Alright, let's kick things off with a little confession🤐: I used to believe that my metabolism was slow as fuhhhhk because when you plug a modest 60 inches (and a few other variables) into a fancy online calorie calculator, it spits out a pretty pathetic number at you. I thought "well, if my calorie needs are so low, my metabolism must be slow."🤷🏻‍♀️

To make matters worse, I was constantly chasing fat loss and doing a lot of things, thinking they were helping me lose weight when they were actually only slowing down my metabolism 🫠 — making it harder and harder to maintain my weight, let alone lose any more.

And I'm not alone in this misunderstanding. Many petite women I work with come to me thinking that a slow metabolism is simply just their genetic fate, too. And that they must DO MORE to get the weight off.

For most of us high-achieving badass petite women, it's not about working harder, cutting more calories, or doing more cardio — it's about working smarter.

Our behaviors and habits play a massive role in how our metabolism functions — way more than something as trivial as just plugging our height into some calorie calculator.

So, in this lesson (and the rest of the course), we're gonna dive deep into the truth about your metabolism and uncover how certain habits can either rev up or slow down your body's engine.🚀 Let's get to it! ⬇️

So first of all, what is your metabolism?🧐

You might be familiar with metabolism through terms like 

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) - the calories your body burns at rest.

• Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) - total amount of calories your body burns in a day, including activity and digestion.

I know these words are thrown around a lot especially when it refers to weight loss. But that's not all it's good for. The thing is... metabolism goes beyond just the number of calories your body burns.

👉Your metabolism is how your body takes the raw material you consume via food, (like glucose, amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins, and minerals) and how you turn that into energy or ATP or heat.

This energy powers everything from the most fundamental bodily functions like breathing and circulating blood, to the more complex tasks like repairing muscle tissue and powering your brain. It's the reason your heart keeps beating and you have the energy to do ...life.

The speed of your metabolism refers to how quickly or efficiently your body converts food into energy. This rate is not set in stone; it can fluctuate throughout our lives.

There are a number of for different factors that influence the speed of your metabolism. For the sake of this lesson, we’ll break them down into two categories:

1. those beyond our control, such as age, height, and genetic predispositions.

2. those within our control, such as diet, exercise, sleep, stress management, and overall lifestyle choices and habits. *These are the areas where we can actively make choices and adjustments to positively impact our metabolism.*

So, even though we may NOT be able to change our genetic makeup or alter our height(#1), we have the power to use all those other factors(#2) to our advantage!🥳 — That's where the magic happens!

By focusing on optimizing these aspects of our lifestyle, we can unlock the full potential of our metabolism and achieve our health and wellness goals.

Think of your metabolism as a giant puzzle, with each factor representing a piece. By understanding how these pieces fit together and making the right adjustments, we can "solve" the puzzle and unlock a thriving metabolism. That's exactly what we'll be doing inside this course— gathering all the puzzle pieces, flipping the right-side up, putting them in alignment, so that you can see that pretty big picture

For example: one piece of the metabolic puzzle 🧩 is lean muscle mass.

Unlike body fat, lean muscle tissue requires more energy for maintenance, therefore contributing to a faster metabolic rate. 

Now, while hitting the weights might seem like a simple fix, the truth is, building muscle effectively takes more than just lifting. The reality is that optimal muscle growth requires a holistic approach that integrates quite a few of the other "puzzle pieces" (aka factors) of our metabolism (such as macros, stress management, blood sugar regulation, and so on). Without these pieces properly connected, you may just be spinning your wheels in the gym wondering why TF you can’t see your abs (aka the big picture) already. Sound familiar?😵‍💫

Many of us have the major pieces of the metabolic puzzle, but they're either not connected, or they're upside-down, or they're in just in the wrong spot entirely.

👩‍🏫 That's why I'm here to break down this puzzle, piece-by-piece, so that you can put the pieces where the belong and finally see the end result you're looking for.

And while we're at it, if we zoom out even more, this metabolic puzzle actually serves as a "piece" within another of your childhood table-top games; dominos!

Your metabolic health can set off a chain reaction to a whole lot of other processes. If the metabolic piece is down(aka your puzzle pieces are not connected), it increases your stress levels. And that opens the door to things like gut inflammation and wonky hormones.

So if you've been trying to fix gut or hormone issues without much success, it could be because your metabolic health is suffering. And without solid metabolic health? It's like trying to keep the last domino standing when the first one's already toppled over—it just doesn't work.

That's why, if you're coming into this with with high cortisol, constipation or severe PMS symptoms, it's smarter to tackle the root cause—the metabolic piece that started the chain reaction. Because by prioritizing your metabolic health, you'll also improve your resilience to stress, support gut health, promote detox systems and promote hormone balance. It's a win-win situation!

So without futher adieu, let's get started on solving this puzzle!