Why You Need to Understand Metabolism in Order to Lose Weight

Understanding what metabolism is and how it works is a vital element of losing weight and keeping it off. Simply put, metabolism is the “minimum amount of calories the body requires to maintain its vital functions.” These vital functions include maintaining your heartbeat, keeping your brain and other vital organs working and breathing

WHAT IS METABOLISM?

A more detailed definition of metabolism refers to
“all of the chemical reactions by which complex molecules taken into an organism are broken down to produce energy and by which energy is used to build up complex molecules”.

All metabolic reactions fall into one of two general categories namely catabolic and anabolic. Or put another way, “the processes of breaking down and building up, respectively. The best example of metabolism from daily life occurs in the process of taking in and digesting nutrients. Sometimes a persons lifestyle choices, like overeating, can alter these metabolic processes. Sometimes they can be altered by outside influences. The most common outcomes of these alterations are anorexia, bulimia and obesity.

Our interest in this article will concentrate on metabolism and weight loss and how, by understanding it, we can use it to our advantage.

CALORIES AND METABOLISM

This minimum number of calories required simply to maintain our life functions is called Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. The total number of calories we burn each day is much greater than our BMR as we burn calories in addition to those we need to maintain life functions. In fact, our BMR accounts for only 60%-70% of our total daily requirement.

FACTORS WHICH AFFECT METABOLISM

• Age: Our BMR decreases as we get older.
• Height: The taller we are the higher our BMR is.
• Gender: Males have a higher BMR than females.
• Body Composition: There are 3 basics body types typically identified by the amount of fat and muscle in that body. Those with a higher muscle mass have a much higher BMR.
• Environmental Factors: Our BMR is higher in areas of extreme cold or heat.
• Dieting: Our BMR is much lower in chronic dieters and in those who are on low carbohydrate diets.
• Stress: BMR is much higher in those who are under stress.
• Exercise: Exercise can significantly affect the total amount of calories we burn and, therefore, increase our BMR.

FACTORS WHICH WE CAN CONTROL

Dieting: Very low calorie dieting or any ?quick weight loss diet? will significantly decrease our metabolism in 3 ways:

By reducing our caloric intake a lot, we risk a significant lowering of our metabolic rate. Any sudden reduction in food intake causes our body to slow our metabolism in order to preserve calories in preparation for what it sees as a “starvation” situation. The more drastically we cut our calories, the more our metabolic rate drops.

Without incorporating exercise and attempting to lose weight through dieting alone, can deplete our muscle tissue stores. Muscle requires many calories each day to maintain itself than any other tissue in the body. 1lb of muscle will burn an extra 50 calories because it is more metabolically active. The more quickly weight is lost through dieting alone, the more muscle tissue we lose and therefore the lower our BMR becomes. Exercise prevents Muscle tissue loss can be prevented through exercise and by adding muscle bulk our BMR can be increased significantly.

Eating: Every time we eat, our body?s metabolism gets a temporary boost because our body burns calories in order to digest, absorb, transport and metabolize the food. By eating 5 or 6 small meals a day, we can increase our caloric expenditure by up to 10% per day.

Body Composition: We have two areas to consider here. Firstly, many of us believe that we can never lose weight because of our genetics. Certainly, we all are made up differently. We all have different builds. We are the product of our genetics. However, the main bearing this has on our ability to lose weight is the rate and ease with which we are able to lose that weight. Because of their make up, some people find it more difficult to shift the weight. Most people, though, can still lose weight, if they try hard enough. (It is rare for someone not to be able to lose weight because of their genetics. It is more likely that it is peoples? mindset that is the problem.) When this is the case, we simply need to make our goals and objectives more realistic to reflect the problems caused by genetics. It is more likely in many cases that we simply use our genetics as a convenient excuse as to why we haven?t been able to lose weight in the past.

Secondly, we hear it over and over again but the more muscle we have and the less fat we have, the more calories we burn each day. Each pound of muscle requires 50 calories a day for maintenance. By contrast, every pound of fat requires just 2 calories per day. By gaining 10lb of muscle we can burn 500 additional calories each and every day, without trying. So by gaining muscle, we can turn our bodies into fat burning machines.

Exercise:There are two ways in which metabolic rate can be increased through exercise. First, we burn calories as we exercise. For example, an hour of jogging might burn 600 calories. Different exercises burn different amounts of calories. Secondly, this elevation in metabolic rate can continue even after we have stopped exercising. Our metabolic rate can take as long as 12 or more hours to come back to our normal level. Higher intensity exercises that use larger muscle groups will result in a bigger calorie burn and also a larger elevation in metabolic rate after we stop.

There are many changes we can make to give our metabolism the best chance to assist us in our weight loss program. Understand what they are and how they work and we are well down the road to success.