Metabolism: What It Is & How It Works

Everyone knows what metabolism is right?

There is an overwhelming amount of information floating around the web on metabolism, how it impacts weight loss and how you can improve yours. However, once you start reading, you realize that finding anything useful is more difficult than you imagined it would be. You have to wade through all the websites that only want to sell you something and the scientific information that, let’s face it, can sometimes be pretty tricky to understand.

The truth is that the word metabolism is thrown around a lot in the health and fitness world but most average Joes don’t have a clear understanding of what it is or how it works.

What is Metabolism?

Metabolism is the culmination of physical and chemical processes that take place inside your body that keep you alive. It is how living cells are able to turn food into usable energy in order to perform all of the involuntary actions happening inside you right now.

Metabolism is measured by what is known as your metabolic rate. This is a measurement of the speed at which your body can burn calories and convert them into energy needed to complete basic functions such as breathing and growing.

How Does It Work?

Just like a car needs gas to run, your body needs fuel to survive. In basic terms, when you eat food your body digests it, breaking it down into fuel and waste. You discharge the unusable waste and convert the fuel into usable energy.

A large percentage of the calories that you ingest are used for automatic body functions that keep you alive. Some calories are burned during physical activity and anything left over is stored as fat.

The thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate your metabolism. Those hormones are chemicals that send signals to your body dictating the rate at which to process the fuel that it has consumed and precisely what to do with the energy it provides. For that reason if your thyroid creates too much or too little of these necessary hormones it can cause you to burn calories at a faster or slower rate than normal.

What Factors Influence Your Metabolic Rate?

There are numerous contributing factors that impact the rate at which your particular body burns calories. Some of these things you can influence through your lifestyle choices and others are out of your hands.

Genetics

Not everyone is created equally. Some people have a naturally high metabolism and no matter what they eat they never seem to gain a pound. In some cases this can be a result of an over production of hormones by the thyroid gland referred to as hyperthyroidism. On the other side of the coin, some individuals suffer from hypothyroidism creating less than the average amount of hormones. This can slow your metabolic rate causing you to burn calories slower and making it difficult to lose weight.

Age

In general, your metabolism begins to slow down in your twenties and continues to progressively drop by a few percent every ten years. This means that it is typically more and more difficult to lose weight as you get older.

Diet

You can improve your metabolism by choosing to eat a balanced diet that is high in protein. It takes more energy for your body to process proteins therefore eating foods with a high protein concentration can raise your metabolism.

Some dietary components like caffeine and spicy foods can temporally boost your metabolism when ingested. This is why many diet pills on the market that claim to guarantee dramatic weight loss contain a high volume of caffeine.

Don’t overdo the dieting. Eating too little or waiting too long between meals can actually negatively affect your metabolism and make it harder to lose weight. Evidence suggests that consuming less than 1,200 calories per day can slow your metabolic rate and cause unwanted fat storage.

Exercise

Physical activity or the lack thereof can greatly influence your metabolism. Individuals that exercise on a regular basis often have a lower body fat percentage and higher muscle volume than those who don’t. This is beneficial because in general, more muscle and less body fat equals higher metabolism. For that same reason men tend to have a faster metabolic rate than women because women typically have a higher body fat percentage.

There are several supplements available that claim to improve your metabolism and help you lose weight fast. While some of these products may produce results, they’re not typically the best option. While there are some factors you can’t control, the best way to keep your metabolic rate up is with a healthy diet and regular exercise.

Source: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at Freedigitalphotos.net