There are things you hear mentioned from time to time. They look like common words or phrases, you link them to a particular topic, and you even think you understand what they mean. Sometimes though, you don’t really know what that word means and how it REALLY relates to the subject you’ve come to associate it with.
“Metabolism” is one of these words. In the checkout line at the supermarket, magazines have headlines like “This Food Can Boost Your Metabolism.” Her doctor says, “Her metabolism has slowed down in recent years.” You even hear about a new weight loss fad called “ultrametabolism.”
From these and a few hundred other scenarios, you have discovered that metabolism has something to do with weight loss, and maybe weight gain, but do you really know what the relationship is, how they affect each other and what can you do? resulting? Those are three questions we’ll try to answer, briefly, but with enough information so that you can use what you’ve learned to improve your weight loss program.
WHAT IS METABOLISM?
Metabolism as a word or process can be defined in two simple statements. First, it is the chemical process within your body for the maintenance of life, producing energy and forming the substances necessary for life, such as blood, bones, muscles, fat, etc. Secondly, it is the processing of specific substances, such as fat metabolism, iodine metabolism, and many others. While they both relate to what we’re talking about, the first statement is the most important to you right now. YOUR METABOLISM is how YOUR BODY extracts energy from food, builds and repairs tissues and organs, and how efficiently it does so. That last part about efficiency is a key point in weight loss and weight gain.
HOW IS METABOLISM RELATED TO WEIGHT LOSS… AND WEIGHT GAIN?
At various times in your life, your metabolism worked in different ways. Many of you may remember the days when you could eat whatever you wanted and never gain a pound… a large pizza, three sugar-spiked sodas, and some cinnamon sticks, and absolutely no change!
In the younger years of your life, your metabolism is in high gear, probably the highest gear it will ever be in. For most of you in these years, gaining and losing weight is not really a problem. Some people, however, have slower metabolic rates and may have genetic tendencies or medical conditions that cause them to gain more weight than others in their age group. No matter which group you fall into, changing your metabolic rate, speeding up your metabolism, will increase the speed and efficiency with which your body converts food into energy and “bits and pieces” of the body.
Unfortunately, as you’ve long suspected, as you got older, your metabolism slowed down. Part of this is simply something the body does with age, part of this, although somewhat age related, is the effect of changes that take place in your lifestyle as you age. Fortunately, both are somewhat reversible, essentially through the same process. More on this in the last section. The part where your body slows down has to do with “resting metabolism,” and the other part… well, let’s call it “oxidizing metabolism.”
RESTING METABOLISM
When you’re doing something that doesn’t seem to demand energy, your body still needs to perform some household activities. Your diaphragm expands and contracts and your heart pumps blood, for example. Tissues are repaired and waste products are removed. While you’re sitting there in a semi-vegetative state watching reruns, your body is hard at work.
As you age, this resting metabolic rate decreases. At least one estimate puts the decline at about 10% between childhood and retirement, and another 10% after that. Chances are, you still love pizza, soda, and cinnamon sticks, but your body doesn’t convert to as much energy as it used to. Your internal maintenance is also not done as efficiently as before, so you tend to have more “stuff” left over after your meal that disappeared into thin air when you were a teenager. This decline happens to almost everyone, so if you didn’t have a weight problem in high school, you may find that fat accumulates on your body as you age. If you DID have a weight problem in your youth, it will probably get worse.
OXIDANT METABOLISM
In addition to the natural changes that come with age, you’ve also made some lifestyle changes as you’ve gotten older. When he was younger, he would ride his bike to and from school, two miles each way, five days a week. During part of that time, I had a newspaper route and rode my bike for a two-mile stretch every day, cycling with a heavy load of papers for about a mile to get to the route, throwing papers left and right. sinister (and, yes, I picked up my papers on the porch). For fun on the weekends and during the summer, you guessed it, I rode my bike all over Pensacola, Florida. As an adult, I would walk out to my car, drive to work, walk to my desk, walk back to the car, and drive home.
Activity, like riding a bike, requires energy and increases your metabolic rate, that is, the rate at which energy is formed…and consumed. This burns calories, and those calories that are burned in the process can’t stay to be converted to fat, which just…well, you know, stays.
UNDERSTAND AND USE YOUR METABOLISM AS PART OF YOUR WEIGHT LOSS PROGRAM
Having learned about resting and oxidized metabolism, it might seem that a quick answer is to simply eat less. Truth be told, for a small short-term weight loss, simply cutting a few calories out of your diet might be enough. However, those lost pounds will eventually find their way home and possibly bring a few friends with them, and the diet has additional pitfalls that can’t be covered here. One pitfall you MUST be aware of is that if your diet pushes your calorie intake below a certain point for a period of time, your body will adjust your metabolic rate to a new, lower, permanent level, and not only will you maintain your weight with fewer calories, but you can actually start to put your weight back on. If you go off that calorie-restricted diet, your body will continue to consume fewer calories and your weight will go back up, possibly even more than it was before. Since your metabolism is now at a lower rate, it will be even more difficult to lose weight next time.
TIP: While dieting may not be the answer, if you’re a typical 21st century human being, you’re probably consuming some things you could do without or in excess of what you need. Sugar, for example. Or let’s take a look at that box of ice cream. The last one I saw said there were 16 servings in there. A few years ago, one of those boxes lasted me four servings. Take a look, there ARE some changes you can make.
Increased activity (okay, I’ll use the dirty word… “exercise”) can take care of the oxidation metabolism. I walked 45 minutes yesterday with my walker and burned over 250 calories. Although many factors, such as nutritional supplements, can have small effects on resting metabolism, the two main factors are age and activity. You and I probably agree that we can’t do anything about age. What we do have control over is the activity. Increasing your level of exercise or activity has two basic effects in terms of metabolism. Exercise burns calories and increases your resting metabolic rate.
EXERCISE BURNS CALORIES
When you use your remote to change channels on the TV, it hardly changes your rest rhythm. If you stand up and walk across the room to change the channel and go back to your chair, you’ve just… oh my god… exercised. Not only that, you’ve burned a few more calories just by getting off your… Sorry, I meant… off meat. Go for a walk, swim, garden, bike, walk the dog. If exercising in public embarrasses you, blame the dog! “Yeah, the vet said he needed to get out more. He IS putting on a few pounds.” Go ahead and try it. No one will think that you are walking yourself… right? Whatever it is, do it every day or at least several times a week, and you’ll burn off some of those extra calories and pounds of fat.
EXERCISE RAISE YOUR RESTING METABOLIC RATE
There are some exercise activities, usually aerobic in nature, that, when done over time. it tends to switch the body to a higher metabolic rate. If you go for a long walk today, you will burn some extra calories while walking. Take that long walk every day for several weeks, and your resting metabolic rate will go up, and you’ll burn more calories when you’re in front of the TV. Not only that, your metabolic rate will remain increased for a while after your exercise activity ends, so instead of simply burning excess calories during exercise, you’ll continue to burn excess calories for a brief period afterward.
Other exercise activities, such as resistance activities, build lean muscle mass. Muscle tissue burns more calories than other types of tissue, such as fat tissue, so not only does building lean muscle mass burn calories during exercise, but the lean muscle mass you add to your body will continue to burn calories, helping to increase your rest. metabolic rate.
TIP: Daily activity will burn excess calories and increase your metabolism. Changing some of your eating habits, like cutting out unnecessary fats and carbs (yes, some fats are necessary) and controlling portion sizes, will reduce the excess calories your body has to deal with. This two-pronged approach will give you the most effective permanent weight loss experience.
