Can You Hack Your Metabolism?

amberlynwellbeing
Jan 20, 2023
2 min read

When we start gaining weight we like to blame it on our metabolism slowing day. There is a plethora of products that say they can help increase your metabolism. Whether we can actually change our metabolism seems to be a matter of debate.

When we look closer at what your metabolism is and the mechanics of it we learn that we may be thinking about metabolism all wrong.

What is metabolism?

It is a collection of process that are involved in maintaining our base living state. It’s the process your body uses to covert energy to food for all it’s base functions.

Breathing, thinking, digestion, blood circulation and temperature regulation

Metabolism can also be referred to as TDEE or your total daily expenditure. Which in turn is composed of your resting metabolism, the energy it takes to process your food and physical activity.

Why is ‘hacking’ our metabolism such a hot topic right now?

I think a lot of it falls into there being so much information and a lot of it not being entirely true.

Metabolism myths:

Exercise boosts your metabolism long after you exercise - about an hour after exercise your metabolism will go back to its resting rate.
Eating certain foods can boost metabolism - they can have an affect but not enough to change your weight.
Eating small meals during the day will increase your metabolism - this mainly keeps you from getting overly hungry and overeating.

It turns out that your metabolism is pretty adaptable. It regulates depending on the need’s of your body, it isn’t the reason your lose or gain weight. When people want to lose weight they will put themselves in an extreme calorie deficit, they may skip lunch and breakfast and just eat dinner. What you’re telling your body when you do this, is that there is a shortage of food and your metabolism will decrease and as soon as you eat something your body will store it.

What affects metabolism?

Age - the older we get the more muscle mass we tend to lose
Muscle mass - the more muscle mass we have the greater our caloric expenditure is
Genes
Physical activity

One of the most significant indicators of weight gain is non-exercise physical activity. This excludes your workouts. It is your general activity throughout the day. How much of the day do you spend sitting or laying down?

Instead of focusing on how we can 'hack' our metabolism or blaming it for our weight gain, let’s try to focus on adequately nourishing our bodies and moving them throughout the day every day.