It seems that on any given day in the fitness club, in the grocery store, or in just about any casual conversation setting, you hear people talking about their metabolism and Fat loss. There is so much information floating around out there that comes from the internet or through a “friend of a trainer” that it’s no wonder confusion and conflicting messages occur. My Webster dictionary states that metabolism is the chemical changes in living cells by which energy is provided. I prefer to just simply say it converts food to energy.
Having said that, metabolism manages to achieve two critical bodily functions that, in a sense, seem to be at odds with each other.The first function has been sometimes referred to as the constructive function which is creating tissue and cells. Our bodies are creating more cells to replace dead or dysfunctional cells. This function is called anabolism. For example, creating skin cells to clot blood is an anabolic function.
The second function has been referred to as the destructive function because it breaks down cells so they can be converted to energy. For example, when you take that long walk in the neighborhood, the body(assuming everything is working as it should) will start breaking down food cells to convert to energy so you can continue that walk. In summary, anabolism uses energy to create cells and catabolism breaks down cells to create energy. You should now understand how metabolism relates to Fat loss by catabolism.
Let’s now introduce another player called the calorie. A calorie is just a unit that measures energy and there is both good and bad energy. Good energy may be from eating a piece of fruit whereas bad energy may be from eating a piece of chocolate cake! Let’s just say the piece of fruit is 50 calories and the piece of cake is 250 calories. Now the body needs to convert that energy into cell/tissue or use it to break down cells. So if there is excess energy the body can’t use it will create cells. Guess what? Those extra cells means added Fat.
So when you think about all this, the whole calorie/metabolism/Fat loss is all about excess energy. When there is too much energy in the body, much of the time it will be converted to fat. Now sometimes that energy is converted to muscle which is a good thing because muscle requires calories to maintain. So building lean muscle is important to metabolism by burning excess calories before they are converted to fat. Think about this…muscle is burning calories even when you’re not doing anything! I like that. By the way, many experts agree that fat cells are permanent. You don’t lose them. The good news is that experts agree that the size of the fat cells can be reduced which will reduce Fat. So start shrinking those fat cells today and you will see results!
