What is Metabolic Profiling and Can it Help You?

Scientifically speaking, "metabolism" describes all the chemical reactions involved in being a living organism. Or, as Get-Fit Guy guest Angelo Poli of MetPro says, "The source of all frustration and agrivation in life." Does your metabolism prevent you from maintaining a healthy weight? If so, can metabolic profiling help?

Like your thumbprint, your metabolism is unique to you based on your genetics, lifestyle, dietary history, and general health and fitness levels. Metabolism is an elusive thing that gets blamed again and again as the reason you can't wake up when your alarm rings, keep your eyes open during a business meeting, or stay up late on weekends. But most often, it's thought of as the villain that makes you struggle to lose weight and keep it off.

In this episode of the Get-Fit Guy podcast I delve into a thing called metabolic profiling. Metabolic profiling analyzes a person’s specific response to diet and activity. Then, with the help of a coach, that diet and exercise routine gets a makeover based on that individual's personal responses, lifestyle and goals.

How Your Metabolism Gets Broken

A few years ago the Nutrition Diva (Monica Reinagel) wrote an article dissecting the publication of what was dubbed the “Biggest Loser” study. In that article, Monica dove into research that tracked the progress of 14 contestants on the reality show The Biggest Loser. Each contestand had lost a massive amount of weight during the course of the show.

Six years later, all but one of the contestants had regained a significant amount of weight. Four are now heavier than before the show began. And before you jump to conclusions, the study demonstrated that this struggle was not simply a failure of willpower. In large part, the poor folks who spent so much time getting yelled at on a treadmill in front of millions of television viewers regained weight because they had experienced a dramatic slow-down in their metabolisms. That slow-down meant that even if they did keep up a daily caloric intake aimed at maintaining their new lower weight, they gained weight anyway.

And this in not the only study to describe this phenomenon. The New England Journal of Medicine published essentially the same findings a few years earlier, which led to a popular New York Times article ...

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