How Leptin Hormone Effects Metabolism / Why Calorie Shifting Works!

I just read an interview conducted by one of my favorite exercise/nutrition/motivation authors, Tom Venuto.  He interviewed Joel Marion who release a wellness system called "Cheat Your Way Thin."

I found the interview to be so EXCITING (in a "diet nerd" sort of way, lol).  Joel explains some of the science regarding hormones and metabolism and how strategically shifting our daily calorie intake makes losing fat so much easier than using traditional restrictive calorie diets.

As I was reading, it struck me over and over again that this was explaining the science behind why the Curves Weight Management Phases works!  It also explains some of why, at the beginning of my journey, I was able to lose for so long without using shifting strategies.

I have included a short excerpt from the interview below, but there is so much more info in the entire interview...

(NOTE:  The link I am sharing of course has links to sites where you can purchase stuff from these guys.  Although I have purchased The Body Fat Solution (by Tom Venuto), I have not purchased anything else from Tom (just subscribe to his free e-mails).  Also, this is the first (that I can remember) hearing of Joel Marion and have not read anything by or about him until now.)
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FULL INTERVIEW BETWEEN TOM and JOEL

This is an excerpt from the interview where Joel is asked to define the hormone LEPTIN in SIMPLE TERMS... (my comment in red)

Leptin is awesome (or at least when you know how to manipulate it, it is). Get on it’s “bad side”, however, and you’re pretty much doomed to be fat.

In the simplest terms, leptin is a hormone that communicates your nutritional status to the rest of your body. From there, your body then makes decisions on what to do with things like fat burning and metabolism, based on the messages it’s receiving from our friend leptin.

High leptin levels = heightened fat burning and metabolism

Low leptin levels = decreased fat burning and metabolism

There’s a little more to it than that, but you asked for simple terms.

Leptin has also been deemed the “anti-starvation” hormone, which is essentially is its major function in the body, to prevent, or at least dramatically slow the negative adaptations (from a survival standpoint) when food is scarce or when energy intake drops substantially (i.e. starvation).

Great for our hunter and gather ancestors, terrible for the dieter.

And while dieting certainly isn’t as extreme as starvation, it really is nothing more than a lesser degree of exactly that, carry slightly lessened, but still very troubling consequences for the dieter.

Getting into some of the research on leptin, research has shown that after only 7 days of calorie restriction (sounds like Curves PHASE 1), leptin drops on average 50% — putting you at roughly 50% of your fat burning potential. That’s after only ONE week. And as long as you continue to fail to provide your body with the energy it’s hoping to receive, adaptations get worse, leptin falls harder, and metabolism takes an even greater hit.

The good news is, it only takes one day of “overfeeding” or “cheating” to bring leptin levels back to baseline and restore things like plummeted thyroid hormones, fat burning enzymes, a manageable (not insatiable) appetite, and metabolism overall.

The problem with overfeeding, however, is that if you fail to properly set up the rest of the diet in an extremely strategic manner around a cheat day or overfeed day, overfeed days can backfire and lead to a one-step-forward one-step-back phenomenon. This is something we cover heavily in (Joel's Cheat Your Way Thin program) —the ideal way to set up the other 6 days each week, based on a plethora of research, to ensure that each cheat day accelerates, not detracts, from progress.

FULL INTERVIEW BETWEEN TOM and JOEL

Let me know what you think of the interview!