16 | How to get out of Metabolic Damage & Starvation Mode with Cristina Hoyt Alvarez

Welcome back! This week’s episode of Real Talk with Dana is part two from last week, where Cristina Hoyt and I talk about the truth about metabolic damage and survival / starvation mode – so make sure you listen to last week’s episode (episode 15) before you listen to this one on How to get out of Metabolic Damage & Starvation Mode.

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Just as a quick recap/reminder here, metabolic damage is what happens when the body slows itself down (specifically, your metabolism and hormones) to adapt to a high caloric or energy demand (usually from high amounts of exercise and chronic stress) combined with a low caloric /energy intake – it’s learning to be efficient. It’s also known as starvation mode = metabolic adaptation = adaptive thermogenesis. In “Starvation or survival mode” : the body hangs on to every ounce of body fat you have if it feels you’re in a compromised state. Which in turn creates hormonal imbalances down the line. People try to fix this by working out more and eating less and they aren’t seeing any results – and this just creates further damage down the line.

This may be you IF…your life is on full throttle ALL the time. You do lots of exercise (and rarely take more than a few rest days), have low or restricted calorie diet, stick religiously to lists of good vs. bad foods, and push as hard as you can all the time. You’ve been doing the same thing for years and have not only stopped seeing results, and maybe you’ve even started to see some negative side effects like hormonal imbalances, thyroid and adrenal issues, amenorrhea, low libido, weight gain despite exercising and being on a low calorie/low fat/low carbohydrate diet, etc.

Experiencing these symptoms of metabolic damage is a BIG Signal that your body is asking for help. Now that you know what’s going on, you can figure out what to do AND can use the tools we’ll give you in this episode to start healing your metabolic damage and get your body out of survival or starvation mode – by addressing the ROOT CAUSE of what is really going on. We’ll cover the how to’s of exercise, food, mindset, and spirit to help reverse metabolic damage and adaptation – in particular, how eating MORE and exercising LESS could be the big key to getting you out of this mess.

Keep in mind – these things don’t happen overnight, so the “healing” that is going to happen also isn’t going to happen overnight. We talk about this in more detail in the episode, but if you think you’re experiencing these symptoms, we highly recommend that you don’t try to conquer this healing process on your own. It’s too hard to be objective about your own body, your own relationship with food and your body, and it’s too hard not to doubt yourself on those hard days, because there WILL be hard days during this process.

For now, let’s talk about how to get out of the cycle that got you here in the first place – also known as how to check yourself AFTER you’ve wrecked yourself. stop working against your body, because it will win. You need to Start working WITH your body to get true health and happiness. You’ll start to see food as a healing opportunity, and a thriving opportunity, rather than a means to restrict and beat your body into a certain shape.

LET’S DO THIS.