What is your metabolism?
Your metabolism, also called metabolic rate, is the rate at which your body converts nutrients into energy. Your body needs energy to sustain everything. You can use this energy for exercise and sports. This energy is also used for the body’s unconscious processes, such as breathing, circulation and digestion.
From the above, your metabolism is very similar to what your digestion does. But there is a big difference. Digestion is the fine-tuning of your food so that the nutrients from it can be absorbed into your blood. This happens immediately after you eat, through the stomach and intestines. Metabolism does not begin until the food is digested by the stomach and intestines. The nutrients created during digestion are processed so that they can be absorbed by the body. This is called metabolism or metabolic rate.
What affects your metabolism?
There are a number of factors that affect your metabolism. Some of these factors are beyond your control, but some you can influence.
Muscle mass
The more muscles your body has, the more calories you need to “feed” the muscles. Maintaining 1 gram of muscle takes about 90% more energy than maintaining 1 gram of fat. In the process, muscle mass takes up less space than fat mass. That’s why you look “leaner” when you create more muscle mass. Your weight may stay the same, but you are slimmer.
Age
Your metabolism declines from the age of 25, by about 5% every 10 years. This process, unfortunately, you cannot influence and it is part of aging. Your metabolism drops, as your muscle mass begins to decrease and your fat mass increases. As a result, you burn fewer and fewer calories.
Height
The taller you are, the more calories your body needs and the more you burn. All processes in the body require more energy in tall people than in smaller people. Overweight people also need more calories to maintain their mass if they want to stay at the same weight. Therefore, losing weight is often difficult because your body wants to sustain itself.
Hormones
Hormones also affect your metabolism, such as the hormone insulin. If you have too much insulin in your blood, it stimulates the storage of calories in fat mass.
Moving
The more you exercise, the more calories you need. This also affects your metabolism. However, there is another side to this. Exercising too much causes increased levels of cortisol in your blood (stress hormone), which lowers your metabolism.
How do you increase metabolism?
And now the most important question: how do you increase your metabolism? There are several methods to boost your metabolism.
Do high intensity workouts
With these you, give your metabolism a tremendous boost, even after the workout your metabolism is still increased.
Exercise
This could be a short walk or a bike ride. All those (small) movements have a big effect in the long run.
Strength Training
With strength training, you build muscle mass, and muscle mass requires more calories than fat mass.
Eat enough protein
Eating enough protein is important if you want to preserve the muscles you have built up. It takes your body energy to digest food, and this effect is greatest in the protein group. Thus, your metabolism is increased up to 30% after eating protein. This is in contrast to carbohydrates and fats that only increase metabolism by 3 to 10%.
Get enough sleep
Sleep is often underestimated. It’s different for everyone, how much sleep they need. Getting enough sleep has a positive effect on your metabolism. Studies show, that your metabolism drops by almost 3% if you don’t get enough sleep.
Eat enough and healthy
If you want to lose weight or increase your metabolism you should not enter this phase. It is wise not to be below your calorie needs every day. On average, a diet where you take in less than 1,000 calories is too little and lowers your metabolism.
