26Mar 2020 by Aidan Muir
What Is Metabolic Adaptation and Why Does It Occur?

What Is Metabolic Adaptation and Why Does It Occur?

Body Composition
For a long time, people have been aware that total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) changes during phases of dieting. Personally, my first insight into this phenomenon was when I saw the phrase “metabolic damage” a bit over 5 years ago. This was at some stage in my nutrition degree at university. My understanding of the concept was that if somebody was aiming for weight-loss and was in a calorie deficit for an extended period, their “metabolism” (which I didn’t fully understand at the time) would slow down. My take on the main difference between metabolic damage and metabolic adaptation is that ”damage” indicates that there is an issue, whereas adaptation indicates that the body is making an adjustment. Damage could indicate that the metabolism is broken and needs to be…
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31Jul 2019 by Matthew Benetti
3 Ways Dieting Could Be Slowing Your Metabolism

3 Ways Dieting Could Be Slowing Your Metabolism

Health
Having trouble losing weight?Unless you are a lucky minority, most people who have attempted weight-loss have faced the horrid weight-loss plateau. This refers to a stop in weight-loss for an extended length of time despite no change in observed behaviour (e.g. diet and physical activity). Anyone who has gone through this will understand how frustrating and discouraging it can be. Your personal trainer thinks you’re lying, your friends think that you have messed up your metabolism and you feel frustrated that the scale is not changing.Lucky science is able to provide some explanations that hopefully can help us make smarter decisions to handle this. This blog will investigate the big culprits for weight-loss plateaus. You Are Unknowingly Eating More Than What You Think Before getting into the tips, it's worth…
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20Jan 2019 by Aidan Muir
Diet Breaks for Long Term Weight Loss

Diet Breaks for Long Term Weight Loss

Other
If you are attempting to lose a significant amount of weight, I highly recommend implementing a strategy involving diet breaks. Dieting for a long period of time can be mentally taxing, but there are also metabolic adaptations that occur. These adaptations result in reduced total daily energy expenditure (TDEE). This could also be interpreted as a slower metabolism. The combination of these two things and other factors can make it difficult to consistently make progress over the long term. One way around this is a diet break, where you eat at your maintenance calories for a certain period of time. This timeframe is generally 1-2 weeks, but it could be longer. The MATADOR Study The first major study that brought diet breaks to my attention was The MATADOR Study. This…
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03Oct 2018 by Aidan Muir
Is Protein One of the “Secrets” for Weight Loss?

Is Protein One of the “Secrets” for Weight Loss?

Body Composition
A few weeks ago, I presented at a small conference on protein for weight-loss as I feel like it is a subject that is undervalued by a lot of dietitians. Since I am a Gary Vee fanboy and love his idea of pillar content, I figured I would also turn aspects of that presentation into this blog post and share it on a larger scale. My background prior to studying nutrition at university started with an excessive amount of time reading the forums on bodybuilding.com during 2012, followed by even more procrastination in the form of being an active member of a niche bodybuilding/powerlifting forum from 2013-2014. I feel like this has given me a different perspective to other dietitians who have come from different backgrounds. There was a lot…
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