WEIGHT LOSS

The majority of people feel their metabolic rate is fixed and cannot be changed. While some aspects that determine your metabolic rate are fixed (your age and gender, for example), as you will soon discover, there are many things you can control that influence your metabolism.

The key is to maximize the aspect of your metabolism that is flexible; this ensures you triumph over the weight-loss battle once and for all. Aspects that can influence the rate at which your metabolism functions include:

• Age – Your metabolism actually slows about 5% per decade.
• Gender – Men’s bodies naturally contain more muscles. Muscle is far more metabolically active in comparison to fat. Thus, it is indeed harder for women to lose weight vs. men.
• Genetic differences – Two individuals can have the same weight and fat content but have different body types, which result in different metabolic rates.
• Hormones – Hormones control many of the body’s main chemical processes and therefore can influence metabolism.
• Lifestyle – A sedentary lifestyle can dramatically slow metabolism.
• Under active thyroid – The thyroid gland is a small organ at the base of your neck. One of the thyroid’s roles is to produce hormones that influence your metabolism. When these hormones are in short supply, you have a condition called hypothyroidism. In addition to an inability to lose weight, fatigue, depression, dry skin, coarse hair and an intolerance to cold, there are other symptoms that can accompany hypothryoidism. Although, there can be several reasons why some indiviudals’ metabolism is slower than others’, thyroid problems are not usually to blame. A simple blood test by your medical doctor can help to detect if your thryoid is an underlying issue.
• Skipping meals
• Chronic dieting
• A diet high in sugars and high glycemic-index carbohydrates
• Dehydration – Lack of water can slow metabolism.
• Stress – When your body is stressed or in a chronic low-grade stage of emergency called “fight or flight response,” you will over-secrete a stress hormone called cortisol. Cortisol secretion stimulates fat cells in the ab- domen to increase in size and encourages fat storage. Excess abdominal weight is a risk factor for diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Your metabolism can be likened to that of an engine. It uses food as the fuel to run your body. Similar to an engine, your metabolism can be sped up or slowed down. There are three aspects that make up your total metabolic engine.
1. Basal metabolism – This accounts for approximately 60 to 65 percent of your metabolic engine. In a nutshell your basal metabolism amounts to the calories burned daily to keep you alive and provide basic energy for life support. In other words, if you were to lie around in bed all day long, you would still need these calories to provide basic bodily functions. An individual with more lean body mass will have a higher basal metabolic rate (BMR) than a person with a higher body fat percentage, even if he weighs exactly the same amount. Why? Because his body needs more energy to support and sustain his muscles.

2. Physical activity – Approximately 25% of calories burned go to movement and physical activity. Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, burning 30 to 50 more calories than fat per pound per day.

3. Thermic effect of food – About 10 percent of calories are spent processing the food you eat. For example, if you eat 2000 calories a day, you should be burning 200 calories a day through the process of digestion. As you can see, the elastic part of your metabolism comes down to activity and food. In addition, by focusing on these flexible aspects through proper food choices and exercising, your BMR can be increased, resulting in more calories burned everyday.