Metabolic confusion meal plan: Does it work?

March 11. 2022

When it comes to losing weight, you have to be mindful of what and when you eat. New diet trends are constantly evolving because there isn’t a single diet plan that works for everybody.

It can’t be stated enough how important metabolism and metabolic rate are for weight loss. The faster the metabolism, the more calories you can consume without gaining weight and vice versa, the slower the metabolism, the more calories you have to reduce in order to lose weight. Following this meal plan, you can’t trick your metabolism, but you can cause metabolic confusion and prevent the system from slowing down. Let’s see how you can do it.

What is metabolic confusion?

Before going into details of this diet, we have to state one disclaimer first. Don’t identify metabolic adaptation and metabolic confusion. When you start with your diet and eat fewer calories than usual, you burn more of them. But at one point, you hit a wall where you can’t lose any more weight, and that’s because your metabolism adapted to the small calorie intake. 

On the other hand, we have metabolic confusion. The purpose of this diet is to prevent metabolic adaptation. This approach prevents metabolism from getting used to a pattern and adapting. So by confusing it, you can keep it away from getting into a plateau. This is done by mixing up high and low-calorie meals. 

How does this diet work?

This diet has a similar style to the one you can find in intermittent fasting. Because some days you intake more and some days you intake fewer calories, it can be compared to the 5:2 method of intermittent fasting, except you’re not time-limited. 

A metabolic confusion meal plan diet is not restrictive; you can be extremely flexible and adapt it entirely up to you. The focus is on how many calories you consume on a given day and not on what foods you eat.

A typical plan consists of 11 low-calorie intake days and three days of high-calorie intake. But you can also follow a 5:2 week-long cycle. The focus is on how many calories you consume and not on what food you intake. But the secret of the diet is that you fire up your metabolism by decreasing and increasing calories. The amount of calories is also individual. But it is not advised to go under 1200 calorie intake as it can increase some health risks.

An example of metabolic confusion meal plan

A high-calorie day is easy to plan, so we’ll give you an idea of a low-calorie day. You can have one hard-boiled egg and a smoothie with oats, yogurt, and blueberries for breakfast. For lunch, you can have any kind of soup and a chickpea burger paired with whole-grain buns. You can have baked salmon with grilled vegetables on the side for dinner. As for your daily snack, a fruit salad is a great option.

For more ideas, you can check out fasting-mimicking diet recipes.

Tips for safe and successful metabolic confusion

If you’re a bit tired of monotonous diet plans or you just want to have room to eat less restrictive food, this is a perfect diet for you. If you do opt for this diet, then you should follow these tips to make it more efficient:

Learn how to track your macronutrients

It’s essential to build this skill up, or you won’t have much success alternating them throughout the week, which is the main point of this diet. Consult weight loss clinic or invest in an app.

Make a plan that suits you

Once you learn how to track your macros, you can move on to this step. It’s important to plan meals that suit your lifestyle, body, and goals. You should plan out your lower-calorie plans to ensure your goals are reached and leave high-calorie plans for days you need more energy.

Try fasting

You can easily control calories on your low-calorie days by following intermittent fasting. Eat those calories for a certain time and fast for the remaining hours. And you’ll get even better results.

A metabolic confusion diet leads to decreased hunger and an easier time maintaining results. It gives you flexibility and breaks from strict diets and is a more sustainable way to lose weight. It also increases fat loss, but you have to be more careful of what you eat because losing fat mass is more tricky. You can always opt for Lipo C injections for more effective fat loss results.

Another way to confuse your metabolism

Mixing up high and low-calorie intake days isn’t the only option to confuse your metabolism. Some dieters opt to cycle carb intake instead. For this strategy, dieters will limit their carb intake on certain days. An example of this metabolic confusion diet is that one day you consume a moderate amount of carbs (between 100 and 125g), for the following four, you have low consummation (less than 50g), and that is followed by a day of high carb intake where you consume between 200 and 225 g of carbs. Again, the amount of carbs varies by person, but some general rules are the same: don’t have high carb days back-to-back, and the majority of the week should be low carb days.

Final thoughts

Metabolic confusion meal plan diet is less restrictive than other diet plans, but for it to give better results, you still need to make some changes. On your high-calorie days, try avoiding unhealthy snacks, high sugar intake, and overeating. Also, you should incorporate physical activity as much as you can, as well as working out. It’s not necessary, but it is preferable. By working out on your low-calorie days, you can end up burning all calories you consumed, leaving you in a calorie deficit. This results in losing weight faster. 

Before starting this or any other diet, you should talk to a professional first and get your metabolic rate checked. Feel free to schedule a call with our team of professionals that offer any type of help, advice, and support.

Author

Nurse Walton

Born and raised in Chicago, IL, Chanay received her Practical Nurse licensure and went to work in clinical specialties such as Home Health, Assisted Living, Long-Term Care and Dialysis Centers. Through this work, she realized the importance of diet, nutrition and weight loss among her patients. This led her to open A Better Weigh, Inc. Medical Weight Loss Center in 2009.