic flexibility, and improving insulin sensitivity2. Be Fit Food offers an Intermittent Fasting Program for those wanting these added benefits to their meals.
Be Fit Food is designed by a team of dietitians and doctors upholding the philosophy ‘that food is the first medicine’. Be Fit Food can be used clinically to treat a range of chronic conditions and weight-related comorbidities. Australian Health care professionals use our Be Rapid program as a real food alternative to shakes, bars or supplements diets for achieving safe and effective rapid weight loss results with their patients.
The Be Fit Food approach to weight loss is supported by the science of the CSIRO, following healthy Mediterranean low carb living. Rigorous scientific evidence shows this diet is not only very effective in promoting substantial weight loss, but compared to a traditional high carbohydrate low fat diet, it improves blood glucose control and normalises blood cholesterol levels, which is particularly beneficial for the treatment of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes. Be Fit Food takes the guesswork out of healthy eating. Our ready-to-eat meals save time and effort, making it easy to stick to the program.
Unlike shakes, bars or supplements diets, Be Fit Food uses whole foods including lean proteins, loads of plant-based foods and wholegrains as well as healthy fats to achieve rapid weight loss results (average weight loss is 5.89kg on the 14 day metabolism reset program). We believe that by using a real food program, this is a more sustainable long-term approach to weight loss as it forms positive behaviour changes.
Consuming whole foods in comparison to synthetic diets has benefits beyond weight loss as it is important for healthy gut microbiome (good gut bacteria). Be Fit Food meals are packed with natural plant-based foods which are important for providing essential vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and dietary fibre. The Be Fit Food metabolism reset programs vary from 7 to 28 days and they are a great education tool, helping people to visually re-learn portion control, understand the most important components of a healthy diet, and readjust their taste buds to the flavour of natural food ie. containing no added sugar and low in sodium.
By Kate Save – Accredited Practicing Dietitian, Exercise Physiologist and Diabetes Educator
References:
- Patterson RE, Sears DD. Metabolic effects of intermittent fasting. Annu Rev Nutr. 2017;37:371-393. Asharty-Larky D, Ghanavati M, Lamuchi-Deli N, Payami SA, Alavi-Rad S, Boustaninejad M et al. Rapid weight loss vs. slow weight loss: which is more effective on body composition and metabolic risk factors? Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2017;15(3):e13249.
- Patterson RE, Laughlin GA, LaCroix AZ, Hartman SJ, Natarajan L, Senger CM, et al. Intermittent fasting and human metabolic health. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 2015;115(8):1203–12. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.02.018
