Let your metabolism working for you!

"This is a feature of my metabolism!" A familiar phrase? If a person is gaining those extra pounds and can not lose them, he is inclined to blame the low metabolic rate. But there blame on the fact that the metabolism, it is easy or difficult, we lose weight? And, more importantly, if we can somehow affect the bodies own?

What is metabolism?

Experts say that the metabolism involves a complex system of hormones and enzymes that not only convert food into fuel for the body but are also responsible for the quality of processing of the fuel our bodies.

"The process of metabolism shows how hard we burn calories, and most importantly, how quickly we gain and lose weight", - said Robert Yanasigava (Robert Yanagisawa), PhD and director of the weight management program under medical supervision at the Medical Center 'Mountain Sinai » (Mount Sinai Medical Center) in New York.

Of course, all people burn calories at different rates. Metabolic rate depends on the age (after forty metabolism naturally slows down by 5% every ten years), sex (men on average spend more calories than women) and the fraction of lean body mass (more muscle, the higher metabolic rate). And, of course, not the least important is heredity.

"The fact that some people have the metabolic rate is lower than that of the majority" - says Barry Wolf Redbill (Barrie Wolfe-Radbill), specializing in issues of weight loss certified nutritionist at the University Medical Center, New York (New York University Medical Center).

Yanasigava adds that sometimes, if a person has problems with the thyroid gland, its metabolism is slower than it could if it were not for health problems. Fortunately, such cases are rare.

But what is interesting and surprising: the more of us the extra pounds, the higher your metabolic rate. "The fact that obesity induces your body to work harder, even to remain at rest, so in most cases, the presence of excess body weight increases the metabolic rate", - says Molly Kimball (Molly Kimball), a certified nutritionist, health specialists, including sports nutrition fitness center at the Oxnard Clinic (Oscher's Clinic's Elmwood Fitness Center).

That's why it's so easy to drop those extra pounds after starting the diet, and getting harder and harder to continue. Kimball explains: "If you have excess weight, your metabolism is working at such a rate that even the slightest reduction in daily calories leads to weight loss momentary." However, when you've gotten rid of unwanted pounds at the expense of fat and muscle, your body requires to sustain a lot less calories. This explains why, after a long and hard work to get rid of excess weight so quickly, he dialed again.

"Take two people with the same weight of 80 pounds, but the first is always weighed so much, and the other for a long time on a diet, instead of 110 pounds to get 80. So, the metabolic rate of the second person to be lower, "- says Yanasigava. - "This means that the second requires fewer calories to maintain their weight than the first, which never exceeded 80 kilograms in weight."