Understanding your metabolism is the key to losing weight and improving your fitness. If you understand your body, it makes it easier to know what to do to boost your wellness and wellbeing. Metabolism is a word that is used to mean the rate at which a person burns up the energy that is measured in calories.
There are three different areas to metabolism. The first is the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) which means the amount of energy that the body needs to function at a normal speed – in other words the amount of energy you use for bodily functions and just living your day to day life. The RMR uses about 60 percent of your daily calorie intake.
The second is the Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF) which represents the amount of calories that you need to use to eat and digest your food, and this takes up around 5 – 10 percent of the total calorie needs for the day.
Finally, there is the Thermic Effects of Activity (TEA) and this represents the rate at which you burn calories by exercising and with carrying out normal movements. You use up about 30 percent of your daily calorie needs with this.
As you get older, your metabolism unfortunately slows down. Starting at around the age of 25, your metabolism decreases by between 5 and 10 percent per decade (especially if you are not physically active) and this accumulates to result in a 20 to 40 percent decline in metabolism over the life span of an adult. Those who continue to by physically fit, however, find that their metabolism only declines 0.3 percent per decade in comparison!
Boosting your metabolism is easy – all you have to do is increase the level of your exercise. Cardio training in particular is great for boosting your metabolism.