Do You Have a Slow Metabolism?

Fire Up Your Metabolism : 9 Proven Principles for Burning Fat and Losing Weight Forever
by Lyssie Lakatos, R.D., Tammy Lakatos Shames

(Page 2 of 5)

Take This Test and Find Out

1.	Do you have a hard time losing weight?	yes___	no___
2.	Do you gain weight more easily than you lose it?	yes___	no___

3.	Do you frequently skip breakfast?	yes___	no___
4.	Do you often skip other meals?	yes___	no___
5.	Do you often wait longer than five hours between meals/snacks?	yes___	no___
6.	Do you often sit down to one or several large meals a day?	yes___	no___
7.	Do you often feel sleepy after a meal?	yes___	no___
8.	Do you usually finish everything on your plate?	yes___	no___
9.	Do you sleep fewer than seven hours a night?	yes___	no___
10.	Some days, do you feel much more tired than others, despite getting an adequate night's rest?	yes___	no___
11.	Do you often feel sluggish?	yes___	no___
12.	Do you often almost doze off at your desk after eating lunch?	yes___	no___
13.	Do you often have restless nights because of indigestion or feelings of fullness from eating too close to bedtime?	yes___	no___
14.	When you eat carbohydrates, do you usually choose pasta, white rice, white bread, and other refined carbohydrates?	yes___	no___
15.	Do you drink fewer than eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day?	yes___	no___
16.	Do you drink more than three alcoholic beverages a week?	yes___	no___
17.	Do you usually choose full-fat cheese, milk, yogurt, and other dairy products?	yes___	no___
18.	Do you frequently eat cookies, cakes, and candies?	yes___	no___
19.	Do you regularly use butter, lard, sour cream, or cream cheese?	yes___	no___
20.	Do you eat fried foods more than twice a week?	yes___	no___
21.	Do you exercise fewer than five times per week and/or fewer than thirty minutes per session?	yes___	no___
22.	Do you lift weights fewer than three times per week?	yes___	no___
23.	Do you often try popular diets?	yes___	no___
24.	Do you frequently lose weight and then gain it back?	yes___	no___
25.	Do you rarely get hunger pangs even if it has been many hours since you last ate?	yes___	no___
26.	Is your skin either very dry or very oily?	yes___	no___
27.	Are you apple-shaped (excess abdominal fat) rather than pear-shaped (excess hip, thigh, and buttocks fat)?	yes___	no___
28.	Are you impatient?	yes___	no___
29.	Do you have mood swings more than two times a month?	yes___	no___
30.	After eating sweets, do you frequently crave more?	yes___	no___
31.	Do your nails break or peel easily, or have grooves or yellow or white spots?	yes___	no___
32.	Are you very sensitive to heat or cold?	yes___	no___
33.	Does your body seem to change in an undesirable way with every passing year?	yes___	no___
34.	Do you sometimes feel as though you could eat all day long?	yes___	no___
35.	Do you eat more than usual when in social situations (with friends, at cocktail parties, etc.)?	yes___	no___
36.	Does your weight generally fluctuate by more than five pounds over the course of six months?	yes___	no___
37.	Do you eat fish less than once a week?	yes___	no___
38.	Have any of your family members, including grandparents and parents, had any of the following diseases/conditions?
	High cholesterol	yes___	no___
	High blood pressure	yes___	no___
	Heart disease	yes___	no___
	Stroke	yes___	no___
	Diabetes	yes___	no___
	Cancer	yes___	no___
	Obesity	yes___	no___
39.	Do you take any medication regularly, including birth control pills?	yes___	no___
40.	Do you sometimes forget to take your vitamins, or not take them at all?	yes___	no___
41.	Do you frequently drink juice, Gatorade, or other caloric beverages?	yes___	no___

Now score yourself. Count your yes answers.

0-6:  Excellent! Your metabolism has not slowed at this point. You are probably like us, who practice our Fire Up Your Metabolism tips regularly. However, as you will see in our twin trials, a lifetime of good work can easily go bad when our major principles are not applied, even for a short period of time. So use this book as a guide to help you to make sure that you are consistently revving your metabolism forever. You certainly do not need to follow the entire plan to fire up your metabolism. You can simply take advantage of as few as 10 percent of the tips that you aren't following now and really fire up your metabolism to its ultimate potential.

7-14:  Although you have not drastically slowed your metabolism, it is not working as efficiently as it could be. You may be like our client Dawn, who considers herself health conscious. Dawn avoids fried foods and limits metabolism doozies like butter and rich meat. She tries to include fiber in her diet — she eats oatmeal and fruits and vegetables. Dawn rarely skips a meal, unless an unusual situation comes up at work and she simply doesn't have time. Like Dawn, you may go out to eat a couple of times a week and realize that it is harder to control exactly what you eat when you eat out; however, you still do your best. And like Dawn, you may have a job where you rarely get up from your desk, so you aim to get to the gym at least five to six times a week (although occasionally social situations get in the way of good intentions). And you may not get enough sleep.

Or perhaps you are more like Mark. Mark has the best intentions for his health, too. However, he is very social and occasionally has a couple of drinks with the guys and sometimes overeats at restaurants. Heart disease runs in his family, and he tries to protect his health by working out frequently and avoiding foods that have a lot of saturated fat, such as full-fat dairy products, baked goods, and fatty meats. He also makes sure never to skip a meal.

So like Mark and Dawn, you have the best intentions for your health, but you could be burning more calories and fat than you are. If you take advantage of 20 percent of the tips that you are not currently incorporating into your life, or if you follow the plan, you can fire up your metabolism to its ultimate potential.

15-26:  Your metabolism is slowed and your body is not burning fat and calories efficiently. Perhaps you skip meals too frequently, or space them out too much, or overeat. Or maybe you eat at restaurants and your choices are wreaking havoc on your metabolism. Perhaps you are inconsistent — some days you eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, non- or low-fat dairy products, and lean meats; then other days you give in completely to your cravings and end up consuming fries and brownies. Or maybe you have omitted an entire food group such as grains from your diet. Or maybe you've grown so accustomed to snacking and grabbing a soda that you've completely forgotten about meals and water.

You might be like Tammy's husband, Scott, an athlete in high school and college. However, by the time he met Tammy, he had gained thirty pounds despite working out regularly. He thought he was in great shape, because he watched what he ate. Unfortunately, he didn't notice that he was choosing a lot of the wrong foods — refined carbohydrates such as white rice, bagels, muffins, white pasta, fatty cuts of steak, and ground turkey (which he actually thought was a health food).

Scott lost those thirty pounds quickly after meeting Tammy and learning about the principles of firing up his metabolism.

Although you may feel that you lead a healthy lifestyle, you have some metabolism-slowing habits. If you take advantage of thirty percent of the tips in this book, or if you follow the plan, you will dramatically speed up your metabolism every day, for the rest of your life.

27+:  You are probably not at all surprised that your metabolism has been drastically slowed. You already know that you are burning far fewer calories and less fat than you should be. Chances are you have tried many diets in the past that may or may not have promoted weight loss, yet you probably have gained much of the weight back or find yourself as heavy as or heavier than ever.

Of course it's also possible that this is the first time you have taken steps to lose weight. Whichever scenario describes you, you are probably confused about what you should be eating. You may benefit the most by following the plan. However, if you are able to take advantage of 50 percent of the tips in this book that you don't currently follow, you will speed up your metabolism now and for the rest of your life.

Copyright © 2004 by Lyssie Lakatos and Tammy Lakatos Shames

About the Author

Lyssie Lakatos and Tammy Lakatos Shames, registered dietitians, nutritionists, and personal trainers, are the founders of Healthy Happenings, Inc., a company that provides consultations to more than 300 corporations. Their advice has appeared in Self, Family Circle, Woman's Day, and Good Housekeeping. They live in New York City.

see Lyssie Lakatos, R.D.