Metabolism changes

I have an awesome metabolism. I'm one of those people who can eat a whole pizza and not see a kilo gained. All my life I have been a heavy eater, I have gorged myself on whatever I could get my hands on, often taking pride in how much I could eat. All this time the most fat I put on was a little layer over my gut, the rest of the calories just dissipated. Fat people hate me.

I recently decided to see if I could take advantage of my metabolism to tone up and trim down a bit. Up until recently I had been training to maintain fitness, and dieting to drop a layer of fat. I watched what I ate closely and exercised every day. 5km runs and 15kg dumbbells were the order of the day.

It worked, to a degree. I definitely bulked up a bit, but I did not shed much fat. I could see my abs, so that told me I was below 10%, but it never got better. Over a five month period of training I noticed bigger shoulders, bigger chest and stronger legs, but I didn't want to bulk up, I wanted to tone and trim. It seemed that my metabolism didn't just fritter away the fat I should have been gathering, it gathered fat I should have been frittering away.

That's right, my metabolism seems to maintain my weight either way, up or down. I talked to a few fellow trainers about metabolism, training and the like and I learned that there was a certain amount of hocus pocus and mystery about diets ruining metabolism. To test this theory (and due to a medical hiccup) I stopped training pretty much altogether a few months ago. I watched my diet originally, but I have slipped quite a bit and I am well over my recommended calorie intake per day by now.

What have I noticed?

Well the muscle is going down, that's for sure. Which isn't too much of a concern for me, I prefer to have a lean body type. The fat has come up ever so slightly, just enough so that my abs have faded a bit. This is probably due to the combination of a worse diet and little ab-work. I have a little less energy during the day, too (which is the best part of being fit, the extra energy). But overall, I have remained a constant look. I haven't gone sloppy, and arguably I never went super fit. I think my metabolism has remained as whatever it always was.

Keep in mind, I still eat healthy. I avoid fatty food, I can't stomach take away like McDonalds or KFC (seriously makes me chuck) and I make sure I eat a wide range of vegies and fruit. So it's not like I'm doing a supersize me tribute, but if I was to track my calories I am sure I am close to double my required intake.

So as far as I can tell, the diet didn't particularly help, but it didn't ruin anything. I'm getting back into training (ever so slowly) but this time I'm not going to be so critical of my diet. I don't think I need to and besides, why train if you're not going to enjoy yourself? - That doesn't apply to any of you fatties out there, you need to diet and train HARD. NO-ONES metabolism can be blamed for 120kg of fat I don't care where you got your PhD from.