REV UP YOUR METABOLISM

It is true that metabolism slows with age but it does not mean that weight gain is inevitable.

Here are the cliff notes version of 4 factors which affect metabolism (which by the way, many are under our control!)

• Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR): The number of calories you burn just to keep you alive and functioning. After 25, on average, people lose about 2-4% of their RMR each decade. And by around 35, it really starts to set in.
• Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): The calories you burn through digestion, usually accounting for 10% of daily calories burned.
• Exercise: The calories burned through vigorous exercise.
• Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): The calories burned that are associated with daily activity such as daily chores, walking from the car to the store, etc…

Other factors such as age, muscle mass and hormones can affect these components as well. For instance, the more muscle mass you have the higher your RMR, because it takes more calories to maintain muscle than fat.

If you look at these factors, NEAT and Exercise can make up 10-30% of calories burned on average, even higher in very active people.  The reason that so many people gain weight as they age is because they become more sedentary (thereby lowering their exercise and NEAT factors) while they are naturally losing muscle mass hence lowering your RMR. So, increasing your activity can undoubtedly rev up your metabolism!

Here are my top 3 strategies to help rev up your metabolism!

• Strength Training: Lifting weights increases your muscle mass. Muscle burns more calories at rest than fat. (On average, people lose about 5lb of lean mass per decade between the ages of 25 and 65.)
• Movement: Back to NEAT.  Movements that we may think insignificant such as walking to the store or housework really do add up. So, park further away, take the stairs at work, stand up from your desk every hour and do a few movements or stretches. It will add up and keep your muscles from atrophying.
• Protein: How much protein do we need? For sedentary, generally healthy adults, about .8 g of protein per kg of body mass. So, about 55 g of protein per day for a 150 lb. person and 72 g of protein per day for a 200 lb person. However, our needs can go up if we are training hard, we are sick, we are older (older adults do not digest protein as well, so we need more to meet our requirements).