How to Speed Up Your Metabolism Naturally (No Calorie Counting Required) | Dr. Neal Barnard

The Exam Room by the Physicians Committee

Physicians Committee

Health & Fitness, Medicine, Nutrition

4.9 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2026

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Are you struggling to lose weight and wondering if your metabolism is holding you back?

In this episode of The Exam Room, host Chuck Carroll sits down with Dr. Neal Barnard to separate metabolism myths from science — and reveal how food choices can dramatically change how many calories your body burns every day.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why "slow metabolism" is often misunderstood — and how it really works
- How high-fat diets can slow calorie burn at the cellular level
- Why restrictive dieting backfires and leads to weight regain
- How a low-fat, plant-based diet boosts the thermic effect of food
- The role fiber plays in fullness, gut health, and weight loss
- Why age does not prevent metabolic recovery
- How to increase calorie burn without counting calories or starving

If you're ready to stop fighting your body and start working with it, this episode offers a science-backed, sustainable approach to weight loss.

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- About Us -
The Physicians Committee is dedicated to saving lives through plant-based diets and ethical and effective scientific research. We combine the clout and expertise of more than 17,000 physicians with the dedicated actions of more than 175,000 members across the United States and around the world.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Today, on the exam room.
0:05.2	What might cause a person's metabolism to slow?
0:08.8	Is it one of those things that just happens as time marches on?
0:12.0	The problem with age is that we've had a longer time on a bad diet that has caused our metabolism to slow.
0:17.6	The metabolism really is the collective action of all the mitochondria and all of
0:23.3	your cells working to burn calories. And the mitochondria are these little tiny microscopic organelles
0:30.3	that are like little furnaces. And they do well or poorly depending on what you have eaten.
0:46.7	Welcome to the exam room podcast, brought to you by the Physicians Committee. Hi, I'm Chuck Carroll, raising health IQs coast to coast and around the world.
0:51.8	Hi to the exam room is listening in Bangor, Maine, Laredo, Texas, and
0:56.3	Ljubljana, Slovenia. Wherever you are, we appreciate you helping to make the world a healthier
1:01.6	place. This is episode two of season 9, number 701 overall. And my friend, this is also the start
1:10.1	of a brand new year. And for millions of people right now,
1:14.5	they're wondering the same thing. Why is it so hard to lose weight? Well, today we're going to put
1:21.9	the focus on metabolism from that standpoint. Is a slow metabolism really to blame? Or has metabolism become
1:29.8	the scapegoat for diets that were never designed to work in the first place? Well, today we are
1:35.6	going straight to the science with Dr. Neil Barnard and we are going to break down what metabolism
1:41.4	actually is, what it isn't, and why it's far more flexible than most
1:46.0	people realize. And we're also going to talk about how the food you eat affects your metabolism
1:51.7	at the cellular level and why high fat, ultra-restrictive diets can actually slow the calorie
1:58.8	burn and how years of dieting can actually train your body
2:03.2	to stubbornly hold on to weight. So we are going to explain the thermic effect of food, what that is,
2:11.8	why it matters, and certain foods that can cause your body to burn more calories just by digesting them.
	...

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