A Slow Metabolism is a Weight Loss Myth!
We’ve all heard it ‘the sentence’. The sentence hailed as the holy grail to the reason someone can’t lose weight
They Have a Slow Metabolism.
It turns out scientist have discovered in fact fatter people have a faster metabolism than thin people.
Slow Metabolism – Not True for Big People
Having a slow metabolism is seen by the mainstream as the reason why some people can’t lose weight, but it would seem the opposite is true.
Like so many I always thought Exercise = A Faster Metabolism. No exercise = A Slower Metabolism. I didn’t think about the fact a metabolism is something that is happening inside us every minute of the day to run our bodies. Running our bodies takes energy and energy is our metabolism, they’re the same thing.
Wrong Calculation for Metabolism
I read an interesting article, produced by a BBC documentary Dr Susan Jebb professor of diet and population at Oxford University Said:
“One of the great myths of dieting is the role of the metabolic rate” (This is the speed you break down food and change it into energy.) “It can be affected by many factors, such as age, gender and size”
“Often overweight people think they can’t lose the pounds because they have a slow metabolism and slim people have a fast one. What we know is bigger people actually have a higher metabolic rate – that’s because they have bigger heart and lungs. It takes more calories to keep their bodies ticking over, It’s rather like a big car that uses more fuel”
“The metabolic rate goes down the more weight you lose, she adds. One test conducted as part of the study showed on average the metabolic rate of all dieters went down by 5% as they got slimmer”.
I know right shocker, but when you think about metabolism it makes sense. A thin person might well need a bit more energy if they exercise, but they don’t need it all the time to run their bodies. Someone carrying too much weight on the other hand are running at full power just to run their internal system.
Being Fat is a Workout
Being fat means everything is a workout. Getting out of a chair and walking to the kitchen means your body has to work harder than a thinner counterpart does.
You might ask why are people so big if they have a faster metabolism? The answer is they are eating and drinking too many calories for even a faster metabolism to process and use.
Your body only needs so many calories a day to function, roughly 2,000 calories for women and 2,500 for men. Extra calories get processed and stored, but if you are eating too much everyday then the build up results in you over loading your system.
Your metabolism has to work faster to deal with the constant barrage of excess calories. No matter how hard your metabolism works your body will never be able to use the extra calories, but still it has to keep finding places to put the fat.
Unfortunately we don’t have an outlet valve that we can open and empty out excess calories without them being processed and stored. We can’t eat an apple and poop out apple sauce because our bodies shouldn’t have eaten it. Everything we eat gets used or stored and the more you have to store the faster your metabolism has to work.
There is no system in your body that can tell you how many calories it has had. That’s for you to decide and control.
Exercise and Metabolism
Exercise is a short activity in people’s lives and the recommended daily calorie intake includes exercise into it’s calculation. Aerobic exercise like an hour exercise class, sex or both if you’re lucky is taken into account in the number of calories you need to run your body efficiently in a day.
No one who is thin exercises all day or even exercises every day for that matter. Being thin is a totally different ball game to being fit. It’s easier to get around when you aren’t carrying excess weight – but that doesn’t mean running for a bus won’t leave you out of breath even if you have a slimmer frame.
No average person exercises everyday for hours on end like the imagined lifestyle of a thin person. It’s very difficult to burn calories through exercise and has you get more active your body becomes more efficient making it harder to lose weight through exercise. The body adapts and learns to run at optimal efficiency.
Faster Metabolism
If you think about the body as a machine or a factory line it makes total sense that fatter people have a faster metabolism. The more you put on a conveyor belt the faster it has to run. The more processing power needed the more energy it needs to run any machine – mechanical or biological.
Our bodies are not designed to run on over load everyday of our lives, eventually something is going to blow or fail. And when the body fails it usually means dislocated knee or ankle joints, bad back, knee pain, sores and splitting skin, type two diabetes, heart attack ….. the list goes on.
Skinny Me xxx
