November 18, 2008 2:12 PM

LEGAL REMEDIES: Don't Agonize, Metabolize

Posted by Dimitra Kessenides

By Jim Thornton

What is it about the practice of law that mangles one's metabolism? I've been eating exactly the same way for 20 years, and, suddenly, I'm getting fat.  What's going on?

Ah, metabolism--that oft-cited savior-villain of weight control. As every struggling butterball suspects, lucky people blessed with "good" metabolism ("them") can eat like swine and never gain an ounce. Unlucky people cursed with "bad" metabolism ("us") become bloated just looking at celery sticks in Bon Appetit.

This monolithic view of metabolism--you either have the svelte kind or you're doomed--belies just how complex metabolic activity is. The technical definition is "all the chemical processes occurring within a living cell or organism that are necessary for the maintenance of life." In humans, and I include lawyers here, such vital processes can be grouped into three major categories:

BMR (or Basal Metabolic Rate)

This is the energy we expend, while stationary and not eating, on essential functions: thermoregulation, blood circulation, immunity, hormone production, tissue repair, and the like. For the average American lawyer at his or her desk, BMR typically accounts for a whopping 60 to 70 percent of the total calories expended daily.  There's no question that our genes strongly influence this aspect of metabolism. Researchers have found that naturally lean people, for instance, tend to "waste" excess calories through greater heat production rather than by storing them as fat. Obese individuals are more miserly.

HOW TO BOOST BMR: It's not easy. Many of your best bets here yield Pyrrhic victories at best. To wit, you can get sick, baste your lungs with cigarette toxins, become a meth addict, or traumatize your system in some other major way, thus requiring your body to fix the damage. Victims of severe burns, for instance, have had BMR's exceeding 8,000 calories per day while lying motionless on a hospital bed.

Safer strategies include increasing lean muscle mass (more on this tomorrow) and keeping the temperature in your home, car, and office a little cooler in the winter and a little warmer in the summer. Exposure to cold and heat increases our metabolism because our bodies must alternately shiver and sweat to maintain core body temperature, explains David M. Klurfeld, Ph.D., National Program Leader in Human Nutrition at the USDA. So a little environmental discomfort can help shed fat.

TEF (or Thermal Effect of Food).

Food, like eBay purchases, comes with variable shipping and delivery costs. Fats are the cheapest for our bodies to handle--for every 100 calories we consume, it takes only 5 to use, digest or store the rest. Carbs are slightly more expensive--100 calories require 10 to process. Protein is by far the most expensive of all. It siphons away 30 of every 100 calories in handling costs. One main reason: proteins contain nitrogen, which must be stripped off by the liver and excreted via the kidneys--extra steps that require significant energy. When you mix fats, carbs, and proteins together in the average American diet, TEF accounts for 10 to 15 percent of our overall metabolism.

HOW TO INCREASE TEF: Consuming at least a little protein with every meal forces the body to work harder in digestion. Another promising strategy: pop a fish oil capsule every time you eat. A University of Western Ontario study recently found that consuming 5 to 10 fish oil capsules a day increased metabolic rate in volunteers by between 300 and 400 calories a day. Lead researcher John Berardi, Ph.D., author of The Metabolism Advantage, suggests a possible mechanism here is the stoking of peroxisomes, tiny intracellular organelles that burn energy through heat production. And the best TEF-boosting tip of all remains the one your mom promoted: eat a good breakfast. Doing so revs metabolism early in the day, creates a long-lasting post-prandial burn, and curbs the urge to binge later.

Tomorrow, we'll delve into the third category of metabolic activity--the one you actually have the most control over.

Jim Thornton is a National Magazine Award–winning writer whose work has been published in such magazines as Men's Health, National Geographic Adventure, AARP: The Magazine, GQ, Backpacker, and Glamour.

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