What Is Metabolism

Metabolism is the amount of energy (calories) your body burns to maintain itself. Whether you are eating, drinking, sleeping, cleaning etc... your body is constantly burning calories to keep you going.


Metabolism is affected by your body composition. By body composition, I mean the amount of muscle you have versus the amount of fat. Muscle uses more calories to maintain itself than fat. People who are more muscular (and have a lower percentage of body fat) are said to have a higher metabolism than others that are less muscular. For example, let's say you have two people who are the exact same height and weight. One exercises on a regular basis with weights, in addition to aerobic exercise, and has a low percentage of body fat. The other never exercises and has a higher percentage of body fat. The first person who exercises will have a higher metabolism than the second person. What this basically means is that person #1's body will use more calories to sustain itself than person #2.

How To Increase Metabolism




Begin to exercise and stop dieting. If you've never exercised before, make sure you see a doctor before beginning a new exercise program (your problems with metabolism may be the result of a medical condition rather than your diet or lack of exercise).


You can increase your muscle mass by doing some type of resistance work (i.e. lifting weights, using exertubes, rubberbands, dynabands, hand weights etc...). You can also decrease your level of body fat by doing some type of aerobic exercise at least 3 days a week for longer than 20 minutes. By aerobic exercise, I mean an activity (such as walking, jogging, step aerobics, hi/low aerobics, biking, swimming etc...) that will increase your heartrate into the target zone and keep it there for the duration of the exercise session. You also need to eat! - Do not diet, just watch the types of foods you eat. Try to eat a diet that is lower in fat (check the labels on the foods that you buy).

Water-fasting is also one good way to increase your metabolism so go on, try it...:-)