4 Ways to Impact Your Metabolism Today
How much control do you really have over your metabolism?
Good News - Quite a bit actually!
Metabolism is the process of converting food to energy so that the body can use that energy for daily movement and function. The way that we use energy (calories) can be broken down into 4 categories:
| Exercise | 10% | Swimming, biking, weight lifting, jogging, aerobics, yoga |
| Processing Food | 10% | Protein uses 20-30% of the calories in the serving, Carbs use 5-10%, Fat uses 0-3% of intake |
| Non-Exercise Activity | 20% | Daily Movement - Vacuuming, laundry, childcare, shopping |
| BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate | 60% | Energy needed for brain and organ functions Brain and Muscles require the most energy BMR is affected by: Age, Gender, Genetics, Body Composition * Increasing muscle mass improves BMR |
You can directly impact the first 3 parts of your metabolism. Here’s how:
1. Choose protein first!
20-30% of the calories that you take in from protein, are used to process the protein. YES! Eating food burns calories! That means that you have to spend calories to break down the protein before your body can use it.
2. You can exercise more often or more intensely to burn more calories.
You can also change the type of exercise that you do. New movements will engage different muscles and burn more calories than if you did the same exercise over and over again.
3. Increase daily movement - Non-Exercise activity.
More movement can have a big impact on our metabolism. Non-exercise movement accounts for about 20% of our total energy expenditure. When you move a lot throughout the day, it can impact your metabolism positively. Pacing, fidgeting, and keeping the house extra clean all burn lots of calories.
We can indirectly impact the 4th and most important part of our metabolism. Here’s how:
4. Our Basal Metabolic Rate accounts for the majority of our energy spending every day.
BMR is the number of calories that we burn to “keep the engine running.” Our body burns even when we are sleeping, in order to keep our organs functioning. So, even when we are resting, we are still burning calories. The majority of those resting calories are burned by your muscle. The more muscle you have, the more calories that you burn at rest. You can improve your lean muscle mass with protein and exercise. Remember – High Quality Protein + Exercise = Lifelong Success.
You can impact your metabolism today in these ways. Get started with #1 – choose protein first.
Explore more
Popular posts
