Basal Metabolic Rate
and Metabolic Thermogenesis
- can speed up metabolism
Basal metabolic rate and metabolic thermogenesis, are little understood by the man in the street. But when it comes to speeding up your metabolism and your calorie expenditure, understanding how these work can change your life.
This may be the most important thing you'll read in years.
Other than the much bandied around 'calorie burning' and 'speeding up metabolism' ideas, basal metabolic rate is probably a term you aren't familiar with. For that reason neither are you likely to understand its significance, when it comes to how it changes your caloric expenditure and ultimately how they help you control your weight all naturally.
Until I understood the mechanisms behind our basal metabolic rate, thermogenesis and how exercise impacted on them - I really didn't understand all the hoo ha about WHY exercise would apparently help me lose weight naturally. But once I got the 'why' a little light bulb went on for me?So in laymens' terms, what is all this big deal about exercise? How exactly does it help you control and lose weight all naturally? Let's do a bit of basal metabolism 101.
Did you know you have two kinds of metabolism?
Thermo-genesis, (thermo = heat and genesis = creation) which is a rise in your body temperature and a temporary way to increase the rate at which our body burn calories.Your basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy your body uses just to stay alive day in and day out. It's the calorie burning that takes place when your body breathes, digests, excretes, regulates your body temperature, performs tissue maintenance or cell renewal and so on. They are vastly different in nature. One is temporary, the other is permanent. Your basal metabolic rate keeps going 24/7. It's silently burning calories whether you are sleeping, sitting, standing or running. The only time it stops is when you die. This, by the way is one of the reasons why I dispute the
' breakfast will kickstart your metabolism' theory.
It's baloney because your basal metabolism never stopped in the first place. Thermogensis is what happens on top of your basal metabolic rate, temporarily raising your caloric expenditure and the amount of calories that are burned.
There are a number of things we can do that can bring about thermogenesis and a temporarily speeded up metabolism.
- Whenever you eat anything, the process of digestion temporarily raises your body temperature as it sets about digesting that food.
- Drinking a glass of cold water will temporarily cause thermogenesis for a short while before falling off again.
- Being active or doing exercise also means that the heat generated by your body rises and will then slowly abate again.
Our basal metabolism is a bit like merely leaving the engine of a car idling whereas thermogenesis is a bit like pressing the accelerator now and again. When it's just idling it'll burn off a steady amount of fuel, but when you're accelerating it'll temporarily burn off more fuel. Unlike your car where you want to burn as little fuel as possible (especially with galloping gas prices), if you can get your body's basic metabolic rate to idle at a higher rate, it'll be burning more calories even though it's just sitting, or standing. From a weight control point of view, this is exactly what you want - you want to use up the energy you're eating at a faster rate. As I said though thermogenesis under normal circumstances is only temporary
The Magic of Exercise
But wouldn't it be fabulous if you could have that speeded up metabolism on a more permanent basis? Well here's the great news - you can!You see, when it comes to exercise an interesting thing happens. And this is where having an understanding of how my basal metabolic rate works really changed my basic understanding about the value of consistent and regular exercise. You can eat as much as you like, up goes your thermogenesis and then down again - and it won't change your underlying basal metabolic rate. But when you exercise on a regular and consistent basis a magical process starts to happen as a result of your body converting fat into muscle. Let me explain something about
muscle vs fat.
The more body fat you have the slower your metabolism because fat doesn't require a lot of energy to stay alive. And pssst....before you fall into the trap we do easily do - that does not mean that all fat is
bad fat.
However, muscle utilizes a lot more energy (burns a lot more calories) in order to stay alive. Thus, when your body replaces fat with muscle, because muscle uses more energy to stay alive, it utilizes more energy for all your basic bodily functions. In other words, even as you're sleeping, your basal metabolic rate is now speeded up and your body is using more energy than it did before.
So, you know how you eat that 700-odd calorie piece of cake, and head off to the gym to 'exercise it off'? Well even 40 minutes of aerobic exercise is most likely to only burn off just over half of those calories. And some of us even get exercise bulimia when we obsessively try to exercise away calories! And the odd bout of exercise isn't going to do anything to change you ratio of body fat to muscle, nor is it going to do anything to speed up up your basal metabolism. Only regular and consistent exercise over time converts fat to muscle. Muscle burns more calories to stay alive, that's what speeds up your basal metabolic rate so that even your basic bodily functions utilize more energy. And THAT's why exercise helps you lose and maintain weight naturally. And if you're into natural and healthy weight loss and many more little-known secrets like these, I think you'll like what you'll find in my mind over fatter programme. It's got one whole section dedicated to helping your create your very own metabolism boosters! And if that isn't for you....then here are some other people's fitness products that might work better for you: Superfast (fun fitnessFitness Model Christine Finns facts about fitness
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