Day Seventy-Three: Metabolism

Open a Cosmo, Redbook, or Allure magazine at any given time and there will be an article on how to speed up the metabolism. We are intrigued by our metabolism, and how to rev it up. So, how does it all really work?

Metabolism is the sum total of all chemical reactions in the body.

Food enters through the mouth. We chew. We swallow. It moves through our digestive tract undergoing digestion and absorbtion. This food is transferred into energy that our body either uses to do work, or it is stored by our body as fat if we've eaten more calories that our body metabolically needs. As time goes on, our metabolism naturally slows down with natural decreasing activity, age, and with loss of lean body mass (ratio of muscle to bone to fat).

It is largely regulated by an area in the brain called the hypothalamus.  The hypothalamus controls many of our body's automatic functions. It tells us when we're hungry or full, it regulates much of our smooth muscle tissue and endocrine glands, and helps us to regulate our body temperature...all of which are factors for our metabolism.

So what are the tips that magazines offer, and why do they work? Here are some tips from Redbook and my explanations of why I believe they are effective.

-Don't overdo calorie cutting. Cutting calories drastically causes our body to think its starving. It compensates by changing our caloric expenditure so that we burn the least amount of calories necessary. If we were on a desert island, this would be good as a survival mechanism. Because we're not, skipping meals decreases our metabolism and does more harm than good. Instead, one should eat small healthy meals frequently throughout the day.

-Eat breakfast. Same reason as above.

-Go for high-fiber carbs. Focusing on veggies, fruits, and whole grains provides fiber with the carbohydrates. They're usually healthier for us and create less of an insulin surge than the carbs that come from white bread or table sugars. Insulin surges can promote fat storage and possibly impact our metabolic rate.

-Skip alcohol. The body tends to burn off the alcohol first. What that means is that any caloric consumption is not burned until after the alcohol is burned....translation - the alcohol will most likely be used as fuel while the meal will probably be stored as fat.

-Eat spicy. The capsaicin in hot peppers tends to stimulate stress hormones, which temporarily speeds up the metabolism.

-Get sleep. Multiple studies have shown that getting too little sleep over a period of time can have a lowering effect on the metabolism.

-Get balance. Excessive chronic stress can effect viceral fat levels and often triggers appetite.

-Lift heavy. Strength training changes our lean body mass. It increases lean muscle, increases bone density, and burns fat. This, in turn, causes our resting metabolism to increase...meaning that we burn more calories throughout the day doing our normal, everyday activities.

I challenge you to incorporate ways to increase your metabolism.