OUR DAILY METABOLIC RATE AND HOW
IT WORKS
We’ve heard that some people have a faster metabolic rate and some
slower. But is this true and what
factors affect how it works?
The metabolic rate is basically the rate at which you burn energy. It would be nice if we could control our
metabolic rate to say, burn off any treats that we couldn’t resist. However, there are 3 factors which determine
whether you’ll burn as energy your calorie intake or whether it will be stored
as abdominal fat.
·
The thermic effect of your activity
·
The thermic effect of your consumed calories
·
Your resting metabolic rate
The thermic effect of your
activity
This is all of your daily activities from getting up, moving about and
getting to work or the kids off to school, to shopping, housework, exercise and
even all of your unconscious activity like fidgeting about while on the phone,
or using a tablet or mobile device while simultaneously watching TV. It’s all activity and it all counts as to how
much energy the body is using to fuel the movement. Strangely the weather can also influence how
much energy you are burning as more energy is required to move around in a cold
climate.
To fully comprehend the extent of daily activity it helps to
investigate our NEAT Index. What is
NEAT?
Non-Exercise Activity
Thermogenesis or put more simply, how much you move around. This is where it gets really interesting
because a person’s NEAT Index could show for instance that a server in a busy
restaurant or a dog walker worked harder than someone who was training on the
track, as the athlete only powered explosive movement for 1-2 hours, while the
person on their feet continually throughout the day actually had a higher NEAT
Index due to the constant activity.
Though you have no control over your resting metabolic rate you have a
lot of control over how much you move around during the course of the day. Although people sitting for long periods in
offices or while driving for a living are less able to be able to dictate these
factors. The thermic effect of activity
accounts for roughly 20-30% of the output of energy depending on how active a
person’s lifestyle. Move more – burn
more.
The thermic effect of your
consumed calories
Energy comes into play again in the break down and digestion of the foods
consumed. It’s for this reason that
protein rich diets are effective in weight loss as it appears that more energy
is required to manage protein, while less energy will be expended to deal with
carbohydrates and fat. The average
overall thermic output for the digestion of food will be approximately 10% of the daily total.
Resting metabolic rate
You resting metabolic rate is the energy required simply to power your
bodily functions and this could account for as much as 60% of the total daily
output. So the operations of breathing, the
heart, blood flow and brain activity all contribute to this capacity to burn
energy. This rate progressively decreases
with age and with the reduction of lean body mass, which is also a natural element of
the ageing process.
Although this is very simplified as there are obviously very strict
scientific controls to accurately measure a person’s BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate)
but broadly, influencing factors would be the difference between male and
female, as men need more energy to power their larger body size and lean body
mass. The effectiveness of the thyroid also will effect the outcome, as an underactive thyroid will
reduce the metabolic rate due to low levels of thyroid hormone.
Although we cannot entirely determine our age, sex, height and weight
it would appear that we can influence to a slight degree the speed of our
metabolic rate by increasing our NEAT Index and consuming high protein. Also, by exercising more to develop leaner
muscle tone. Remember too that the entire metabolic rate will be increased for
some hours following high intensity exercise.
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