The Importance Of Metabolic Rate & Fat Loss

Simply put, the metabolism is the name for the process that our body uses to get energy from the food we eat. We measure how much energy our metabolism uses in calories. Everybody's metabolism is different and requires a different amount of calories each day. The name we use to describe this is Metabolic Rate.

Like the rest of our body the metabolism adapts to our environment - if we are very active (Active job, sports, gym, training) and eat a lot of high quality meals frequently the chances are the Metabolic Rate is high. If we have low activity levels (sit at a desk, watch a lot of t.v, drive everywhere) and eat a low amount of food the chances are the Metabloic Rate is low. This is because our Metabolic Rate reflects our lifestyle.

Another example of our metabolism adapting to the environment is somebody that is really active, performing hours of cardio each day, playing sports and eating very little food. The metabolism adapts to such a high amount energy output (activity levels) and little food - it becomes super efficient in body processes using as little amount of calories as possible. Your body running super efficient may sound good at first - but having a super efficient metabolism and only requiring a small amount of calories means that when you do eat a large amount of food - for birthday celebrations or on holiday - your body stores them as fat as. It is much better to have a high metabolism so you can eat lots of food and not get fat as we will look at now.

The higher the Metabolic Rate the more calories you burn. The more calories you burn the more you can eat and not put on weight - or - the easier it is to lose weight by restricting weight.

If you take 2 identical people, the exact same height, weight. The exact same job and family life and did the exact same training and cardio. We will call them Person A and person B.

Person A has a metabolic rate of 2,000 calories a day and Person B has 3,000 calories a day. Person A would need to eat less than 2,000 calories a day to lose weight. Person B would need to eat less than 3,000 calories a day. This means that Person B could actually eat everything Person A eats + 1 regular sized pizza or a burger and chips and still lose weight.

A high and healthy metabolism is crucial and often over looked when bodybuilding. Many people fail to realize the impact starvation diets have on their metabolism and fat loss. If you want to learn how to increase metabolic rate read the article How to boost the metabolism.