Is My Metabolism Making Me Fat?
Metabolism is a word that gets thrown around a lot when it comes to explaining how to burn fat. But what is metabolism, really, and how does it help you burn fat?
At it’s very simplest level, metabolism is where a molecule of glucose meets a molecule of oxygen in the mitochondria of your cells. The result is energy that your body uses to function and perform your daily activities.
Glucose is the molecule that is used (for metabolism) but carbohydrates, fats and proteins can all be converted into glucose (potential energy) so your total daily food intake is referred to as a unit of energy. That is, in terms of calories.
Each day you take in a certain amount of food which can be measured in calories.
Likewise, each day your body uses a certain amount of energy in order to keep everything, your organs, your systems, your brain, running and sustain life. The energy produced in each cell by your mitochondria goes to keep your heart beating, your diaphragm pushing down to pull air into your lungs, and out again, your liver, kidneys, and more.
This energy expenditure is known as you basal metabolic rate, or BMR.
There is also the additional expenditure of energy from walking running, lifting, chasing your kids, going up stairs, working out, making love to your spouse, and any other physical exercise.
The energy expenditure of your BMR plus additional exercise can also be measured in calories.
The balance of these two figures, the conversion of food to energy and your body using that energy (your metabolism) determines whether you gain weight or lose weight.
Usually, sedentary people have a slower metabolism than active ones because they don’t really need that much energy to do their work. That’s why it’s more important for people with sedentary jobs, where you sit at a desk all day, to go out and do something active to speed up their metabolism. Otherwise, they would just pack on the pounds no matter what diet they’d go on.
If you take in more calories than your body burns, whether those calories came from Big Mac’s or tofu burgers, from carbs, proteins or fats, you put on fat. Excess calories, from whatever source, get converted to and stored as fat.
On the other hand if you burn more calories than you take in, creating a deficit of calories, the body draws on reserves of fat to convert them back into glucose and use as energy.
And there you have it, this is how you lose fat!
It may be interesting to note, increasing your muscle mass increases your metabolism. By putting on more muscle you increase you BMR.
So losing fat isn’t just about dieting and decreasing calorie intake, it is also about increasing your metabolism to increase your daily calorie burn.
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