You may have heard before of people claiming how important metabolism can be when it comes to weight loss. Maybe someone you know claims to be eternally thin due to a fast metabolism, or someone who can never seem to lose enough weight has said that their troubles are the result of being cursed with a slow metabolism. But what is the truth about metabolism and weight loss, and how can it affect your own attempts to lose more weight?
What is metabolism?
Metabolism, put simply, is the way that your body takes the food and drink that you give it, and turns it into the energy you use to do everything from staying warm to brushing your hair in the morning. Even activities that may feel like nothing to you, such as breathing or even sleeping, use the energy you make with your metabolism.
Metabolism is a very complex process, involving the interactions of many different chemicals in your digestive system and bloodstream. How fast you turn your food into energy is also very for different people, and it can vary depending on their size, how much muscle they have, their sex, and their age. For instance, someone who has a lot of muscle mass will be able to burn many more calories, even when they’re not doing anything, than someone with less muscle mass. So it makes sense that different people will have different speeds of metabolism.
How can metabolism affect weight loss?
It may seem logical to link your troubles with losing weight to your metabolism, but this often is not the case. The truth is that your body adjusts your metabolism according to your needs. For instance, if you haven’t eaten anything in a long time, your body will try to conserve energy and will burn calories more slowly.
Since you can’t control the rate at which your body burns calories, the only thing you can control is how many calories you give you body, and how many calories you force it to burn during physical activity and exercise.
It works just like trying to get a balloon to deflate: You can’t control how fast the air leaks out of a balloon, the hole at the end is only so big. What you can do to get a balloon to deflate faster is to either stop filling it up with air, or to squeeze it so that more air escapes. Losing weight is exactly the same: Your choices are either eating less or exercising more to burn calories. Your metabolism cannot be changed, but now that you know the truth, you are much more prepared to work with your body to lose weight.
Is it possible to lose weight by eating more? That question may sound crazy, but it’s a technique that many fitness experts have been using for quite awhile now to manage how their bodies take in food. This reduces the amount of fat they retain and helps them stay thin. So it’s not a crazy dream, but an effective strategy in your work toward losing weight.
Eating six meals a day makes it easier for your body to process the food that you are giving it. By giving your body time to digest the protein as well as the fat and carbohydrates in your food, you make sure that the important parts of the food, like the protein, are absorbed for building muscle, and the parts which you don’t want much of, like the carbohydrates and the fat, have time to be burnt off. By giving your body smaller amounts to digest spaced further apart, you are making it more efficient at processing foods and leaving less to be stored as that fat you are trying to lose.
When you only eat three times a day, you often find yourself overly hungry, or “starving” by the time mealtime comes around. This can easily cause you to overeat and miss your daily calorie goal. By eating more frequently, you can help keep your hunger cravings under control.
Additionally, if you are eating healthy foods more often, you will be less tempted to grab a donut or a bag of chips when you need some extra energy. There will be no reason to break your diet and snack when the next meal is only 30 minutes away.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that you can eat a full meal of fried foods six times a day and expect to lose weight. First of all, each of your six meals per day will be substantially smaller than what you were previously eating as a three-time-per-day meal. Second, it is still vital that you are eating healthy, balanced meals to lose weight. Some lean protein, a few carbohydrates like rice or noodles, and a lot of vegetables make for a balanced meal that will have you losing weight in no time.
