I WASTED 14 years on a 1200 Calorie Metabolism

Except when it came to me, I thought it would it was going to come slowly, but it actually went in the opposite direction. They noticed my heart rate was 40, and they just said it was low, but that's all they said. And 40 is actually not just low, and it's not just No, but I noticed, even though I was gasping for air at the end of it, I was not sweating, whereas people that finished before me and people that were still going were sweating.

They were sweating a lot. [sighs] In my last video, I mentioned how I lost 94 lb in 90 days. I actually went on to lose 20 more over the rest of the year. Yay. And as a result, my metabolism was completely shot. So, in this video, I'm going to share personal stories about the next 14 years of me just having a broken metabolism.

And my goal is that for people who are in the state that I was in, to hopefully see whether or not they have a broken metabolism. Cuz it's not always obvious, but in hindsight, it does make a lot of sense. So, for example, in year one, one thing that happened is my grades went up from like 50s, 60s, 70s to 90s in the same school without me even changing anything or trying.

So, what happened was, when you have a broken metabolism, your brain does not spend energy on excessive thoughts or distractions, and so things that would drag down your grades are no longer existing. Your body's just not spending energy for them. In my second year, which was grade 10 for me, we had this 12-minute run thing.

The idea there is that you just keep running for about 12 minutes until you just can no longer keep running. And, you know, I was pretty excited to do that because I had been running a lot at the time, and I thought I would get first. Unfortunately, I was probably like in number three or something for my class, but what I noticed, even though I was gasping for air at the end of it, I was not sweating, whereas people that finished before me and people that were still going were sweating.

They were sweating a lot. And I thought it was like a superpower, but what happens is that when you have a broken metabolism, your body does not One, it does not waste a lot of energy generating heat, and so you don't need to sweat. But two is that sweating also takes energy, and your body is just not going to spend that.

Now, my third year of having a broken metabolism, I remember going to the doctor uh and just for a checkup, and after the nurse and doctor looked at my vitals, and they noticed my heart rate was 40. And they just said it was low, but that's all they said. And 40 is actually not just low, and it's not just noteworthy.

It's actually a cause for concern. Unless you're an extreme athlete, you probably should not have a heart rate of 40. Now, and to be honest, personally, I believe that those extreme athletes have such low heart rates because they exercise so much that they just can't possibly eat enough to keep their metabolism what you would consider normal.

Cuz in year four, I remember in chemistry class, the chemistry teacher brought this device that was mostly glass. It had a little bit of liquid in it, and the liquid is supposed to go to your hand because your hand is warmer than the rest of the surroundings. And so, they passed the device around, and for everybody, it went through their hands, except when it came to me, I thought it would it was going to come slowly, but it actually went in the opposite direction.

And I remember that the chemistry teacher said, "Maybe I should see a doctor." What happens is that when you have a broken metabolism, you're not producing much heat, and so your overall temperature is colder, and your body does not want to waste any heat, and it's not sending it to the peripherals like your hands and feet where it can easily be dissipated. Again, the body does not want to waste that energy.

In year five, I remember going with my dormitory ice skating, it was about -10 -15 Celsius, so about 10-15 Fahrenheit, and it was so cold that everybody was shivering except me. I wasn't shivering, and that's because when you have a broken metabolism, your body does not want to waste any energy. And so it's certainly not going to spend them on unnecessary muscular movements such as shivering.

Okay, in year six, I remember going to the doctor for a checkup, and I was frustrated with my metabolism. So at the end of the appointment, he asked me if there was anything else that I wanted to bring up or complain about, and I said, "Is it normal to be gaining weight at 1,200 calories?" My hope was to get a thyroid test.

He laughed and he said there was no way that I was eating only 1,200 calories, and suggested that I didn't know how to count my calories. And I didn't know how to respond to that because I have been counting my calories on an app for 8 years. And the thing is when you have a broken metabolism, your body does not spend that much energy.

And so you can be counting calories, eating what would be a deficit for a lot of people, and not losing weight. In year seven, I decided to ramp up my weightlifting because again, I was starting to get abs, but I did not increase my caloric intake, which, you know, in hindsight was a huge mistake. But that's the thing, when you have a broken metabolism, you worry that increasing your caloric intake, eating just a little bit more, would make you gain weight.

Year eight was kind of interesting because I actually increased my caloric intake this year, but I didn't increase it long enough or high enough to see that that would have helped me. You know, because you've learned in the thing that broke your metabolism that eating is usually not going to make you lose weight. It's just so counterintuitive, but when you have a broken metabolism, that's kind of the thing that you need to do to get over to the other side.

In year nine, I had started doing my research degree and I was so caught up in my research that to consume something I had to drink a lot of Diet Pepsi. And so I ended up drinking so much Diet Pepsi that for the holiday parties at the end of the year, one of my close friends got me 12 bottles of 2 L Diet Pepsi as a gift. I actually consumed that in probably a week.

The reason that I was consuming so much Diet Pepsi is that I wanted to consume something, but when you have a low metabolism, you don't consume things with calories. You try to consume things that have no calories, even if they have potential side effects. Um, you know, some people think Diet Pepsi might cause cancer.

But for sure it causes teeth staining and teeth erosion as well. Year 10 was pretty much the same as year nine. I was still doing my research master's and drinking a lot of Diet Pepsi. So no memorable stories there really about my metabolism. In year 11, COVID had started and so I didn't go to the gym and I also got a taste for butter popcorn.

And so this year I actually gained about 10 kg. And the thing is when you have a broken metabolism, simple habit changes like that and not being able to exercise will make you gain a lot of weight. In year 12, I wanted to get that popcorn eating under control and so I replaced it with sunflower seeds.

So this helped me get it under control, but it had damaged my teeth because of the constant grinding of the sunflower right here. And again, this is an example, when you have a broken metabolism, you end up choosing things that are lower calories, no matter what the negative consequences are. And this case, it actually damaged my teeth.

In year 13, I remember I was working for a company and the CEO brought a really nice looking cookie that I actually wanted to eat. So I wanted to eat it, but I didn't because I was was that it would have a negative effect on my weight and that it would actually increase my weight. And that's the thing when you have a broken metabolism, you worry probably as much as an athlete close to a contest about the things that you consume.

So, if you like to consume really healthy things and you are pro-longevity and stuff like that, you probably will see that this is a great thing because you're consuming less junk food. But these days I can consume that and it would have no consequences on my body weight because my metabolism is actually normal. In fact, I actually have to consume calorie dense foods like that if I want to improve my sprint times.

Year 14 for me was the year of salads. So, I was consuming a lot of salads all the time. I actually got a reputation for it and it came up during my wedding because I was just eating so many salads. But I have to admit it's an acquired taste and it developed as a result of my broken metabolism. The higher volume to calorie ratio meant that it was disproportionately satisfying.

And that's great if you don't want to gain the weight because you have a broken metabolism. And so I acquired the taste for it pretty early in my journey. And so years of like having a broken metabolism, liking salads more and more just led me to that point where I could really enjoy salads. All right.

So, now let's get into the science of what was going on. I like to reason step-by-step. You probably have heard that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. That's because everything you consume ends up getting converted into energy units inside the mitochondria. [clears throat] And this energy unit is, you might have heard of ATP.

Now, the body is like a city. It uses the energy for three things: building, moving, and heat. Some are visual learners, so let's look at a little diagram of the way the energy is spent. At the top here we can see the mitochondria and they can directly generate heat using proton leak or they can make ATP.

ATP is then used to build or move. If we expand out, we can see the low-level details. Now, let's go through the years one by one to pinpoint the biological processes that are affected. In year one, I mentioned that my grades increased. In the diagram, you can see that right here under move, active transport, ions.

Ions are salts. Um thinking is effectively the movement of ions such as sodium and potassium gradients. And there's pretty good research for this. So, in an old but impressive research study was the Minnesota starvation experiment by Keys and associates, which was conducted around the Second World War.

In those experiments, they tested the subjects before and after starvation. And what I really related to was that under the ability to concentrate, people that initially used to find it hard to concentrate were no longer finding it hard to concentrate after the experiment. So, that's pretty interesting.

Somehow, their ability to concentrate got better after starving and then going back. All right, let's go back to the diagram. In year two, I mentioned that I couldn't sweat. That's right next to thinking in the diagram because again, sweating is just the movement of ions and it's also under the heat branch.

So, let's focus on the heat branch. Harper and associates found that women who lost weight after dieting were expressing a lot more proteins that lead to heat production in the mitochondria. So, these proteins were causing proton leak in the mitochondria and producing heat. All right, now let's go to year three.

I said that I had the low heart rate of 40. So, that's under the move branch, muscle involuntary, heartbeat. And for that, there's research. In 2013, Yalom and associates found that people with anorexia had bradycardia or that is lower heart rates. Now, in year four I mentioned that my hands were cold in chemistry class, and that's the same thing as the heat.

Again, there is a reduced proton leakage, and so there is less heat to distribute to the hands. In year five I mentioned not being able to shiver while ice skating. So, that's under movement, cells, muscle, involuntary. We've got shivering right here. Now, this research by Vigersky and Alshuler that people with anorexia nervosa, or anorexic, or anorectic, did not have shivering in response to some kind of cold exposure.

In years six and seven I mentioned not losing weight at 1,200 calories, and then no improvements despite increasing weight lifting. Again, the Minnesota study is a good example of this. They collected great data, and you can see that weight loss begins to taper off or really approach zero despite maintaining the calories at the same number.

Now, in year eight I mentioned that I added some calories and said that it helped a bit. We'll get into that in another video. So, make sure to subscribe. As for years nine through 14, it was a whole lot of struggling with weight loss, and that's expected given the adaptation that I explained for years six and seven.

Now, this diagram also has the building branch. The ideal research should show what happens when given exercise, you also reduce calories. So, both groups should be exercising, and one of them should be getting less calories so as to see the effect of the calories, not the exercise. And I found this great research by Ille and Luke's that shows that when you compare groups of exercising women, groups that consumed less calories had lower markers of bone formation.

Uh so, this PICP and OC were lower even when you reduce calories by just a little bit. And so, bone formation was stunted even when you reduce calories just a little bit. Again, that's just part of the metabolism diagram under cells. So, before we leave this diagram, let's just say that this does cover everything.

And we've covered the proton leak or heat and ions, movement of cells here, so muscles involuntary, uh shivering, heart rate. Voluntary, we didn't really talk about, but there is research showing this and I didn't have any personal stories for this. And then for build, we mostly focused on the cells and uh energy storing.

And again, I didn't have personal stories. So, there are some things that I didn't talk about. So, information chemicals, DNA repair, liver processing. Here, we didn't talk about immune cells moving, uh information chemicals moving. Most of these don't actually consume that much energy. Maybe liver processing does consume a substantial amount of energy, but everything else is just minuscule compared to the rest.

If you have any counterarguments, I would love to hear them. All right, so I didn't get to share any personal stories for the building branch of this. So, if you have any stories that you think are relevant, please share them in the comments below and I'll do my best to respond. If you relate to any of the stories and you think that you might have a broken metabolism, I will be making a video that talks about how I eventually fixed my metabolism.

And hopefully, it can help you. All right, so thank you for watching this video. If you like this video, make sure you throw a subscribe my way so you can see the future videos as you will be even better.