Stalled metabolism problem (Female)

[Evolyx]

my girlfriend is having a slowed down metabolism problem.

2) She's 29, 5'8, 135 lbs
3) she's sub 20% BF, has a 27-28" waist.

photos for reference.

She barely eats anything in a day, all clean food. I counted it to 1200 cals maximum. She's doing heavy kickboxing 3 times, 1 hour intensive sessions per week. She has crohn's disease but is currently on good medication. I believe her time as untreated crohn might have slowed down her metabolism, because as soon as she eats a little more, she can gain like 10 pounds in two weeks.

Her hair grows very slowly, I dont know if there's a link?

Is there anything I can do with or without chemicals to restore her metabolism? no prior drug use.

She would like to lose 10-15 pounds but her weight stalls despite diet and heavy exercise.

[Windex]

Calories are too low - increase them.

Add a cheat meal or refeed meal once a week. Does not need to be anything crazy. Burger and fries, maybe a few slices of pizza, half a pint of ice cream.

It could even be a clean cheat meal. Instead of rice and boneless skinless chicken you could buy a rotisserie chicken and have pasta with meat sauce or something

[JaneDoe]

In this case, it would increase her diet calories first, and start a carbohydrate cycle.
Successively try T3 and see how her body reacts.
From the photos you posted, your girlfriend is not in horrible physical shape.
Well-structured diet will meet her needs.
The problem is that you started her eating plan at a very low calorie level. It causes the T3 andT4 concentrations in the thyroid gland to decrease. In other words, her metabolism rate is slow.
The downside of starting a very low calorie nutrition plan is that in the first few weeks of the diet, we end up losing a lot of body weight. But as T3 and T4 levels fall because of this, our body begins to work slower.
That is, your girlfriend with a slow basal metabolic rate will need to reduce more calories to lose weight, however, as she is already 1200 kcal, she will have no more calories to decrease. And then the results go into the weight loss plateau.

[Gallowmere]

My first question would be what the rest of her daily activity looks like. Training 3x per week burns almost fuck all unless we’re talking 5-6 hour sessions of constant movement, especially given how relatively small she is.
For comparison’s sake, when I was mostly sedentary outside of training, I maintained on 2450 kcals/day at 170 lbs. Once I switched to a more labor intensive position at work and found myself walking 8-10 miles per day, it went up to 3600 within a short period.
Right now I am a little over 200 lbs. but in a slower time at work and moving less daily, I’m maintaining at 3500, even being about 30 lbs. heavier.
I’m not as familiar with what Crohn’s does to energy expenditure, but the fact is, if weight isn’t dropping, you’re not in a chronic caloric deficit, and this has a lot more factors than just training and food. Bloodwork on metabolic function would be extremely helpful.
NEAT accounts for far more caloric expenditure than most people give it credit for. It’s huge.


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[The God Himself]

Our bodies are very good at adapting. That's why its highly recommended not to take lower calories than your BMR.
Like others said, best way is to change diet. Carb cycling, refeed/cheat meal once per week is the way to go. Avoid added sugars where possible and add veggies and fruits instead of processed carbs, no flour/rice/pasta etc. Get your carbs from veggies and fruits. Eat fruits as much as you want.
Did she get BW lately? Insulin sensitivity, adrenal function and many other parameters can play role at regulating the metabolism.
You could also slowly introduce higher calories with low dose clen and T4 and cycle it with a good diet implementing carb cycling.

[Gallowmere]

Our bodies are very good at adapting. That's why its highly recommended not to take lower calories than your BMR.
Like others said, best way is to change diet. Carb cycling, refeed/cheat meal once per week is the way to go. Avoid added sugars where possible and add veggies and fruits instead of processed carbs, no flour/rice/pasta etc. Get your carbs from veggies and fruits. Eat fruits as much as you want.
Did she get BW lately? Insulin sensitivity, adrenal function and many other parameters can play role at regulating the metabolism.
You could also slowly introduce higher calories with low dose clen and T4 and cycle it with a good diet implementing carb cycling.

Yes and no. The body does tend to adapt, but even in extreme starvation studies we see very little shift in BMR. What we do see though is massive reductions in TDEE, and it comes from NEAT. The main way the body conserves energy isn’t through lowering metabolic processes, but by making you subconsciously move less.
We’ve all been there near the end of a hard diet. Your ‘metabolism’ isn’t slowed, you just can’t be fucked to move around any more than you absolutely have to. It requires large amounts of willpower to overcome, but it can be done.
It’s the reason why things like Lyle McDonald’s Rapid Fat Loss Protocol work so well. The deficit is so steep that you will drop weight no matter how sedentary you become. It’s designed this way on purpose, and he actually states to let the diet create the deficit and don’t do anything you don’t have to outside of resistance training to prevent lean tissue loss.
To give a numeric example of what his diet would call for given this woman’s size, you’d see roughly 540 kcals from extremely lean protein, about 45 kcals from w-3 supplementation, and literally nothing else. Yeah, you’re gonna feel like shit after a couple of weeks, but you will drop fat. I’ve used it repeatedly and always gotten stellar results.

The whole “not eating enough to lose weight” shit really needs to die in a fire.

[Cuz]

My first thought is why in the hell would she need to lose weight but thats none of my business.

I dont know as much as these other guys about dieting ive never had the urge to get into single digit bf but what i do know is weight loss and gain is pretty much a simple process. Take in more calories than your body uses you gain, take in less than your body burns and you begin to lose bc your body is beginning to feed off its storage. The way bodybuilders do it is carbs. Our proteins and fats usually stay pretty close...

She needs to know how many calories she’s taking in not guessing. If its 1500 a day then drop it to 1250 if its 1250 drop it to 1000 and so on...by all means break it into smaller portions to keep your metabolism rolling... id prefer to see that done in 10 hours or less say 4 meals at 2-300 cals each... try it for a month . Throw a cheat meal in here and there. No sugars, women have alot harder time with sugar than men imho...
This is what i would get my wife to do, others may do it differently. But im tellin you at the end of the day if you burn more than you consume the body has no choice but to use its pre stored fat...

[The God Himself]

Yes and no. The body does tend to adapt, but even in extreme starvation studies we see very little shift in BMR. What we do see though is massive reductions in TDEE, and it comes from NEAT. The main way the body conserves energy isn’t through lowering metabolic processes, but by making you subconsciously move less.
We’ve all been there near the end of a hard diet. Your ‘metabolism’ isn’t slowed, you just can’t be fucked to move around any more than you absolutely have to. It requires large amounts of willpower to overcome, but it can be done.
It’s the reason why things like Lyle McDonald’s Rapid Fat Loss Protocol work so well. The deficit is so steep that you will drop weight no matter how sedentary you become. It’s designed this way on purpose, and he actually states to let the diet create the deficit and don’t do anything you don’t have to outside of resistance training to prevent lean tissue loss.
To give a numeric example of what his diet would call for given this woman’s size, you’d see roughly 540 kcals from extremely lean protein, about 45 kcals from w-3 supplementation, and literally nothing else. Yeah, you’re gonna feel like shit after a couple of weeks, but you will drop fat. I’ve used it repeatedly and always gotten stellar results.

The whole “not eating enough to lose weight” shit really needs to die in a fire.

While I agree with your last sentence, prolonged starvation will cause reduction in BMR, unless refeeding protocols are implemented.
You can even see increased BMR in the first week of starvation diet, due to brain chemicals (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292) This response is probably related to keep the person stimulated to seek more food and enforce food intake.
Here I will list few studies that particularly show the reduction in metabolic rate after starvation induced:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3779521
Effect of starvation and very low calorie diets on protein-energy interrelationships in lean and obese subjects
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/articl...038667/599.pdf

Refeeding significantly prevents abrupt reductions in BMR and there are studies incorporating such methods and analyse the results.

[Gallowmere]

While I agree with your last sentence, prolonged starvation will cause reduction in BMR, unless refeeding protocols are implemented.
You can even see increased BMR in the first week of starvation diet, due to brain chemicals (see: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292) This response is probably related to keep the person stimulated to seek more food and enforce food intake.
Here I will list few studies that particularly show the reduction in metabolic rate after starvation induced:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3779521
Effect of starvation and very low calorie diets on protein-energy interrelationships in lean and obese subjects
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/articl...038667/599.pdf

Refeeding significantly prevents abrupt reductions in BMR and there are studies incorporating such methods and analyse the results.

The first is a rat study, so not too relevant. We’ve seen time and again that rat metabolic function is far too different from humans to be reliable for much of anything (the leptin injected mice particularly comes to mind).
With the second, statistically significant and real world significant are two totally different things. A ~100 kcal shift in BMR amounts to three fifths of fuck all in real world application. You can overcome that by twitching your leg all day, regularly going from standing to sitting, or in the other direction, eating a handful of Skittles.

I’m not denying that refeeds have their uses, but a structured refeed is a mathematically specific concept related to how carbohydrate storage affects whole equation TDEE (largely to do with hormonal outputs), and not like what most people treat it as: an excuse to eat like an asshole for a day or two in the name of some weird psychological food issues. If someone isn’t in a pretty notable deficit to begin with (clearly this woman is not), it serves no purpose other than what I said about eating like an asshole.

[The God Himself]

The first is a rat study, so not too relevant. We’ve seen time and again that rat metabolic function is far too different from humans to be reliable for much of anything (the leptin injected mice particularly comes to mind).
With the second, statistically significant and real world significant are two totally different things. A ~100 kcal shift in BMR amounts to three fifths of fuck all in real world application. You can overcome that by twitching your leg all day, regularly going from standing to sitting, or in the other direction, eating a handful of Skittles.

I’m not denying that refeeds have their uses, but a structured refeed is a mathematically specific concept related to how carbohydrate storage affects whole equation TDEE (largely to do with hormonal outputs), and not like what most people treat it as: an excuse to eat like an asshole for a day or two in the name of some weird psychological food issues. If someone isn’t in a pretty notable deficit to begin with (clearly this woman is not), it serves no purpose other than what I said about eating like an asshole.

The lessons to be taken from studies are:
1 - Starving does not help in the long run.
2 - Refeeding is beneficial
3 - Your BMR and TDEE will change as you adapt to diet, so your diet will stop working at some point and you have to make changes.

If you are not losing weight on deficit, then you are not in deficit, period. When every other parameter is fine (like hormones etc), your diet is responsible for metabolic changes.
Your metabolic rate (hence TDEE) will change depending on your diet, this is obvious. How much? It depends, that's why studies call it statiscally significant.
I agree with your point, there is no excuse for a shitty diet!
I am not trying to be asshole here btw, thanks for the constructive discussion.

[JaneDoe]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8876348

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26399868

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 3812338

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19198647

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2723638/
https: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih. gov / pubmed / 3812338

[Gallowmere]

The lessons to be taken from studies are:
1 - Starving does not help in the long run.
2 - Refeeding is beneficial
3 - Your BMR and TDEE will change as you adapt to diet, so your diet will stop working at some point and you have to make changes.

If you are not losing weight on deficit, then you are not in deficit, period. When every other parameter is fine (like hormones etc), your diet is responsible for metabolic changes.
Your metabolic rate (hence TDEE) will change depending on your diet, this is obvious. How much? It depends, that's why studies call it statiscally significant.
I agree with your point, there is no excuse for a shitty diet!
I am not trying to be asshole here btw, thanks for the constructive discussion.

Nothing you’re saying is making me interpret it as you being an asshole. I think we’re agreeing far more than you realize, but not agreeing on the part of the equation. NEAT’s affect on TDEE is huge compared to the trivial changes we see in BMR. This is both good and bad news.
Good: you can completely control NEAT.
Bad: it requires a shitload of effort on the individual’s part after a certain point.

This is why things like accelerometer tracking has been so useful in monitoring movement as people diet down. If you have concrete data showing that you’re now moving less, it’s easier to consciously change that behavior for the benefit of your intentions.

[Ephemeral]

Yes and no. The body does tend to adapt, but even in extreme starvation studies we see very little shift in BMR. What we do see though is massive reductions in TDEE, and it comes from NEAT. The main way the body conserves energy isn’t through lowering metabolic processes, but by making you subconsciously move less.
We’ve all been there near the end of a hard diet. Your ‘metabolism’ isn’t slowed, you just can’t be fucked to move around any more than you absolutely have to. It requires large amounts of willpower to overcome, but it can be done.
It’s the reason why things like Lyle McDonald’s Rapid Fat Loss Protocol work so well. The deficit is so steep that you will drop weight no matter how sedentary you become. It’s designed this way on purpose, and he actually states to let the diet create the deficit and don’t do anything you don’t have to outside of resistance training to prevent lean tissue loss.
To give a numeric example of what his diet would call for given this woman’s size, you’d see roughly 540 kcals from extremely lean protein, about 45 kcals from w-3 supplementation, and literally nothing else. Yeah, you’re gonna feel like shit after a couple of weeks, but you will drop fat. I’ve used it repeatedly and always gotten stellar results.

The whole “not eating enough to lose weight” shit really needs to die in a fire.

Yes NEAT can change drastically, but there's some quality evidence showing that BMR can lower too a bit (around 150 calories in a study), I think this article might interest you:

https://weightology.net/why-is-it-so...regain-weight/

Edit: seems like The God Himself beat me to it a bit, but it's still worth reading imo.

[Gallowmere]

Yes NEAT can change drastically, but there's some quality evidence showing that BMR can lower too a bit (around 150 calories in a study), I think this article might interest you:

https://weightology.net/why-is-it-so...regain-weight/

Edit: seems like The God Himself beat me to it a bit, but it's still worth reading imo.

Directly from his report:
“You can see that the resting metabolic rate of the subjects who lost weight were slightly lower than the subjects who had never lost weight, despite the fact the subjects were of similar weight. The difference amounted to 72 - 139 calories per day. The difference in activity energy expenditure was much more dramatic, coming in at 366 - 383 calories per day. These differences in resting metabolic rate and activity energy expenditure led to a difference in total daily energy expenditure of 428 - 514 calories per day. TEF was not affected by weight loss.”

This basically just proved my point. No one’s “metabolism” is dropping in any meaningful way (72-139 kcals is literally two bites or less of many foods). They are moving less as a result of caloric restriction over time. The NEAT drop was about 3-4x the RMR drop.
This can be overcome with intentional movement habits quite easily.

[Fit_mom_17]

Her hormones are off more than her food intake. I was like that. My natural test was very low but in the so called normal range. So what I did was started T3, 25mcg a day to 50mcg a day. Started test p 20mg ed. And used aromasin to reduce the estrogen related fat locations for females, abs, low back, leg areas. Dropped body fat. Was at 1800 cals a day working out everyday with weights. Fasted cardio 20mins almost ed. Evening cardio was 15 mins. I firmly believe womens hormones in general are so out of whack and Drs wont treat us correctly. Good luck

[sv.elia]

I'd try to do weightlifting besides kickbox. I did kickbox and it's like HIIT with bodyweight. It's a good fat burner if your diet is clean, but weights burn even more.

This happens to girls. I had something similar after strict dieting in highschool. Eating like a normal person led to fat gain. Small amounts of food led to anemia. It's sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't. Things changed for the better when I started lifting heavy.

And there's also the aas alternative. On aas, I ate like a man.