Our Metabolic Engine By John Cardillo

What is our Metabolic Engine?

The term metabolic engine is essentially our bodies muscular system that allows us to move and do everything from breathing, walking, running, lifting etc. Our more than 650 individual muscles allow us to every thing that we do, every waking second. By muscles contracting, they pull on bones they are attached to (by tendons) which causes our body parts to move. In a lean person, muscles make up approximately 50% of their bodyweight.

We come to really understand the importance of our muscular system in times when we break or injure a muscle and cannot do all the activities we normally do. In an even more extreme life changing situation such as spinal chord paralyzing injury, when we can no longer use our limbs. To work at their optimal level our muscles require proper fuel-nutrition. Muscles are our bodies main energy burner.

Objective of Nutrition

The objective of my SHREDDED NUTRITION DIET is to educate people on how to provide their metabolic engine with the best sources and exact quantities of macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals, so that their muscular system can perform at its optimum level. It is the ratio of the 3 macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats) that determines how our metabolic engines performance level and efficiency of energy burn. Too much of any of the 3 macronutrients, will cause our bodies to have to store the excess in fat cells for future use. Eating certain foods at the wrong times during the day affects our hormones response to food and the type of food we ultimately consume. Therefore, our metabolic engine is directly affected in a positive or negative way depending on how we feed ourselves.

Energy Consumption

Our bodies are no different than an automobile engine. The bigger the car engine is, the more fuel it will burn. Similarly, the bigger our lien muscle mass is, the more energy our metabolic engine will burn during activity and exercise. Therefore a person who has little in the way of lean muscle size and is not active or exercising regularly will burn less energy than a person who has larger lien muscle size and exercises regularly. From this we can deduce that a small compact car will burn far less fuel than a Ferrari to travel the same distance. To burn more fuel we must increase the size of our lien muscle size through hi-intensity exercise.

As we age, our muscle enhancing hormones, testosterone, thyroid and growth hormone, decline causing us to naturally lose lean muscle size, requiring less energy to exist. However, as we get older, become less active, and our metabolism slows down, we all tend to continue eating the same amount or even more. Which is why we easily add more bodyfat. At this point hi-intensity exercise becomes more important than ever. This will slow down lean muscle loss and cause your metabolism to burn more calories due to your body having more metabolically active muscle. You will also be burning more calories during hi-intensity exercise as apposed to doing any other type of exercise.

Ferrari Fuel for Optimal Performance

I often pose the following question to people seeking nutrition advice. “If you owned an expensive top of the line Ferrari, would you look for the cheapest gasoline or best hi-grade gasoline to fuel it”. The answer I always get is “the best hi-grade gasoline, of course!” My answer then is “why would you give more consideration to the quality of fuel for your cars engine, than your own metabolic engine-your body?” The reaction my question gets is always the same! They pause say nothing for a few seconds and then their response is “I get it”.
Now I have their attention !

The Payoff- Longevity

The health benefits of performing hi-Intensity exercise and eating the right foods in regulated amounts are numerous.
Including :

-better quality of life
-less degenerative disease
-less cardiovascular disease
-less obesity
-youthful appearance
-more functional strength to do every day activities
-more energy
-better posture
-increased bone density
-increased cardiovascular capacity
-lower cholesterol
-lower blood pressure
-increased lifespan

I have devoted my life to teaching how to make changes to their daily lives by performing my HIT3 (hi-intensity) exercise program 3 times each week and following my clean eating SHREDDED NUTRITION DIET. Without fail, after 2 weeks on my programs, every client sees immediate improvements in their energy and wellbeing.

John Cardillo is a former Canadian body building champion, Canada’s premier fitness entrepreneur and the pioneer of the HIT3 and Shredded nutrion exercise and diet program. Cardillo is a weekly contributor at Muscle Insider where he discusses his accumulative knowledge and expertise in the body building sphere that he gained over his 30+ year career!