Border Line Purge To Fitness

What Influences the Number of Calories You Burn Per Day? Understanding your metabolism is an essential part of losing weight, controlling your weight, and being healthy for life. In the following paragraphs, it's my goal to teach you about the different factors that influence your metabolic rate. First, let's review the definition of metabolism.

American Heritage Dictionary - me·tab·o·lism (mĭ-tāb'ə-lĭz'əm) n. 1. The chemical processes occurring within a living cell or organism that are necessary for the maintenance of life. In metabolism some substances are broken down to yield energy for vital processes while other substances, necessary for life, are synthesized.

The definition basically tells us that our cells require energy to carry out the basic functions of life. The rate that we use energy to carry out these basic functions is called the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). BMR is the total energy (calories) required to do things like digest food, breathe, circulate blood, replicate, and all the other normal functions the body performs to sustain itself. BMR varies from person to person and generally accounts for the largest amount of our daily calorie requirements.

Although BMR is a large factor in your daily caloric needs, there are also a number of important factors that determine how many calories you require each day. Physical activity, lean body mass (LBM), body weight, age, and gender are each factors that contribute to your metabolism (daily energy needs). In the short explanation below, I'll review the general factors that contribute to the caloric needs of individuals.

Physical Activity Level Your physical activity level will obviously play an important role in burning calories everyday. The more active you are, the more calories you burn. Being active does not necessarily mean "working out". You can also include walking, housework, yard work, playing with children and other activities in the category of physical activity. (Of course working out doesn't hurt!)

Body Weight The more you weigh, the more calories it takes to move your body.

Lean Body Mass (LBM) Your body weight can be separated into two basic categories: LBM and fat. LBM is the mass of the body minus the mass of fat (storage energy or calories). The lean component of your body mass is comprised of organ, bone, muscles, and other similar tissues. This is one of the most important things to understand when it comes to losing weight and living lean.

If you focus on the building and maintaining of lean muscle, you'll increase your BMR (daily caloric need. The more muscle tissue you have the more calories you'll burn even if your just sitting around doing nothing. For example, if person A weighs 140 lbs and has 15% body fat they'll burn more calories sitting on the couch watching TV than person B who weights 140 lbs with 25% body fat. (does that make sense?)

That's why I think muscle tissue is so awesome. First, it requires more calories than fat to sustain it (which means the more you have the more you can eat without getting fat!). But not only that, muscle tissue also has another awesome property that I love. Although muscle weighs more than fat, it takes up less space than fat. So if you are concerned about your "size", you can be reassured that increasing LBM will not make you "big". Gaining one pound of muscle takes up far less space than if you gain on pound of fat. By focusing on building lean muscle, you'll not only burn more calories (and hopefully more fat). You'll also be getting smaller in size because you'll be burning fat which takes up more space (and makes you look bigger).

Age Metabolism generally decreases with age. That means that as each year goes by we generally require fewer calories than the year before. I feel it's because the average person loses LBM every year due to age related issues and sedentary lifestyle. You can slow or reverse the metabolic effects of aging by building LBM with weight training and proper nutrition.

Gender Men normally require more calories than women on a daily basis. This is because the average man has more LBM than the average woman.

Understanding the various components that contribute to your caloric needs can help you to reach your health & fitness goals. From our discussion, you can see that everyone has the chance to increase their metabolism by increasing LBM and physical activity level.

You have the opportunity to reach your health and fitness goals everyday, regardless of your age, gender, or current weight. Educating yourself and making a committment are all it takes. I would love to hear about your amazing success and the strides you are making. Make a decision today to reach your goals step by step...believe me, you CAN do it!

First off, Let's start with some basic terms:

Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): the minimum number of calories your body's vital organs need just to survive at rest. This accounts for 60-75% of your daily caloric expenditure. RMR varies from person to person and is influenced by such variables as lean body mass, height, weight, sex, age, diet, and stress.

Activity: Whether it be at work, walking to and from the store, or engaging in physical activity this type of work accounts for 20-30% of your daily caloric expenditure.

Digestion: Ironically, each time you eat food you actually burn calories. This type of expenditure accounts for 5-10% of your daily calorie output.

Step 1: Exercise raises your metabolism and therefore helps control your weight

Considering that your RMR accounts for up to 75% of your daily caloric expenditure wouldn't it make sense to do things that will increase your RMR?

Aerobic activity and strength training increase the energy demand on your body. This release of energy is referred to as "burning calories". Strength training builds lean muscle that in turn burns up to 50x more calories than fat. This is the key to long lasting weight control! Therefore, the more lean muscle mass you have, the higher your RMR becomes which in turn burns more calories, even while sitting on the couch.

I like to refer to this as "passive energy expenditure" meaning that you don't need to do anything and yet you're still burning calories. Wouldn't that be great? Simply put in a bit of hard work up front and then reap the benefit in the long run!

Step 2: Eating more often in smaller amounts helps increase your metabolism

As previously mentioned, every time you eat your body expends energy to digest and absorb what it has just ingested. This is known as the "thermogenic effect of food". Therefore, wouldn't make sense to eat more often knowing that each time you ate you would actually be burning calories. Typically, it is recommended to eat anywhere from 4-6 small meals throughout the day or 3 larger meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) with small snacks in between. However, please remember that we're talking about smaller meals that are healthy, well-balanced, and lower on the glycemic index. Not a burger and fries!

So, here are 2 simple steps you can take immediately to help control your weight. We're not talking magic pill but if you're consistent with daily activity and eating frequent small meals you'll see dramatic results in a just few weeks!