Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
In life, there are many words that get wildly overused, combined with also being used in the completely wrong context and with the completely wrong meaning.
Literally.
I’m sure you have your own list. But words that spring to mind are:
Legend — this is often used when someone is quite good, but usually a long long way away from having legendary status
Crazy — nine times out of ten you are not referring to a situation that is “mentally deranged, demented or insane”
With all due respect — is usually said right before all respect is thrown out of the window.
Shouldn’t of — shouldn’t even exist. Its shouldn’t have.
Its not Rocket Science — No Sandra, you are right it's not Rocket Science. And if it was neither you are I would be discussing it because neither of us know the first thing about rockets.
and in Fitness one of these words is almost certainly….
Metabolism …Speed up your Metabolism. Slow it down. Fix it. Is your Metabolism broken? What foods speed up my Metabolism? Is Breakfast good for your Metabolism? Do you need to keep your Metabolism running? Workouts to speed up Metabolism?
The answers to all of these questions elicit a different more confusing response about the word, and when that occurs there is a void for the fitness industry. A void that gets filled by magic fixes, magic pills and really bad advice.
And when that happens you are in a losing battle.
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
So let me set the record straight. In this article I will cover the following:
What is your Metabolism?
How does Metabolism work?
What influences your Metabolism?
Is your Metabolism broken?
How does my Metabolism relate to weight loss?
Conclusion
Listen to an episode of The Fitness Solution on this very topic right here:
What is your Metabolism?
A clear straight definition looks like this:
“Metabolism describes all the chemical processes that go on continuously inside your body to keep you alive and your organs functioning normally, such as breathing, repairing cells and digesting food” [1]
Every chemical reaction requires energy for it to occur. That energy comes from the calories you eat.
With me?
Good.
So lets simplify it for Fitness and Weight Loss purposes. My definition for this context would be the following:
“The way in which you body burns calories to keep your body running. Like the speed at which a car burns fuel in order to make its engine work. You burn calories to keep your engine running”
The confusion comes when we look at how we burn those calories.
And if you have read many articles by me you realise in these moments I turn to Instagram:
As you can see in the Graphic your metabolism is made up of four chunks.
BASAL METABOLIC RATE (BMR) — this is 70% of your daily caloric burn (or 70% of what your metabolism does each day). A rather large portion.
LEARN HOW MANY CALORIES YOUR BMR BURNS EACH DAY BY DOWNLOADING MY FAT LOSS CALORIE CALCULATOR RIGHT HERE: https://www.thegymstarter.com/get-my-calorie-calculator
NON-EXERCISE ACTIVITY THERMOGENISIS (NEAT)— this is 15% of your Metabolism and the next biggest portion of your Metabolism and relates to all movement you do away from prescribed “fitness” or “training”. Think Daily Walks, Gardening, Fidgeting and Climbing the Stairs.
EXERCISE (EAT) — Just 5% of your Metabolism is what you burn in the Gym when you workout. Sorry, let me rephrase that…this is what you actually burn in the Gym when you workout. Its not what the Cardio Machine or your wristwatch has told you you have burnt. Activity Trackers can be up to 60% inaccurate when it comes to tracking Aerobic Activity [2].
One study took 34 adults from a US College Campus and once they were deemed capable of moderate exercise they were put on a Elliptical for 30mins on a “Quick Start” Function and this was the conclusion:
“Elliptical machines appear to overestimate caloric expenditure by a large number of calories. As is often stated, caution should be used when relying on exercise equipment for caloric expenditure information. Based on this data, individuals should expect caloric expenditure to be overestimated by approximately 100 calories each 30 min of exercise performed on elliptical equipment at moderate intensity” [3]
I have gone into more detail on this section of your Metabolism because in my experience people don’t believe me when I tell them this. When I say that one hour in the gym is not enough to lose weight if you do not work on other aspects of your life, as most people have a colloquial experience of a machine telling them that they are burning more than they are in the Gym.
The Fitness Industry to doesn't help. Trainers recommend an hour a week for clients, not because that is what is effective, but because that is what the General Population might be able to afford their services.
One Hour in the Gym, and ignoring other parts of your Metabolism is not enough for you to lose weight no matter what your Trainer tells you.
THERMIC EFFECT OF FOOD (TEF) — This is around 10% of your Metabolism and is responsible for how much energy it takes for your body to digest your food.
Have you ever heard the myth [4] that “You burn more calories eating a stick of celery than it provides”? Well, that claim exists because of the TEF rating of a stick of Celery. It's also responsible for fads such as the Celery Juice Diet which you may well have heard of.
That is what TEF is. Each food has a certain amount of energy (Calories) in it and each food goes through a digestion phase in the body, which uses up Calories as well.
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
HOW DOES YOUR METABOLISM WORK?
As I mentioned above when you eat food that food contains Energy and that Energy is measured in Calories. Your Metabolism is the Global term for how your body burns those calories.
So how does your body burn these calories?
YOUR BMR:
This is one of the hardest parts of your Metabolism to influence because it is the part of your Metabolism that is largely determined by your genetics and your body composition.
For example, someone who is 6ft 6in tall is that tall because of their genetic makeup. They will also naturally have a higher BMR as their body is just bigger. They will have bigger Organs and longer muscles. Muscle is a key contributor to your BMR because the more muscle you have you increase your BMR due to the fact that muscle requires more calories at rest compared to Fat.
This is why when I am with clients I explain to them that they can lose weight without Strength Training as a Caloric Deficit is all that is needed to lose weight and that can be achieved outside of the Gym. However, by lifting weights and getting stronger they are improving their Metabolism and giving themselves an insurance policy against weight gain in the future.
YOUR NEAT:
If you want to lose weight you underestimate NEAT at your peril. This is your 10,000 steps a day. Your fidgeting. Your Gardening. The cleaning of your house. This is all of the movement you do outside of the Gym, and you do a lot more movement outside of the Gym than inside it over a week.
Your NEAT is the highest proportion of your Metabolism that you have complete control over. This is the one thing you are solely responsible for…and if you increase it…then you are going to burn a lot more calories each day getting you closer or above your required deficit.
In The Fitness Collective each and every month we have a Step Leaderboard for this very reason and those who consistently post big numbers on the leaderboard are also those who lose the most weight. It's not a coincidence.
A study that researched data from 86 studies on Pedometer Analysis without a Dietary Intervention and found the following:
“The amount of weight loss attributable to pedometer-based walking programs is small but important from a clinical perspective. According to the meta-regression results, the average participant adhering to a pedometer-based walking program can expect to lose about 0.05 kg per week. That translates to a weight loss of about 1 lb every 10 weeks” (5)
YOUR EAT:
I feel like I went into this quite a lot in the previous section. Try not to read this as “EAT” (one word) but rather as E-A-T because this have everything to do with Exercise and nothing to do with food.
The Gym does not burn as many calories as you wish or for the amount of effort, it feels like you are putting in.
Some questions naturally come up around this topic like:
What about HIIT?
High-Intensity Interval Training has been found to burn more calories in the Gym over the period of time you are working compared to Cardio Exercise but its pretty equal to traditional strength training methods.
However, there are three caveats to that:
HIIT generally leads to an added Calorie Intake after exercise and therefore is not ideal for Weight Loss as you feel like the harder you have worked and been good then the more you have earnt some “bad” foods [6] and it stimulates your appetite more [7].
HIIT often comes with the term “EPOC” associated with it. This is known as Excess Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption and is overly attributed for the “calorie afterburn” you get from a HIIT Workout. Studies show that the biggest factor in EPOC is the intensity of the workout whether that be from HIIT or Traditional Strength — the differences are very minimal. Both are a better option for this than running or cycling.
The more intense your exercise session the more it will impact on other parts of your Metabolism. Namely NEAT. This is due to your body trying to “Cap” the number of Calories you can actually burn in a day [6].
As you can see for the person trying to lose weight…there are a lot of pitfalls to be had when it comes to HIIT, although it is more superior than traditional Cardio is for weight loss.
READ MY ARTICLE ON WHY RESITANCE TRAINING IS SO USEFUL FOR FAT LOSS : What is most important for Fat Loss?
YOUR TEF
I have already discussed Celery, and I don’t really want to go back there if I can help it.
But this is where a Personal Trainers love of Protein comes into play.
Now I know what you are thinking…
“I thought Protein was just for building huge guns”
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
What influences your Metabolism?
I have gone over this in the previous sections of this article. But its always good to take a moment to summarise and be nice and clear.
Your Body Composition: Muscle burns more calories at rest than Body Fat, which is why when someone is after Fat Loss I will put them onto a strength-based training system in order to improve their muscle density and impact their resting metabolic rate (this doesn't;t happen overnight though).
Your Organ Size: A taller human has bigger Organs and will, therefore, burn more calories at rest.
Your Movement: The more you move the more calories you burn.
Your Food: The more nutrient-dense your food the more calories you burn digesting it.
Your Prescribed Exercise: Not as much as you think but does burn some calories.
As you can see, this is a very complex web of how your body works, because where one solution looks like it's going to be a good path to go down…it can cause a negative effect elsewhere in the body.
For example: Lift Weights to really high intensity as that burns more calories, can lead to increased calorie consumption.
Therefore we must view our metabolism as a global thing that must be treated with balance and understanding over a long period of time.
Can I speed up my Metabolism with the foods I eat?
There is some evidence to suggest that this is possible…however the effect is pretty minimal.
If you remember back to the Bar Graph of your Metabolism then you are aware that your TEF is only about 10% of your Metabolic output. Therefore you really are misplacing your focus.
A lot of these foods relate to increasing your Heart Rate for a period of time over a day like Coffee and Tea and Chilli.
The other foods that speed up your Metabolism generally stick to the rules that I outlined above in relation to Protein and the fact your body will try and use so much of that food that it spends a lot of energy digesting and absorbing nutrients.
Interestingly and one part of this argument that I am on board with is the subject of Water. Water has been shown to be able to increase your Metabolism by up to 24–30% [8].
This relates to a phenomenon which is called Water Induced Themrogensis. To you and I though…its bascially the body using energy to heat the water up to Body Temperature. It also has to be noted in order to do this you have to drink above your normal intake. And a study in Overweight Children concluded that cold water had a slightly better effect [9]
Again, though…this is all limited, and is definatley a very small piece of a much larger pie. I wouldn’t advise you to go away from this article and think that by drinking 500ml 4 times a day is suddenly going to imporve your Metabolism beyond compare.
Its just a consideration you can factor in…and is one of the reasons it is in my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life:
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
What about MetCon? And other workouts that “speed up” my Metabolism?
In a word.
Marketing.
Its a Marketing Campaign from the trained or gym you are in that is based on conscience at all.
It's clever too.
It makes you think that there is something wrong with your Metabolism and that this workout will help fix that. It makes you think that the person selling you this Metabolic Conditioning workout is actually going to fix you.
And they aren’t. It's basically a clever way of saying “Lift weights to improve your BMR by adding muscle to your body”
That's it. As you can probably tell right now, there is a lot about your Metabolism that you can’t impact quickly in the gym. It takes a long time to add muscle and reduce body fat…and that is the only way you can enhance your Metabolism inside the Gym
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
Is your Metabolism Broken?
No.
Its not possible.
Wait. Let me change that.
Unless you have a medically diagnosed Metabolic Condition then no. Your Metabolism is not broken. I am not a Doctor or an Endocrinologist so in this sense, I speak from my own experience.
Even if you do have a Metabolic Condition usually relating to Hormonal Imbalances in your body (PCOS, Thyroid Issues, Pituarty Issues) then your Metabolism isn’t likely to be as broken as you think it is.
I have a client who has Pituitary Condition and in researching it for her we found that the weight gain relating to the hormonal issue is only going to be between 5-10lbs of weight.
In fact, The British Thyroid Foundation state this:
“In general, 5-10 pounds of body weight may be attributable to the thyroid, depending on the severity of the hypothyroidism. Finally, if weight gain is the only symptom of hypothyroidism that is present, it is less likely that the weight gain is solely due to the thyroid.” [10]
But focus not on the numbers, but the last thing they say: “its less likely…solely due to the thyroid”
Here they mean that it is more than likely to be a lack of a Caloric Deficit and other behavioural issues that are leading to your weight gain.
Its still significant enough. But it is nowhere near what she would have believed had we not have found out more.
For those of you reading this who are not diagnosed with these issues then again your Metabolism isn’t broken.
The truth is that it feels slow because you are not concentrating on what you need to concentrate on to affect your Metabolism more positively.
You are not adding muscle to your body
You are not eating Protein-rich Nutrient-dense foods
You are not moving enough outside of the gym
Your exercise option in the Gym isn't congruent with your goal of “improving your metabolism”
I know that can be hard to read…but genuinely it's important.
Taking responsibility for yourself in relation to your Metabolism, if you want to lose body fat is very important.
Many people will tell you its broken. But that not physically possible. But Metabolism is an easy scapegoat for failings elsewhere in what you are doing to achieve fat loss. There is nothing in relation to your Metabolism that means you will not be able to achieve a Caloric Deficit, and therefore that means that your Metabolism is not the reason you are not losing weight.
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
How Does Knowing All Of This Relate To Weight Loss?
You could have got this far into the article and felt one of two ways:
Utterly Defeated by the fact there is now 70% of your Metabolism that is really hard to effect and change.
Amazed by the fact that there is now 30% of your Metabolism that is totally under your control and that you can change in order to reach your goals.
30% is a huge amount.
If you had a Calorie allowance of 1500kcals a day and you under ate by 30% every day you would then have saved yourself 3150kcals in a week. Which would amount to losing around 1lb a week ontop of where your deficit is already set at.
If you could influence anything by 30% I reckon you would see that as a positive thing
What if your bank gave you 30% more interest?
What if you earn 30% more each month?
What if you had 30% more holiday allowance each year?
You would consider that as pretty life changing. I know I would.
So actually you have a lot of power to change your Metabolism and to help getting it working more efficeintly for you.
Don’t get me wrong…to lose weight you do still need a Caloric Deficit. The rules of Fat Loss will never change. However understanding this side of your Body and manipulating it to your advantage…to make it more efficient will in no doubt help that Deficit happen for you.
FIND OUT A LOT MORE ABOUT A CALORIE DEFICIT RIGHT HERE: What is A Calorie Deficit Diet Plan?
THE BOTTOM LINE
Here is the good news:
You aren’t broken. You aren’t on the scrap heap. You do have control over you Metabolism and how it can burn more calories each day.
To do this you need to:
Increase your NEAT
Focus your diet into more nutrient-dense options
Stop spending 30mins on a Cross Trainer and start picking up the 5kg Dumbells
Lift weights consistently enough over a long period of time to increase your muscle density and therefore improve how many calories you burn at rest.
And that's it.
Remember the rules of a Caloric Deficit are always the governing factor when it comes to Weight Loss, and your metabolism is responsible for how many calories you burn each day.
You can influence 30% of that amount which is a huge portion.
But in order to do that you have to take action and start making your Metabolism work more efficiently for you.
Stop thinking it is broken. Start taking responsibility and start moving towards making your Metabolism efficient…not inefficient.
By doing that you will watch the weight come off you as you wish and it will add to all of the feelings of wellbeing and health that you are craving.
Remember…you got this. You aren’t broken. You don’t need fixing. You just need to start fine tuning a few things…
And now you know how.
Is Your Metabolism Broken? How Does Your Metabolism Actually Work?
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References:
2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-weight/metabolism-and-weight-loss/> [Accessed 22 June 2020].
News.iastate.edu. 2020. Activity Trackers Not As Accurate For Some Activities, ISU Study Finds • News Service • Iowa State University. [online] Available at: <https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2015/08/19/activitytrackers> [Accessed 22 June 2020].
Caloric Expenditure Estimation Differences between an Elliptical Machine and Indirect Calorimetry Exerc Med. 2018;2:8. Published online April 18, 2018, <https://doi.org/10.26644/em.2018.008> [Accessed 22 June 2020)
WATSON, T., 2020. Could You Survive On Celery Alone?. [online] Www108.lamp.le.ac.uk. Available at: <https://www108.lamp.le.ac.uk/ojs1/index.php/jist/article/view/2546/2499> [Accessed 22 June 2020].
Richardson, C. R., Newton, T. L., Abraham, J. J., Sen, A., Jimbo, M., & Swartz, A. M. (2008). A meta-analysis of pedometer-based walking interventions and weight loss. Annals of family medicine, 6(1), 69–77. https://doi.org/10.1370/afm.761
Pontzer, H., Raichlen, D. A., Wood, B. M., Emery Thompson, M., Racette, S. B., Mabulla, A. Z., & Marlowe, F. W. (2015). Energy expenditure and activity among Hadza hunter-gatherers. American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council, 27(5), 628–637. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajhb.22711
King, N. A., Hopkins, M., Caudwell, P., Stubbs, R. J., & Blundell, J. E. (2008). Individual variability following 12 weeks of supervised exercise: identification and characterization of compensation for exercise-induced weight loss. International journal of obesity (2005), 32(1), 177–184. https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0803712
Vij, V. A., & Joshi, A. S. (2013). Effect of ‘water induced thermogenesis’ on body weight, body mass index and body composition of overweight subjects. Journal of clinical and diagnostic research : JCDR, 7(9), 1894–1896. https://doi.org/10.7860/JCDR/2013/5862.3344
Boschmann, M., Steiniger, J., Hille, U., Tank, J., Adams, F., Sharma, A. M., Klaus, S., Luft, F. C., & Jordan, J. (2003). Water-induced thermogenesis. The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism, 88(12), 6015–6019. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2003-030780
British Thyroid Foundation. 2020. Thyroid And Weight - The Science. [online] Available at: <https://www.btf-thyroid.org/thyroid-and-weight-the-science> [Accessed 25 June 2020].