Metabolism fuels your body using calories you’ve eaten. You probably associate the word metabolism with weight gain and loss, but it’s really a name for the process by which your body converts food into fuel. Even at rest, your body needs energy — in the form of calories you’ve eaten — for basic functions such as circulating blood, breathing, and growing and repairing cells. Up to 75 percent of the calories you take in every day go toward this resting metabolic rate, or RMR (sometimes called basal metabolic rate, or BMR). The remainder gives you the fuel you need for daily activities and helps with digestion. (Yes, the mere act of processing foods burns calories!) Most women need 1,200 calories a day to support their RMRs, plus 200 to 400 extra calories for daily activities (and even more if you exercise regularly). Unfortunately, whatever surplus your body can’t use ends up stored as junk in your trunk (or thighs or belly). “It’s simply a matter of intake versus output,” says cardiologist Joseph Klapper, M.D., author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Metabolism. “Consume more calories than your metabolism needs, and you’ll gain weight.” Many women avoid weight training because they’re afraid of bulking up. But a little heavy lifting is actually your number-one key to calorie burn: The more lean muscle you have on your body, the faster your metabolism, the more calories you’ll burn, and the slimmer and trimmer you’ll look. That’s because even when your muscles are at rest, they still require three times more energy than fat for tissue maintenance and rebuilding. “The only way to keep up your metabolic rate is by building muscle through physical activity and strength-training,” says David Heber, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of California — Los Angeles and author of The L.A. Shape Diet. Studies suggest that women can naturally lose up to 15 percent of their muscle mass before age 50. Women who weight-train three days a week, on the other hand, can gain nearly three pounds of fat-free muscle mass in six months. For the optimum metabolic burn, experts suggest getting at least 30 minutes of combined cardiovascular and strength training most days of the week.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 13:40:02 +0000
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