Tune-Up Your Metabolism and

Burn Off the Inches

Using Therapeutic Laser Treatments as Part of an Overall Program

to Help You Look Better, Feel Better, and Enjoy a Healthier, Happier, Trimmer You

We Gain Weight and Lose Weight for Specific Reasons

There are specific reasons why people gain weight and lose weight; it doesn't just happen for no reason at all. Understanding exactly what is causing weight gain, and exactly what you can do to burn off the excess fat, is what you are going to learn here.

You Will Learn Why We Gain and Lose Weight

The laser treatments do a very good job at improving your chances of losing weight—in a non-invasive, healthy way—and they work so well because they help your body in several ways. We will go over why the treatments are so effective, and also what you can do by yourself to finally lose the excess fat and enjoy a happier, healthier, trimmer body for life.

Be ready to be surprised at what you may learn here, because much of what has been recommended for weight-loss over the years has been wrong. New, recent research is suggesting that old ways of losing weight are not very good. As we continue to learn more about the human body and how excess fat accumulates and is burned off, we can start to use this new knowledge to help us better burn off the excess fat and finally feel better as we live healthier.

Simply Eating Less and Exercising More Is Not the Best Strategy

Most people believe that we get fat when we eat too much and don’t exercise enough. That, of course, is true, but it’s not the whole story, and most people will find out that simply eating less and exercising more won’t produce the results that they were hoping for. You will learn that what you eat and how you exercise are just as important as the amounts you eat and how much you exercise.

Our Metabolisms Determine How Many Calories We Burn

Our bodies contain about 50 trillion cells. All of these cells must each burn fuel (measured in calories) to stay alive, which in turn keeps us alive. The sum total of all the calories burned by all of our cells equals our metabolism.

The body will burn calories even if you lie in bed all day long. Each cell in your body needs to burn energy just to stay alive. Plus your heart and lungs and brain are all working all of the time, which will burn up calories.

The amount of calories that your body burns while at rest is called you basal metabolic rate. This is the minimum amount of calories that your body will burn each day if you simply do nothing but rest: any activity or exercise you do will burn additional calories.

Your basal (basic) metabolic rate plus the calories you burn through activity is called your total metabolism. If you basal metabolic rate is 14,000 calories a day, and you burn an additional 4,000 calories a day through exercise or regular activity, then your total metabolism for that day is 18,000 calories burned (14,000 + 4,000).

If you ate more than 18,000 calories that day then you will likely gain weight, whereas if you ate less than 18,000 calories you would likely lose a little weight.

You Can Only Lose Weight When Your Body Burns More Calories Than It Consumes

When your body burns more calories than you eat, then you lose weight. And when you eat more calories than your body burns, you will gain weight. Recognizing and working with this obvious observation is the cornerstone to any effective weight loss program.

Simply Eating Less to Lose Weight Is a Poor Strategy

Most people try to lose weight by eating less. They focus on only one side of the above mentioned equation - the part about consuming calories - and they forget about the other part - the part about the metabolism. You have probably tried this yourself. There are many problems with this strategy of simply eating less.

Eating Less Doesn't Lead to Fat Burning

Many people can indeed lose a good amount of weight when they go on a very restrictive diet. The question to ask yourself is this: Is that a good idea?

When we lose weight on a restrictive diet, what kind of weight do we lose? Is it fat, or is it something else?

The answer is that if you make a significant reduction in the calories you eat your body will respond by first burning the energy stored in your liver and muscles: your body burns muscle not fat.

So, what's the problem? Since muscle weighs more than fat per square inch, when we lose muscle we can lose a lot of weight, fast. The problem, though, is that muscle cells burn far more calories than fat cells, so when you lose muscle weight, your body is unable to burn calories as fast as it did before.

Eating Too Few Calories Will Cause Your Metabolism to Slow Down

When you significantly restrict your diet, your body will respond by burning muscle weight, and since muscle cells drive your metabolism, your metabolism will therefore slow down.

In addition, your body must adjust to the new level of calories. After three days of a lower caloric intake, your body will begin slowing down its metabolism to adjust for the new lower level. If you manage to keep your caloric levels low for several weeks, your metabolism will be that much slower. Your body does this by adjusting its hormone balance.

So when you go on a restrictive diet, your body's metabolism slows down for two reasons: your lose muscle weight; and your hormones change to slow down the rate at which your body burns energy.

In fact, when you restrict your diet too much for too long, your body will actually begin to store more and more fat.

Restrictive Diets Can Ruin Your Metabolism and Cause Long-Term Weight Problems

When your metabolism slows down due to a highly restrictive diet eventually your reach a point where you are no longer able to lose weight. That's because your metabolism is now so slow that even when your eat very little your body can no longer burn the calories. It will begin to store any extra calories as fat.

Many people get very frustrated here. They try eating even less and become ever more frustrated when their heroic efforts to eat result either very little weight loss or even weight gain.

At this point most people give up and start eating again. Here's where the real heartbreak begins.

Since the metabolism is now very slow, eating just a few more calories than you did when on a restrictive diet will quickly lead to weight gain. Even worse; the weight that you now gain back..... is it muscle? Of course not. The new weight we gain is pretty much 100% fat.

When you started your diet, you lost muscle weight. You may have thought your were doing pretty ell, but your metabolism slowed down, you couldn't lose any more weight no matter how little you ate, and now you are gaining all of that weight back, and it's all fat. You have ended up fatter after the diet than before.

If this has happened to you, you are not alone. Millions of people have suffered the same fate.

The Best Way to Lose Weight Is to Improve Your Metabolism

The vast majority of people who are overweight have a slow metabolism that isn't burning calories fast enough. If they had a fast metabolism their bodies would be burning calories so fast that they wouldn't have put on the weight to begin with.

And remember, most people with overweight issues have tried dieting, which we have just learned virtually guarantees slowing down the metabolism. If your metabolism is too slow, then eating fewer calories won't result in very much weight loss, if any at all.

If your metabolism is roaring hot, though, then the body burns off the fat quite quickly. Even if you ate the same as you always have, if your metabolism heats up and starts burning off more calories than you eat, you will lose weight.

And unlike losing weight with a diet, which causes the loss of muscle mass, losing weight with a better metabolism will burn off the fat instead. You will lose inches much faster and feel much better, too.

Always Remember: The Weight You Want to Lose Is Fat, Not Muscle

Losing muscle is a bad thing because it makes you weaker and it slows the metabolism. In fact, the number one cause of a slower metabolism (and other problems) as we grow older is because we lose muscle mass.

Remember that the body has 50 trillion cells, and each cell needs to burn energy to stay alive. Some cells burn energy (calories) faster than others. Brain cells and muscles cells burn calories much faster than fat cells. In fact, fat cells hardly burn any calories at all. That's why people who have more fat cells than muscles cells burn so few calories, whereas people with more muscle cells than fat cells burn far more calories.

Your goal is to increase you muscles cells (or at least maintain them) so your body is able to burn enough calories to melt off the excess fat cells.

Basal Metabolic Rates Between People Are Not All the Same

Some people can eat next to nothing and exercise all day long and hardly lose an ounce, while other people seem to eat all day long and hardly exercise and not gain any weight. This variation is due to the metabolic differences between people.

Sally's body may burn 15,000 calories a day even when she does nothing, but Al's body only burns 12,000 calories a day. Since Al's body burns fewer calories than Sally, then Al will gain more weight if he eats as many calories as Sally does. He will need to burn more calories off through activity/exercise in order to maintain a weight similar to Sally, or he will need to find a way to improve his basic (basal) metabolic rate.

Our Metabolic Rates Can Change

When you were younger your metabolism was probably faster. You had more more energy and you ate more without getting fat. Now you have less energy and if you ate like you did then you would probably gain all kinds of fat. Your metabolism has changed.

A lot of people know that the metabolism can slow down, but can it speed up, too? Of course it can.

Typically we see this when someone starts a new sport or training program. A common case is when a college student who is fifteen pounds overweight joins the rowing (crew) team. After a few weeks of rowing their hearts out they are extremely lean and need to eat 5,000 calories just to maintain their weight. That's hard to do!

What happened is two things: first they burned off a lot of calories while they were rowing. More important, they developed new muscles from all of the rowing, and the new muscles are extremely hungry for calories. Guess where they get the calories from? They get it from the food you eat and the fat that was already on your body. Now those new muscles are eating away the excess fat and making it impossible to gain any more fat. You are stronger, healthier, have more energy, eat much of the foods you love, and you are much leaner. Sounds a little better than what a diet can do for you, doesn't it.

Older people can enjoy this natural process, too. In fact, anyone at any age can improve their metabolisms in two ways: burning off calories through a lot of activity; and stimulating muscle growth.

The nice thing about stimulating muscle growth is that you accomplish both ways at the same time: doing the exercises to stimulate muscle growth burns calories, and then over the next several days, as the muscles are growing they are continuing to eat up fat and calories.

Are Metabolisms Aren't Supposed to Slow Down As We Age

Many studies of metabolism have been conducted over the past century, and it's been noted that in some cultures the metabolisms of the people slow down as they age, while in other cultures they don't slow down at all.

Is it just genetic differences? Apparently not. Some of these cultures with enduring metabolisms have people from different genetic gene pools all enjoying healthy metabolisms well into old age; and if these people are moved into the culture with wavering metabolisms, these migrating people then see their metabolisms decline, too.

The lifestyle and eating habits of the different cultures have far more to do with metabolic health than genes.

There Are Many Things That Can Slow Down Your Metabolism

Losing muscle-mass. This is why many people have declining metabolisms as they age. Muscles burn a lot of calories, so the fewer muscle cells you have working for you, the less able your body can burn calories, and the weaker you become.

Low-activity. Even if we have muscle, if we never use them then our bodies will not need so many calories. And if we don't use our muscles we will start to lose them, which will further slow down the metabolism. Sitting around also causes hormonal changes that slow the metabolism down. Sitting in cars, sitting at a desk, sitting on the couch; these are all examples of how we make it difficult for our metabolisms to work better.

Note: This page is a work in progress. It is taken from the book written by William Thiry entitled: Tuning Up Your Metabolism, which was a complimentary booklet given to Laser Wellness clients. For convenience to our clients, and in being able to easily update information, the booklet is no longer being printed and will instead be presented on this website. As the book is transcribed to this page, it is being newly edited. Please be patient as I work to complete this process. Check in every few days to view the new updates. Thank You, William Thiry.

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