Metabolism myths

A common belief is that overweight people have a slow metabolism, in other words, they burn energy slowly, while thin people have a fast metabolism or burn energy quickly. Both of these are myths.

The term ‘metabolic rate’ means the energy (calories/kilojoules) you use over a day to keep your body going – your lungs breathing, your heart beating. This is also referred to as the resting or basal metabolic rate.

Researchers have calculated the exact amount of calories healthy weight and overweight people burn while sitting or lying quietly. They did this by measuring the amount of oxygen breathed in and the amount of carbon dioxide breathed out.

Myth Busted: Overweight and lean people have similar metabolic rates.

Results show overweight people use more energy or calories to keep their bodies working. This is because they have larger bodies with bigger muscles and internal organs.

However, once they take into account the differences in body size, lean and obese people have similar metabolic rates.

Increase muscle, increase metabolic rate.

Your metabolic rate can be influenced by your particular body composition and age. Muscle requires more energy than fat. And as we get older, most of us gain fat and lose muscle. This explains why the metabolic rate tends to decrease with age.

Also, two people the same age and weight can have different metabolic rates if one is fitter (and has more muscle) than the other.

People eat more than they think.

Many overweight people believe they eat very little but still put on weight and use the ‘slow metabolism’ theory, but research shows people often eat more than they think. Many also believe they eat healthy foods more often than is the case.

The bottom line.

You’ll gain weight if you consume more calories than your body uses. It all comes back to the guiding philosophy of eat less, eat better, move more. There’s no escaping this fact

Speed up your metabolic rate.

There are many pills, supplements and foods that say they speed up the metabolism. Most are unproven.

Nicotine and caffeine do have a small effect but any increase in the metabolism may have the effect of increasing in the heart rate. These aren’t recommended strategies for losing weight.

No miracles, just inescapable common sense.

No single ingredient will burn fat away without reducing the amount of calories you eat.

Burning calories.

The best way is to increase your levels of physical exercise and eating filling foods. Here’s a guide to how many calories you’ll use doing different activities:

• Walking 60 minutes – 200 kcals
• Gardening 60 minutes – 300 kcals
• Football 90 minutes – 600 kcals
• dancing 45 minutes – 450 kcals

The fact is increasing muscle and decreasing fat will lead to small but vital increases in your basal metabolic rate.

Eating less – Go Low GI

We’ve established that to lose weight we simply have to lose some food. Easier said than done. One effective way is to start including more low GI foods in your diet.

Also, increase the amount of high protein foods, especially in your breakfast cereal. The fuller you feel at the start of the day can determine how much food you consume during the day.

Eat more at breakfast and less and less during other meal times.

About the author

Justin Smidmore is the owner of The Metabolic Food Company, makers of SuperStart breakfast blend. He likes to give people commonsense information regarding weight loss, weight management and healthy eating. He is quick to add he is not a dietician (he’s not even sure how to spell it) or nutritionist.