By now, you currently have a sense of how metabolism connects to weight-loss (catabolic metabolism, or breaking cells down and changing them into energy).
To comprehend this procedure much more plainly, we can introduce a really crucial player in the weight-loss game: the calorie.
Calories
Calories are just units of measure. They aren’t really things in and of themselves; they are labels for other things, much like how an inch truly isn’t anything, yet it measures the length in between 2 points.
So what do calories measure? Easy: they measure energy.
Yup, the wicked calorie– the bane of the dieter’s existence– is actually only a 3-syllable label for energy.
And it is necessary to highlight this, due to the fact that the body itself, regardless of its huge intelligence (much of which medical science can not yet comprehend) does not truly do an extremely smart job of differentiating good energy from the bad.
In fact, to be blunt, the body does not care about where the energy originates from. Let’s explore this a bit more since it’s really essential to the total understanding of how to increase your metabolism, especially when we take a look at food options.
In our choice-laden supermarket, with lots of varieties of foods– hundreds, possibly– there appears to be a relatively clear awareness of what’s good food, and what’s bad or fast food.
For instance, we do not require a book to remind us that, all else being equivalent, a plum is great food, whereas a tub of thick and creamy double-fudge ice cream is bad food.
Not bad tasting, obviously; yet, actually, you will not discover lots of in-shape individuals consuming a vat of ice cream a day, for apparent reasons. So what does this have to do with energy and calories?
It’s this: while you and I can assess our food options and state that something like an apple is a healthy energy source, and something else (like a bar of chocolate) is an unhealthy energy source, the body does not analyze.
It sounds weird and fantastic, yet the body actually does not care. To the body, energy is energy. It takes whatever it gets, and does not actually understand that some foods are healthier than others. It’s sort of like a waste disposal unit: it takes what you put down it.
When the body gets a calorie– which, as we understand, is simply a label for energy– it needs to do something with that energy.
Simply put, putting all other nutrients and minerals aside, if a plum provides 100 calories to the body, it needs to accept those 100 calories. The exact same goes for 500 calories from a (little) tub of ice cream: those 500 calories need to be handled.
Now, the body does 2 things with that energy: it either metabolizes it by means of anabolism, or it metabolizes it through catabolism. That is, it is going to either transform the energy (calories) into cells/tissue, or it will utilize that energy (calories) to break down cells.
Now the link between calories/energy, metabolic process, and weight reduction ends up being rather direct and clear.
When there is an excessive amount of of energy, and the body can’t utilize this energy to handle any requirements at the time, it will be pushed to develop cells with that additional energy. It needs to.
It does not always wish to, yet after finding out that the energy can’t be utilized to do anything (such as help you work out or digest some food), it needs to turn it into cells through anabolism.
And those additional cells? Yup, you guessed it: added weight!
Essentially (and nuts have plenty of calories, by the way, so beware and consume them in small portions), the entire calorie/metabolism/weight gain thing is truly just about excess energy.
When there are a lot of calories in the body– that is, when there’s excessive energy from food– then the body converts those calories into things.
And those things, the majority of the time, are fat. In some cases, obviously, those additional calories are converted into muscle; and this is normally a good thing for those who are careful about their weight or attempting to keep an optimal body fat ratio.
In fact, due to the fact that muscles need calories to sustain, individuals with strong muscle tone burn calories without, in fact, doing anything; their metabolic process burns it for them.
This is the main reason why working out and building lean muscle belongs to a comprehensive program to increase your metabolic process; since the more lean muscle you have, the more places excess calories can go to before they’re converted into fat.
