Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Metabolism Matters: Part 1

Your metabolism is the basis for fat loss. The faster your metabolism, and its components, the more calories and fat your use at rest. This is why we all look at younger people with disdain - they can eat whatever they want and it seems they just get skinnier!!

But the truth is, you too can do things to speed up your metabolism!!

There are 3 parts that make up your entire metabolism:
  1. Resting metabolic rate (RMR) (60-70%) - This is simply the energy required for your body to maintain homeostasis and keep all its systems working properly
  2. Thermic effect of food (TEF) (20-30%) - This is the energy required to chew, digest and absorb the food you eat. Certain foods stimulate this more than others. Fat increases your metabolic rate by only 3%, whereas protein increases your metabolic rate by up to 30%!!
  3. Thermic effect of exercise (20-30%) -This is the energy spent to fuel exercise. Unfortunately it is also the primary way people try to lose weight. Although it is a portion of your metabolism, however this really only counts your exercise while you are exercising.
So what the primary goal of each of these should be is to ramp each of them up so that we are using each to its maximal fat-burning potential! this is just a brief over view, but for the next 3 days I will address how we can do just that- Improve your fat burning potential!!

So stay tuned!

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