Is a "Slow Metabolism" Really a Condition?

  So the question remains…Is the “slow metabolism” really a medical condition, or, is it simply a well disguised lie, created by us, to hide our gluttony in the kitchen?  Is claiming that your body just naturally burns calories much slower that than those with normal metabolisms, just an excuse?

  One of the first things that need to be examined is how our body stores and uses energy.  The food, containing nutrients/calories, that we eat every day are broken down and stored; most of the energy will be stored as fat, or it may be stored as muscle.  Those who gain muscle weight naturally increase their body’s metabolism because muscle requires more calories to maintain itself than fat.  This means that when you exercise and gain muscle mass, you are boosting you metabolism…temporarily.  The muscle reconstruction requires extra energy to sustain recovery and growth, which results in slightly larger calorie needs.  This rise in metabolic rate, however, is only temporary; during workouts and a few hours after its completion.  After the muscle has had time to recover, the body no longer needs the previous extra calories because it is not being stressed anymore.

  This information explains why a person with an athletic, muscular build will most likely have a faster metabolism that a person with an average build.  The muscular person is continually burning extra calories (assuming he continues to exercise) because his added muscle tissue requires added energy to maintain.  The person with an average build has much less muscle tissue and more fat tissue, which results in fewer calories needed.  The problem seems to be sticking with your body’s natural metabolic needs.

To be continued…

Does skipping breakfast really affect my metabolism?

   It must go against logic to claim that eating a nutritious meal right when you wake up may help you to lose or maintain weight and increase your metabolism.  Most people believe that by consistently skipping breakfast they’re reducing their total daily calories, and helping to make their diet more successful…but this is unfortunately not true for even one of the men and women who begin every morning without ANY dietary energy.  Our body’s physiology governs metabolic rate and research shows that when we sleep or have a very low activity level, our metabolism-the rate that your body burns calories/energy performing bodily function, slows down and only returns to the normal daily rate after a meal has been eaten,

Reference:  http://www.mynmi.net/student/ccer/podcasts/breakfast.html

   If breakfast is ignored, the body will conserve as much energy as is possible to ensure that there will be enough energy for later in the day.  So, if you skip out on the first meal of the day, your body is burning fewer calories that it would have if you’d had breakfast and performed the same activities.  To explain this phenomena, you must view skipping breakfast as a type of prolonged fasting.  During any type of prolonged fasting the body very quickly responds by beginning to transition into “starvation mode”, which enables the body to conserve as many calories as possible.  The body’s insulin response increases, which increases fat storage leads to weight gain.  This suggests that skipping breakfast actually increases a person’s risk for obesity!

Breakfast not only jumpstarts and helps to maintain a healthy active metabolism, but it also helps to reduce the temptation of snacking and/or overeating later that day, and it gives you the energy to be more physically active, which further increases metabolic rate and calorie burning throughout the day!

Crash Dieting and Metabolic Rate

The problem with this functional equation is that basal metabolism may vary widely based on many factors including: genetics, physical activity, food preference, meal size, and diet habits.

  It’s fairly common in America to attempt weight loss through a “crash diet”, (extreme energy restriction or starvation), for some amount of time to quicken the dieting duration and, in theory, see greater weight loss results.  It may seem logical to assume that restricting more calories will result in more successful weight loss outcomes.

This however, is not so.  A person’s metabolic rate (the amount of energy expended by the body in a given amount of time), adjusts to compensate for the lack of incoming energy to maintain physical and mental function. When a person’s energy needs are not met, several automatic bodily responses are activated that begin preparing their body for starvation/famine.  The body tries to compensate for any decrease in energy intake by conserving all of the energy it does receive.  The body uses as few calories as possible to complete any energy-expending activity.  Often people find themselves exhausted and unmotivated to perform normal daily activities during crash diets.  Lack of activity, in turn, reduces metabolic rate even further and makes it even more difficult to lose weight.

        Instead, it is recommended that people follow a well-rounded nutritional diet as well as follow an exercise routine, which will allow weight to be lost gradually and prevent a body from entering a starvation state.

Metabolic Rate: Effects on Diet and Health

   In today's diet-driven society, it's common to blame your failure to lose weight on a "slow metabolism". Metabolism is the process that your body uses to convert nutritional calories into energy the body can use to maintain daily living/functioning.  It greatly affects how efficiently your body burns energy and in this way, affects how much weight you can lose and how easily you can lose it. Besides genetics, the three main factors that affect metabolic rate are: 

·      Age-your metabolism naturally decreases as you enter the mid-twenty/early-thirty year olds range

·      Sex-men usually have higher metabolisms than women.

·      Body Composition-having a lean body composition correlates to a high metabolic rate.

Although most of these factors can not be changed, there are other ways to control the rate of your metabolism and that is what this blog will discuss.  There are many different techniques that can be easily implemented into anyones daily lives, and make a huge change in the amount of energy your body has and the amount that is burns each day.  Everything from portion size and meal frequency, to food habits and physical activity affect a person's metabolic rate; even the smallest thing like drinking a large, cold glass of water in the morning can make a subtle difference in metabolic speed.  It's important to make the public aware of these simple, cheap techniques, as well as information surrounding the overall reduction that some diets have on metabolic rate.  I look forward to doing research on this topic and receiving advise and criticism from you all.