If you are trying to lose weight, it's important that you understand basic facts about metabolism. Learn how resting metabolism, exercise and other daily movement play an important role in the way your body maintains or loses weight.
What is Metabolism?
Your body converts the food you eat into energy in order to fuel both basic and complex functions like breathing or moving. This process is called metabolism. The entire metabolic process is a series of chemical actions that keep your body alive and healthy.
So how does metabolism work? Every food you eat contains nutrients. Your body absorbs the nutrients and converts them into units of heat - or calories. Researchers call them "kilocalories." The energy - or calories - that are provided by the food are either used right away or stored for your body to use later. Extra calories are usually stored as fat.
What is Resting Metabolism?
Resting metabolism is the energy required by your body to perform the most basic functions when your body is at rest.These essential functions include things like breathing, circulating blood or basic brain functions. Resting metabolism is sometimes also called basal metabolism. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the total number of calories your body burns at rest.
- Calculate your BMR
Everyone's resting metabolism or BMR is different. Factors that affect your resting metabolic rate include your weight, gender, age and body composition. For example, someone who is very large and muscular needs more energy (more calories) to maintain his body at rest than someone who is very small.
What Other Factors Affect Metabolism?
In addition to your resting metabolism, there are several other factors that affect the total number of calories that you burn each day.
- We use energy to chew and digest food. Researchers call this the thermic effect of food (TEF). It makes up a very small part of your total energy requirements.
- You can also burn a lot of calories with exercise. For example, you might boost your metabolism with a daily walk or a vigorous workout at the gym.
- Non-exercise movement also requires a lot of energy. Researchers use the term "non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT)" to describe all of the calories that you burn doing basic movement throughout the day like carrying groceries, walking to your desk at work or cooking dinner.
How Do I Manage My Metabolism to Lose Weight?
To lose weight effectively, you should know your resting metabolic rate and the total number of calories you burn each day (including exercise and NEAT). There are different ways to determine those numbers, but none is an exact science. Some gyms or medical centers offer metabolic testing services that may be more accurate.
Once you know how many calories you burn each day, you need to eat fewer calories to lose weight. When you don't give your body the energy it needs, it burns stored energy (stored fat) as fuel instead. The result is that you lose weight and slim down.