Energy Balance - The Supply and Demand of your Cells

Your energy balance is simply a term that means the balance between energy being created by your metabolism in relation to the energy being used by the metabolism. Energy and metabolism are rarely looked at together as a parallel relationship. Most people I talk to who want to lose weight also complain that tiredness was a constant problem when they tried to lose weight in the past. If your energy balance is increasing, you are reducing fat. If your energy balance is decreasing, you are gaining fat.

When I start someone on a weight loss program, energy levels are one of the key factors I monitor and teach clients to monitor. This is because if energy levels are low, there is some kind of deficiency or imbalance. Any deficiency or imbalance will prohibit optimal natural weight loss and health.

When you are losing weight the healthy way, as outlined in this site and through my consultations, you are changing where the weight comes from. You are losing the fat but not losing muscle. You don't have to gain more muscle to if you don't want to. But whether you gain muscle or not, the reduction of fat requires a positive supply of energy balance in the cells themselves. Most people are operating on a negative supply of energy balance.

One of the most common phrases I hear from clients and from surveys is, "I don't want to feel tired anymore" or, "I am tired of feeling tired." Feeling tired is one of the main reasons and motivations for people wanting to lose weight. This was a surprise to me but it did allow me to delve deeper into what is truly going on with individuals who are trying to lose weight.

When you are overweight you are having a problem with how your energy is produced. Your energy balance is negative. Stated another way, when your energy levels are low, your metabolism and its ability to do what it does is also low.

The energy balance is reduced by factors that drain energy and factors that limit the supply of energy.

Energy Molecules - The Process of How Energy in the Body is Created

To simplify the understanding of energy creation it is easier to look at one single cell and how energy is produced within it.

The main form of energy we use and experience in daily living and are most familiar with is physical, muscular energy. It is the ability to use and move your muscles. Earlier in the day it is easier to move around and do things compared to the end of the day. Also, At the beginning of a workout it is easier to do the same exercise than at the end of one.

The energy used to move muscle is a combination of chemical energy and electro-chemical energy. Electro-chemical energy is energy that is electrical energy (like what goes through power wires that is created by chemical reactions. A very good example of this is a battery. There are chemicals in the battery that when altered with a chemical charge cause a chemical change and that creates electricity).

Metabolic Pathways

There is a term called "Metabolic Pathways". They are a sequence of reactions that convert one biological material to another.^[1]

All nutrients have a specific series of actions it goes through to become the end product of metabolism: Body tissue and energy.

Macro-nutrients, carbohydrates, proteins and fats each have their own path. They each have their own series of actions and chemical reactions that they go through.

When someone cannot lose weight, when they cannot get energy, almost all of the pathways to the three macro-nutrients are almost completely shutdown. These paths are blocked.

But you and your body still need to function and energy is needed. So one of the metabolic pathways get wider and stronger.

And that is the metabolic pathway of sugar and starches. These pathways open up for two reasons: 1) because you are consuming a lot of them and 2) because they convert to energy very quickly.

Because sugar and starches are the primary source of energy, your energy levels go up and then crash down.

In addition, the fats, carbohydrates and proteins get converted to body fat since they are not metabolized.

So the key to stable energy and resetting your metabolism is to open ALL metabolic pathways.

ATP

To make energy for your muscles, various nutrients are used to create something called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is considered by biologists to be the energy currency of life. For our discussions we are going to understand it as the cell's way of storing energy ready to be used. It is the high-energy molecule that stores the energy we need to do just about everything we do. All the parts of the body that require energy to operate obtain this energy directly from the stored ATP in the cells. It is present in all life forms and the prime carrier of energy within cells of living things.

ATP is created is needed because to turn food to energy that we can use takes too long. So what your metabolism does, is convert food to ATP first and when energy is USED, it comes from ATP.

So the sequence is Food > ATP > Energy that you use and feel > Fat Loss! > YAY!.

The next thing to know about ATP is that it is stored POTENTIAL energy. It is readily available to be used when needed and energy is released from it very quickly.

Once the energy is released and the ATP molecule is used up and turned into a different molecule. The cells signal the brain to make sure, the ATP is replenished. So to do this, the nervous system routes nutrients to the cells to replenish ATP. One of the nutrients it routes there to create ATP is FAT.

This includes the fat in your body.

So burning fat requires ATP to be used up in the cells so it can be replenished by the fat in your body. The key to weight loss is to increase the use of ATP in the cells in a rapid fashion so the body is forced to get fat from the body and use it to create ATP.

Putting It All Together

So how does energy, the creation of ATP, your metabolism and natural weight loss connect? Energy is needed to create new cell tissue and build your body. More energy allows the metabolism to break food down into its basic components and also build new healthy cells tissue. Most importantly, energy is required to repair and build muscle cells.

By using a diet and exercise program tailored to use ATP in your cells maximally and get it replenished by your fat cells, you will melt your fat off your body.

Nutrition and ATP:

When you eat to feed your muscle cells and give them the nutrition and oxygen they need, they are fed and get a positive energy balance. As a result, your body's fat cells are bypassed and not fed. This is where the phrase "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" comes from. Your muscles will get healthier and grow and have greater demands of nutrients. They start to use your body fat as fuel.

So when creating a diet plan you should ask one question before any other question. "What do my muscle cells need to be in optimum, peak condition?"

Most people ask the wrong questions and thus get poor results. They are feeding fat cells rather than or as well as muscle cells. If you feed the muscle cells with food that is easy to convert and which leaves very little toxic or acidic waste, you will lose weight and your appearance will change dramatically.

The rest of this site is here to provide you with ways to do this.

Basal Metabolism:

In my natural weight loss program, raising the basal metabolism is of prime importance. It is not only a direct index of how easily it will be for you to lose weight and lose fat but also your overall health and longevity.

So the higher the basal metabolic rate the FASTER energy is consumed while at rest. This raises the bar of energy demand for the whole body. The energy balance goes negative faster because of this increase in energy demand. To increase the energy balance, existing nutrients within the body begin to be consumed at a much higher rate. One of the things used to increase the energy balance, is your body-fat. With a proper natural weight loss plan, the basal metabolism increases and thus it becomes more efficient at converting raw substances to nutrients.

When the basal metabolism is low the energy balance reduces and changes slower. When the basal metabolism is high, the energy balance reduces and changes faster.

Exercise combined with quality nutrition increases basal metabolism and also increases the ATP production levels in the muscle cells. By creating higher and higher energy balance in the muscle cells of the body, the basal metabolism increases and fat reduces.

Saying "diet and exercise" is far too simplistic and produces irregular, inconsistent results. What diet? what exercise? You all have different needs and different starting points. By knowing the basics of what the cells need to reduce fat on the body you can then build a diet and exercise plan that is tailored for you. At every stage of your life and every stage of your natural weight loss.

Your diet and exercise program has to look at your energy balance as part of the mix and monitor that. You should not feel tired and lethargic. Your energy balance should be positive and increasing over time. When this is occurring, you are achieving permanent natural weight loss.

Energy balance together with proper nutrients all make it easier for your metabolism to speed up!

By using a personalized diet program tailored to use ATP in your cells maximally and get it replenished by your fat, you will melt your fat off your body.

By using an personalized exercise program tailored to rewire your nervous system to use fat rather than sugar, you will lose more fat and the shape of your body will change dramatically.