To maintain a healthy body it is essential to understand metabolism and calorie requirement of the body. Metabolic weight loss is an effective way to shed extra pounds and keep the body fit.
What is Metabolism?
Metabolism is the conversion process of food and drinks inside the blood cells to create energy. More specifically, metabolism refers to a complex biochemical process through which the digestive system converts food and drink into energy. Its speed depends on the number of calories we need to maintain our body in good condition.
How Metabolic Weight Loss is Related to Calorie Requirement
The daily need of calories for a human body varies. Listen to your body, study it, and befriend it. Thus you can understand the sufficient calorie requirement for the normal functioning of your body. Our daily caloric needs consist of three components:
Basal Metabolism (BM)
BM refers to calories required to maintain body’s normal functioning like cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous system, digestion, hormone secretion levels, etc.
BM indicates the number of calories burned in the body, even during resting or sleeping. Basal metabolism is also known as general metabolism. Our basal metabolism is generally influenced by several factors. Those are:
- Age (with the increase of age, the amount of muscle decreases; fat concentration increases and the calorie-burning process weakens);
- Sex (a male body usually gains more muscle with less fat and burns more calories than a female body);
- Weight and body composition (who has more muscles, can burn more calories even if, during rest periods);
- Genetic factors.
The energy generation process inside the cells needs the body to maintain the basic functions that are relatively constant. BM exploits approximately 65-70% of the daily caloric consumption and depends mainly on the lean body mass (in particular muscle).
BM varies depending on the volume of muscle owned by the individual human body. During resting periods an individual with well-built muscle, burns more calories than a skinny person with fewer muscles.
With the increase in age, the BM reduces by about 2% -3% per decade. Lean body mass is the only factor that can drive an individual to increase or decrease BM. To simplify the calculation of the basal metabolic rate, you can use the following ratio:
BM = total weight in kg X 20-22kkal.
However, it would be better, if you could measure your lean muscle mass instead of taking the total weight. A special test can calculate the percentage of “dry” mass (muscle), fat tissue, bone mass, and water in human body. By the way, it is possible to use special electronic scales.
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The Thermal Effect of Food (TEP)
TEP refers to the number of calories required for digestion absorption of nutrients extraction of energy. The share of TEP in total calorie requirement by the body is about 10%, and some estimates are even lower. TEP as well as BM are relatively stable and are not subject to our control.
TIC depends on:
- Caloric intake;
- The composition of fats, proteins, and carbohydrates in food;
- Individual diet.
The absorption of nutrients such as proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, takes a different amount of energy. For example, the energy consumption from the digestion of protein, fat, and carbohydrates is approximately 15-20%, 3%, and 10-15% respectively. Therefore, the greater sources of energy are proteins and carbohydrates. Both the thermal effect of food as well as basal metabolism decreases with the growth of age. It is believed that physical activity and sports training affect the TIC. However, it is still a mystery how this relationship works.
Thermal Effect of Activity (TEA)
TEA refers to the rest portion of the daily caloric needs, which is spent on daily life, during work and exercise, that is, to perform various physical activities, including walking and climbing stairs, morning exercises, shopping, applying a vacuum cleaner, gaming like tennis, swimming, dancing, etc. In general, TEA covers about 15-30% of the daily caloric consumption and depends on how active you are.
Physical activity is the most effective way to burn out calories. However, it depends on the individual, and how s/he can manage it. This is a very important tool for weight loss. For individuals who lead sedentary lifestyles, TEA is much lower than those who regularly go through heavy physical workouts.
TEA, in turn, includes the calories consumed:
- During exercises/workouts;
- After exercise/workout.
Calories are burned through physical activities and this process is directly related to the mass of your muscles. Muscles perform physical work and simultaneously burn calories. The body builds muscle again and continues this endless cycle. Therefore, to burn more calories, you need to increase your physical activity and build up muscle mass.
Depending on the intensity and duration of exercise, metabolic processes of thermal effect activity can persist for hours after exercise, even when your body is at rest. Therefore, after a workout, while on vacation, you continue to “burn” calories, and you continue to lose weight.
And this is certainly one of the most significant benefits of exercise in weight loss. Recent studies show that the more intense the exercise, the longer the effect of burning calories after your workout, which is longer than the combustion process of calories inside the blood cells.
Weight Management requires that all mechanisms of energy consumption (BM, TEP, and TEA) work harmoniously and play their roles according to the systematic regulation of the body to maintain the balance in the energy generation process.
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Metabolism vs. Arithmetic weight loss
Consider one golden rule:
To lose 1 kg of fat, you need to burn 7,500 calories.
So, if you consume more calories than the daily requirement for them, you will gain weight. If you eat fewer calories than the daily requirement – you will lose weight.
Example: your daily caloric needs without exercise is 2000 kcal. During the meal, you consume 2500 calories, and then you have a surplus of 500 calories a day. Based on this, you will get 1 kg of excess weight within 15 days (500 calories x 15 = 7,500 calories).
Now, what to do? The answer is simple: there should be a balance between your diet and the calorie-burning process through physical activity. Daily physical workouts can burn at least 300 to 400 calories to achieve your weight loss target.
Metabolic Weight Loss through Physical Activity
Although we do not have much control over the rate of metabolism, still we can control how many calories are burned with the level of our physical activity. Therefore, it can be said that the more active you are, the more calories you burn.
Regular Aerobic Exercise
Normal walking, Nordic walking, cycling, swimming, etc. are the most effective ways to burn out calories. Therefore, you have to pay for at least 30 minutes of aerobic exercise every day. When you want to achieve some other big goals of exercise, you can increase the training even more.
However, if you find it difficult to immediately identify a lot of time for exercise, try smaller (about 10-minute) sessions throughout the day. Remember, the more active you are, the more weight you lose.
Strength Training
They perfectly counteract the loss of muscles, which is associated with aging. That’s because muscle tissue burns more calories than fat tissue, which is undeniably a key factor in the weight loss challenge.
Build Muscles
Your body constantly burns calories, even when you do nothing. We have already said that the rate of metabolism in individuals with higher muscle mass is much higher. Every kg of muscle burns about 13 calories a day just to maintain itself, while each kg of fat only burns 5 calories per day.
After a session of physical training, the muscles get more activated and begin to burn more calories, which speeds up the metabolic weight loss process.
Adjust the Intensity of Physical Activity
The next time you go to the gym, swimming pool, or jog around the house, pay special attention to the rate of activity you perform. Try to increase the pace of action you perform for about 30 – 60 seconds, and then return to the normal speed for about 90 seconds.
Repeat this five times, 2 times per week. Using this strategy, you consume more oxygen, which increases the number of mitochondria and you burn calories more efficiently during the day.
Aerobic exercise will not help you build big muscles, but it increases the speed of your metabolism for several hours after a workout. An exercise of high intensity provides a longer-level rise of metabolism than a workout with low or medium intensity levels.
Leave Sedentary Lifestyle
Any physical activity helps to burn calories. Do not be lazy. Apply simple ways to burn calories, for instance, do not use the elevator; go up and down the stairs on foot; you walk to work; etc. Even activities, such as working at the cottage, garage, etc. promote the metabolic weight loss system inside the body.
Don’t Forget the Night’s Sleep
Specialists Medical Research Center in Portland (USA) found that the individuals who follow any diet but sleep only six hours, lose 55 percent less fat than those who sleep at least eight.
As a result of inadequate sleep, the body produces less Leptin – the hormone of satiety – and more Ghrelin – the hormone of hunger. These tempt an individual to eat more than s/he should. Therefore, the more you sleep at night, the more efficient metabolism you have for the day.
Scientists recommend sleeping in a cool room or shelter with a blanket. Then at night, the metabolism improves, and the body will burn more calories.
It is also important, in what mood you go to bed. For instance, if you enjoy any film/book that increases tension in your mind, then the body will produce the stress hormone Cortisol, which in turn slows down the metabolic process inside your body.
At night, it would be better not to eat carbohydrates; otherwise, the body can block the metabolism and enhance weight gain.
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How to Speed Up Metabolism Through Eating and Drinking Habit
Drink More Water
Water is directly involved in all biochemical processes occurring inside the body and plays a crucial and significant role in the metabolic weight loss process. However, remember that Tea, coffee, and carbonated drinks cannot fulfill the water requirement of the body to maintain the essential water balance.
How does water speed up metabolism?
Firstly, Coffee contains caffeine, which is one of the main features responsible for dehydration. After you drink a mug of coffee or green/black tea, it will absorb more water from your body than you drink, resulting in subtle but constant dehydration.
Second, Carbonated beverages include sugar. And many people love to drink coffee/tea with sugar. Therefore, these drinks input an additional amount of digestible quick carbs (as sugar) into your diet, which is undoubtedly responsible for excess weight gain.
The sugar causes an increase in the osmotic pressure in the cells of the body, resulting in further enhancement to the loss of fluid from the body cells.
What remains an unfortunate organism in constant dehydration? Right! Adjust and slow down your metabolism to save the more valuable liquid and reduce its losses.
The conclusion is obvious – drink plenty of clean drinking water without sugar and other additives. However, giving up tea and coffee at the same time is not mandatory. Just keep the consumption level under a reasonable limit and drink pure water.
Remember two important rules:
- It is not necessary to drink a lot of water at a time. Drink water regularly but with little seeps. Ideally – about 100 ml at a time. You can put a bottle and a glass of clean water on your desktop. This practice will remind you to drink water from time to time (at about 20-30-minute intervals).
- Do not drink water during and immediately after taking a meal. Get a useful habit to drink one glass of water 10 minutes before eating.
Research shows that drinking pure water and controlling the consumption of sugary drinks, will significantly improve your health and enhance the metabolic weight loss rate inside the blood cells.
Eat 5-6 Times a Day
Scientists have shown that when you do not take meals for several continuous hours, your brain assumes a long-time unfed state of your body and starts to store calories inside the body cells. As a result, your metabolism process gets slowed down. Conversely, if you take meals at short (about 4 hours) intervals, then it will keep your blood sugar under control and allow the body to maintain a constant metabolism process, which will burn more calories throughout the day. It can be mentioned here that several studies show that individuals who regularly eat snacks, generally eat less per day. So, in any case, do not let yourself go hungry!
Consume Protein Enriched Foods
Your body digests protein more slowly than fat or carbohydrates, so you feel full for longer (especially when you eat a lot of protein for breakfast) periods. Besides this, protein foods help to speed up the metabolism process inside the body cells. How does it happen? The calorie-burning process is called Thermo-genesis. Under this process, your body exploits about 10% of all calories obtained from the digestion of foods including, protein, carbohydrates, and fat.
One recent study at Purdue University found another benefit of a high-protein diet helps us to build and maintain body mass and muscle; even if, during respite, the body cells burn more calories.
Protein-enriched food sources include lean meat, turkey, fish, white meat chicken, tofu, nuts, beans, eggs, buckwheat, quinoa, and low-fat dairy products.
Don’t Skip Breakfast
It is important to focus not only on ‘what’ to eat but also ‘when’ to eat. The most important meal is breakfast. If you want to speed up your metabolism, then you should not skip your breakfast in any case. A healthy breakfast gives your body a powerful start-charge to maintain the metabolism process more efficiently.
Please note that your morning meal should be rich in nutrients, especially protein. This can be oatmeal with berries and almonds; or omelet with spinach, and low-fat cheese; or a slice of whole-wheat bread or cottage cheese with berries.
Consumption of Citrus Foods
Citrus foods, like, Oranges, tangerines, lemons, grapefruits, etc. should be included in your regular diet. In addition to vitamins and other nutrients, citrus foods contain citric acid. Citric acid plays a key role in the energy generation cycle, which contributes to strengthening metabolism and lose weight.
Citrus was named after the scientist who got a Nobel Prize for inventing the Krebs cycle or citric acid cycle. Krebs cycle describes the key stage of cell respiration through the metabolic pathways inside the body using oxygen.
However, if you have digestive problems, should not eat citrus fruits on an empty stomach – it can exacerbate existing ailments.
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Eat Omega-3 Fatty Acid Enriched Foods
Omega-3 is present in fish, vegetable oils, and some nuts in large quantities. Omega-3 helps to regulate the secretion levels of the hormone Leptin that affects the metabolic rate at a significant level.
Adding omega-3 fatty acid-enriched foods to diet, you can spur your metabolism and increase your body’s ability to burn fat cells. Get into the habit of consuming fish oil every day.
For some individuals, fish oil and its smell cause insurmountable aversion. Alternatives of fish oil, include fatty fish (salmon, trout, tuna, sardines, and mackerel), flaxseed and canola oil, or walnuts.
Research shows that rats taking fish oil before exercise lost significantly more weight than those who didn’t.
Avoid Strict Diets
The term ‘strict diet’ refers to the reduced amount of calorie intake – 1200 a day (for female) and 1800 (for males) – per day. If you want to speed up your metabolism, then you need to avoid following a strict diet.
Even though such a diet can help you lose a few extra kilos, there is another side to the coin. In a strict diet, the body is likely to lose muscle mass, and thus it will slow down your metabolism. As a result, your body starts to burn fewer calories before starting the diet.
However, after following a strict diet, it becomes hard for the body to lose weight through metabolism. In your regular diet, it is important to comply with one simple rule – Eat enough calories to maintain a normal metabolic rate.
How to determine your metabolic rate at rest? After reading the following formula, you will know an interesting fact the more you weigh, the faster your metabolism. You are recommended to use a formula called ‘muffin-Dzheora’, as it is considered more reliable than the ‘Harris-Benedict’ formula.
As mentioned earlier, BMR – basal metabolic rate (metabolism) refers to the energy that the body needs to maintain its functions without performing any other exercise that is, resting metabolism.
Scientists developed a formula to calculate BMR, which considers all the work for you. If you want to calculate the BMR yourself, here’s the formula:
BMR = (9.99 * M) + (6.25 * P) – (4.92 * B) + (166 * P) – 151
M = your weight in kilograms;
P = your height in centimeters;
B = your age;
C = coefficient of sex. 1 – for men, 0 for women.
Concluding Remarks
However, it is not mandatory to strictly maintain all the rules mentioned above. But if you want to speed up your metabolic weight loss process, then you should follow as many rules as possible. If you cannot lose weight despite following rules, taking a balanced diet, and doing regular workouts, then you are advised to consult a dietitian.
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